Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005, Sheldon Isaac wrote:

> On 16 Apr 2005 at 23:45, sindi keesan wrote:
> > My neighbor's Windows (2000?, ME?, about 600 MHz) computer has been having
> > problems for a year or two and he says now it is dead, won't even boot into
> > Windows, and he suspects a virus.
>
> Please excuse, I am relatively un-expert. "it is dead" - you figuring the
> hardware is probably OK, but the software is messed up?

I have not seen it.  He says it 'won't go on' which could mean either.
Before this it would work part of the time.  A friend once gave us a 
computer which was 'broken and not usable' which meant the serial port had 
been hit by lighting so he could not use a mouse.  We used it without a 
mouse.  The neighbor is a carpenter.

> If it can boot with  DOS floppy, use HWinfo, for example, and check the
> hardware. And, if need be, physically check it - cables, connections, CPU
> and memory seated, replace doubtful RAM (even with a smaller total Mb for
> the interim, if necessary), etc etc. You are very competent with hardware.
> Does the computer overheat?  Fan? Dirty?

We will check all this after doing a virus check.  One person gave us a 
computer that 'worked perfectly' except for a dead cpu fan that she did 
not know about, and in the process of removing personal files she removed 
some things pointed to in autoexec bat and it would not boot until I made 
a dummy file with the right name.  We have memtest.  Most likely it will 
boot but not run Windows (impression gained from another friend who talked 
to him), considering he said he tried to put on XP and it ran out of 
memory or something.

> http://www.hwinfo.com

Thanks, did not know about this program. I have learned a lot from list 
members.

> >  We are going to use F-Prot on it.
>
> Good!

> Look at http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
> I no longer have a high-speed connection, but could make and US-mail you a
> copy of a very slightly older version of Damn Small, as a "live CD" to boot
> Linux from.

We have a copy of an older version of this and had not thought of using 
it, mainly because I am not very familiar with it, but can show him that 
too, after he looks at what I am using (166MHz with 32MB RAM and BL3 and 
2).  I also want to put BL3 on a zip disk and run it from the boot disk 
that David put together for parport zip drive.  The neighbor is luckily in 
no hurry as his computer has not worked right for over a year and he 
checks email at work.

> Regards,
> Sheldon Isaac
>
>
>
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org