Maximum PC

I bought a new Toshiba laptop (Satellite P755-S5390) a week before Black Friday in 2011. About 4 or 5 weeks ago I replaced the stock Toshiba 5400 HD with a Crucial M4 SSD. All was well until about a week ago when the laptop started randomly shutting off. Yesterday, the computer could not get past the POST and would simply shut off. Last night I put the original HD back in and the system booted just fine. At that point I thought it was an SSD related problem. This morning, it would not boot but I thought it was because of no power (the battery was still detached and the unit was not plugged in). So I plugged it in, hit the power button and once again, it would not boot up / would not post. I Googled this situation and some recommendations say to remove the battery, unplug the power cord. Press the power key for 30 seconds to discharge everything from the system. Then plug in the power cord and restart the system normally. Go to Control Panel > Power Options > Under Balaced chose change plan settings. Choose Change Advanced Power Settings. Find Processor power management and change the minimum processor state from 5% to 100% for each On batter and Plugged in. Click Apply, then OK. Shut down the unit. Disconnect the power cord. Re-install the battery, plug in the power cord and restart the computer. Sorry to be so "wordy" but I wanted to get the forum's thoughts on this problem and this fix recommendation. Thanks

Changing power settings will not fix a non-POST. The full reboot (removal of all power sources i.e. battery and power cord and then purge the capacitors by pressing the power button) might help, but on the other hand, might not. Try it anyway.

What happens when you try to boot without anything in the hard drive bay?
Do you have a desktop with SATA? You should be able to plug your ssd and hard drive in there, because the SATA connection is identical. You can recover your files and scan it for viruses, just in case. This is probably not the problem but it never hurts to check. With SATA, you can plug your SSD and HDD in while the desktop is running. Just remember to shut down and wait for the fans to go off on the desktop before unplugging anything.
If you can recover stuff, then it is probably not the SSD or HDD. If this is the case, then I'd stick the original HDD back in after wiping it and send it back. It should still be under warranty.

Thanks noghiri_x. I detached the battery and power cord. And then reattached the power cord and booted up with it. I then changed the Power Options as I outlined in my original post. This seems to have worked. I am up right now on just being plugged in (no battery). But I am pretty sure it is NOT an HD issue and hopefully the steps I've taken with the battery and power options will solve the issue. Thanks again for your response.

The power options you changed should have nothing to do with the problems you listed in your original post. They dictate the power settings used in a windows environment.

Two of the most popular reasons for failure during POST would be the memory check, or immediately after when the BIOS looks to the MBR for the instruction set that dictates hand-off to the OS. Pulling the battery and discharging the system for a specified amount of time is also a method of CMOS clearing on some systems. The fact that the system booted afterward may again point to the BIOS.

Have you check the mfg product page for firmware updates?

Vig1lant_3,

I don't know what to say. Right now (knock on wood) the system is working. I have upgraded the ssd to the latest firmware. If I have any further problems I will definitely follow your advice. This morning, I have swapped hd's a couple of times as I get ready to install Win 8 (Developers preview) on the original Toshiba hd. But all seems to be well. Thanks again for taking the time to help me.