I am servicing a Toshiba L510 for a customer. The hard drive crashed 1 month out of warranty. I replaced the hard drive and reloaded the operating system from the recovery disks. Everything is going fine...until I tried to check for Windows 7 updates.  When I click on "Check for Updates" I get the error "Windows Update cannot currrently check for updates, because the service is not running".  I found a fix on the internet which involves clearing the folder c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution of all files. The fix did not work.
I called Toshiba suggesting that their restore images were at fault. They were not very happy or helpful when I suggested this...all they said was "We have sold many of these laptops and this has never been reported before". I cannot load Win7 from DVD because Toshiba don't post hardware drivers on the net. I think the laptop might be a lemon. It was cheap...lasted till outside warranty...the hard drive dies and it is uneconomical to repair....basically a throw away.