Old lady lost windows xp

[Mark Traceur]

> The hard drive has windows xp on it but it won't start and we can't redu
> it on account of the lost cd with the numbers.
> I tried to install a legal windowsf 98 ( she is familiar with) and then
> as an intrduction  e.g. puppy linux, but the computer hangs up and keeps
> looking for windows xp.  with it's ID numbers.. John H

>From what I can gather:

1. The HD has XP installed, but it is not starting.
2. The lady has lost her CD.
3. You installed 98 from a CD she DOES have,
4. and promptly found that the computer still tries to boot to XP.
5. Linux doesn't work either.

Make sure you've installed to the correct drive--if you haven't, it'll
still have ntldr in the first drive and break the install.

If that doesn't work, find ANY XP install CD and (from the recovery
console) run 'fixmbr'.

Try accessing the files using an Ubuntu live CD, if the drive doesn't
mount...it's probably dead. Especially if it once had '98 on it, it's
probably a decade old and needs replacing.

Good luck!

--MarkTraceur

-- 

Microsoft does half the work that Open Source developers do, and they
get all the money. Where's the justice there?

OpenSUSE 11.2, just realeased... :)  -
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/a3onm/opensuse_112_just_realeased/