Toshiba Satell T2080 Webcam(''Chicony USB 2.0 camera'')not working

The webcam on my laptop works about 1% - 2% of the time. 98% of the time it does not work. The laptop is brand new...less than a year old. I ran Driver Detective on the laptop and it tells me the driver for the camera is working and up to date. I have had this problem since day 1.
When I try to start the webcam it tells me any of the following messages: "the webcam is not connected, sorry, no webcam was found on your system" or that it is "blocked by another application."

I contacted Toshiba a couple of months after purchasing the laptop and told a lady about the problem. (I am no genius on computers, so I hope you keep this in mind when you correspond with me...layman's terms only please.) The woman had me go to different places on my laptop...looking back I have no idea where...she told me to check certain boxes or uncheck certain boxes which I did. She told me the webcam is used by several programs on the computer and in the end she had me blocking certain startup programs. In the bottom right of my monitor their is an icon for "Blocked startup programs." When she had gotten to the end of guiding me here and there, checking or unchecking boxes...the webcam had started working. It is important to mention though, it had worked sporadically since I bought the laptop. So, was this just a coincidence? The next time I went to use the webcam, I was right back at square one. The webcam was not working again and giving me the same old messages.I was really ********** because I had done everything she had told me, and in addition, I now had blocked startup programs and still had the same problem with the webcam that I had from the very beginning. Also, it seems kind of ridiculous to me that I had to block certain startup programs to begin with. A new computer and you have to block certatin programs to use the webcam. (Just also remembered, I have a burner on this laptop and when I have tried to burn downloaded songs to disc, it shows that songs are being burned, but upon playback the disc has nothing on it. My sister tried using the disc after to burn music...thinking maybe the burner had not done anything to the disc... and the disc would not record a thing. :-( It just became a piece of garbage. I did this with three discs. She took two of my remaining discs and burned downloaded music and did playback on her own pc with no problem whatsoever. So, based on this, the discs were not the problem.)

Back to the webcam problem: For your information, I have closed yahoo messenger and windows live messenger to see if that makes any difference. The webcam still does not work. Now and then...by no means always...I shut down the computer and sometimes...not very often, however, when I try to start the webcam the stupid thing works. Right now, it is not working again and I am at a total loss for answers and extremely frustrated. My gf is a nurse stationed in Afghanistan. I am able to see her camera, but she is unable to see me. When I try starting my webcam she just sees the same words that I see... that I
have cancelled my invitation to view webcam. It is very upsetting to her that I haven't been able to get this problem fixed. Could you please contact me at your first opportune moment and if at all possible help me to fix this problem once and for all. I would be deeply appreciative and I assure you she will be also.

I am running Windows Vista Home Premium. The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite T2080. When I scanned the laptop with Driver Detective...I think that is the name of the program...it said the laptop is A200. I don't know if that helps you or not. In any event, whatever information you may need that I have not provided... in your correspondence simply direct me to look for... or do whatever is necessary to help you resolve the problem(s). In the meantime, I hope I have not confused you with my explanation of the problems by being so long winded. I am more than a little anxious to hear from you very soon! Thank you.

Sincerely,
Gordon Mackey