[ubuntu-uk] Windows XP CD

[Rob Beard]

On 04/06/10 19:11, Michael G Fletcher wrote:
>> What make is his laptop?
>>
>> Rob
>
> A Dell Inspiron 6000... trying to save his 38GB of music :-(
>
> I got it to the point where it loads the Welcome screen, but when I
> logon the user, it just automatically logs me out again.  I can get
> into the safe-mode with command prompt, and tried to install SP3, but
> doesn't seem to want to install!
>
> Michael
>

You'll probably find that a standard Windows XP CD won't work (that is, 
an OEM copy of Windows XP).  You'll need a specific Dell version which 
is tied to the Dell BIOS (funnily enough doing it this way any Dell 
Windows XP CD should work).  If you e-mail me off list I might possibly 
be able to help.

In the mean time, if he hasn't got an external hard drive, I'd suggest 
he gets one (I bought a 1TB Western Digital USB 2 hard drive yesterday 
from PC World for £60 using their collect from store option when 
reserving it on the web site).  Then try booting from an Ubuntu CD and 
you should be able to mount his hard drive and copy any data, pictures, 
music etc off the drive.  At least that way his data is backed up.

Then TBH I'd suggest maybe wiping the lot and starting from scratch. 
I've done repair installs of Windows before but they've never really 
worked that well.

Rob