my friend's computer is dead

[Siplus]

for the past few weeks, i'd go to my firend's house on tuesdays to look at his computer cuase he's been having problems, but in the last 2 weeks, it hasn't been working AT ALL. it is a compaq presario 5000, and i just happened to viod the warrenty by trying to fix it myself (my bad). he had winME on it, but i had previously installed win2k cause it's a lot better (and i worked for several weeks), but one day he said that 2k wouldn't work. i didn't know why and he could not tell me why it wasnt working. what further disturbed me was that when winME crashed during a game, it wouldn't bootup either

(like win2k would lock up when it starts booting, and winME would just stop at a black screen)

so i tryed reinstalling, but the win2k install itself would continuousely lock up. i tryed the restore cds and it wouldn't recognise the 2ed cd. and finally i installed win98 and it worked. i don't know why, but it's the only OS that actually installs w/o problems. the only problem is, i can't find drivers for thier network card for win98 for a compaq P5000, so they don't have the internet (they have a cable modem hooked upto a router)

now you might be wondering why i'm putting this in the Unix board. i was VERY hesitent with putting linux on thier computer cause my friend is the only one in his family that knows ANYTHING about computers, and it is their family computer (which he still has problems in windows).

so i got my redhat 8.0 cds and when through the install. everything seemed to go ok, except some trouble in disk druid i never had before (but i'll get to that later). and when it was starting to install and tryed to check the hd's, it came to an error (sorry, i forget the exact error, but something to the affect of error mounting hda2) now i didn't understand what was wrong cause i setup it up the same way i did mine on my computer. he had a 10gb driver for windows, a 9gb driver for ext3, and a 400mb swap, but for some reason, disk druid didn't like me and kept deleting the windows's vfat partition so i just made 2 paritions: ext3 and swap (19gb for the ext3). still nothing changed. i tried going throught the redhat 7.2 install and disk druid was a little nicer, but still got the same error.

i had a thought during all the windows installs that maybe it was the ram, so i got some of the ram out of my computer and nothing changed. due linux not being able to install, i'm starting to think that it is his hard drive, but i can't be competely sure.

after about 2 hours of trying to install windows98, then attempting to install redhat, which just deleted the paritions anyway, i decided to let it auto parition, but that did the same thing. i also noticed that he had 'free space' scattered throughout his hd in sections of no more then 2 mb that i couldn't give to any parition, so i don't know if that means anything (i just think it strange)

this was all last night. after i left, they said they were going to staples to talk to them and get new restore cds. before i left, i made the paritions the same is it was originally, (all vfat, 1=16.7gb, 2=2gb and 400mb unparitioned) so hopefully if they wanted to see the computer, they wouldn't know that i had tried to change it (actually, i never intended to change them, but another friend tried to install redhat and messed up all the paritions, leaveing me to fix them)

well, that was a little long winded, but  this is a problem that i'm unable to figure out. if it is the harddrive, then why can win98 install fine? if it is ram, then why does it do the same when i swap it with new stuff? if it is the processor, again, why does 98 install? his mom isn't too happy that their year-old computer doesn't work. i'm going to try to find an extra harddrive for the next time i go to his house, but i'm not holding up much hope...

[Master of Reality]

so when windows98 installs does it use the whole hard drive for its vfat(fat32) partition?

[Siplus]

i made it install on the 16gb parition he originally had, but i also tried on a 10gb once i started changing the paritions for linux...it is currently installed on a 16.7gb parition i beleive

[Master of Reality]

is the harddrive 16.7 Gb?

to find out if there is any bad sectors or something on the hard drive you could run scandisk in win98 or use a linux disk and run fdisk.

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / B0B ]

[Siplus]

i had linux check for bad sectors (took a very long time) and the win98 setup ran the dos scandisk...no errors found though

[shuiend]

i am not sure if this is the problem but with some compaqs the BIOS is stored on the HD and if you delete the partition the computer wont work at all. I dont know if the one you have had that and maybe you deleted it.

[billy_gates]

maybe it doesn't allow you to install OS's if they don't come from Compaq.  Did it originally come with 98 then he upgraded?  Or if it came with ME, maybe the system that blocks OS's other than Compaq's custom windows got messed up?

I remember I had shitloads of trouble installing other OS's on an HP I found for cheap.

[rtgwbmsr]

Excuse the caps

NEVER, EVER INSTALL/UPGRADE AND OS WITHOUT CHECKING WITH THE MFR FOR DRIVERS AND OR PROBLEMS.
Or be prepared to reformat.

Compaq has loads of shit on how fucked up Windows ME is on the Presario 5000.

Try using the restore CD that came with the computer.

What model Presario is it? I could help you a lot more if I knew that. You need to be more specific than 5000...that's a whole series. There are 5003As, 5430s, etc.

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: The Muffin Man ]

[Siplus]

hmm...well, i'll have to get back to you on which version of P5000 it is.

the restore cds don't work, i told them to try to get new once cause after i left they were going to staples

and yes, it came w/ ME and after reformatting, and repetitively trying to isntall windows ME/ 2k, i tried 98 and it magically worked (the ME install was from the restore cds that do not work...)

[Siplus]

it is a P5000 Z....i'm having a hard time finding much about the 'Z' series, but i have found that the network card is this:

NIC Ethernet 10/100 base-T PCI

but i can not find the drivers on the compaq site. in fact, my connection to the site seems to keep stalling...

but why would, if compaq needs to 'aprove' of the os as someone said above, redhat 7.2 or 8.0 have problems installing? i saw, as i was searching for the windows network card drivers, that they were talking about linux drivers (more specifically RH 7.3) right now i'm trying to get windows working to please his family, but my ultimate goal is to install linux as a duelboot.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Siplus ]

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Siplus ]

[HPC GUY]

sometimes compaqs have hidden diagnostic partitions, this may be causing a problem. i am working on a presario 5000 right now as a matter of fact. running win ME (preloaded crap)and it crashes after 20 mins of doing nothing. i swapped out everything except motherboard and still having problems so hence the motherboard has issues. i wouldnt be surprised if thats whats causing your problems as well. the compaqs suck ass.

[rtgwbmsr]

Is the card onboard? It would appear not to be.

Open that comp up, pull the NIC out, and find a model and serial #

[Siplus]

quote:Originally posted by HPC GUY:
sometimes compaqs have hidden diagnostic partitions, this may be causing a problem

well, when i installed win2k, i found 444mb of unpartitioned space, could this be what you speak of? well, i paritioned it to give him another (small) hd and if worked for several weeks.....untill both of this OS's (2k/ME duel boot) completely crashed

 

quote:  Is the card onboard? It would appear not to be.

Open that comp up, pull the NIC out, and find a model and serial #

i told him to take the card out and look for the seial number, but what he gave me didn't sound right. when i get the model/serial numbers, where should i look for the drivers at? i already searched through google and for the network card i said in one of my posts above, but i can't find any drivers for it....i'm thinking about just telling him to waste the whole $10 it costs to buy a new one from staples........

[Siplus]

to anyone who might have been wondering what the problem was, one day the compaq tech support guy (who i'm told has worked w/ linux...just as a side note) came and replaced the motherboard, which didn't fix anything. so the next time he came, he brought a new harddrive that that magically fixed all the problems....

soon, when my friends buys a second hd for the computer, i'm going to add win2k and redhat to it...
but when i install win2k to hdb1, or d:\, how can i set it up so it won't install an NT bootloader? for bootuptime reasons, and to make one less screen to have to see while bootup, i want to use grub to choose between

1)winME (for his family, who is computer illiterate),

2)win2k (for my friend, who i'm trying to impart computer knowledge to), and

3)redhat linux (for my friend, so he can use linux and be free, just like me    )

[pkd_lives]

You'll need the NT loader or M$ Windows will not start.  You will have to install ME, then 2K, and then RH. If you do this then RH will install Grub as your default bootloader (if you want it), it should autodetect the other partitions. If it does not you can edit it during the boot process and point it to where your M$ Windows partitions are, easily enough.

When you reboot the machine you will see Grub as your first screen after the Bios boot up screens. Remember you will need to partion your hardrive with a partition for Me, one for 2K, and then free space for your RH install.