Laptop does not like to boot, takes several tries

If it is taking that long to get to the bios screen you may have cpu or ram problems. Toshibas tend to run hot and then the cooling system takes little to plug up and makes things worse. If it has ever turned off suddenly when running or been almost too hot to touch you may have damaged the cpu. Or if you get lucky it may have caused the ram or cpu to become loose in the socket. If you reseat them it can fix it. The ram is easy to get at but the cpu requires disassembling the laptop.

You will probably have to reflash the BIOS, since this issue indicates that the BIOS is corrupted. You can get the BIOS from the Toshiba support site by clicking the link below. Note that this laptop model ships with many different motherboards so you will need to check yours and download the one that matches your board. Attempting to flash with incorrect BIOS may cause irreparable damge to your laptop.
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/outFrm.jsp?ofId=AskIris&searchString=Satellite+M45&x=0&y=0