Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and windows

I have a key; which lock does it fit?

flabdablet — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:54:55 -0800

Is there a tool available that will tell me which version of Windows the product key on this sticker is for? This second-hand laptop came with a completely erased hard drive (it looks DBAN'd). There's the remains of a Windows OEM sticker of some sort on the bottom. The 25-character product key itself is still perfectly legible, but the part of the sticker identifying the Windows version is ripped (looks like another label was put over it and then removed, taking half the Windows sticker with it).

I'd like to put Windows back on it, but the XP Home OEM installer I guessed at won't accept this product key. Before I go down the path of trial-installing every conceivable version of Windows one at a time, does anyone know of a tool (either online or downloadable) that will tell me which version my product key matches?

Law-abiding civilian wants to kinda remove personal info from a laptop

salvia — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:41:33 -0800

What are the basic steps to remove personal information off of a hard drive? (XP Home, SP3) I'm trading up a work computer for a newer one. I'd like to make sure to erase things like my frequent flier password, browsing history and downloaded docs, emailed files, and documents I created myself.

I realize many people would find it easiest just to reformat the hard drive, but I'd rather not do that myself, as I don't know what I'm doing or have the disks, plus that'd look more suspicious than leaving behind a few non-work files. I'm not concerned anyone is going to run file recovery software or investigate me, and I don't have any confidential client data that I need to protect. I don't use this for much besides work, and I never save bank passwords, and they're probably going to reformat the computer right away, so I'm not that worried.

I just don't want someone to open a folder and accidentally stumble across some doc I forgot about ("FindingANewJob.doc") or some cached NSFW pic or pdf download that I clicked on in Metafilter, or some embarrassing google search term, or a personal essay a friend emailed me on Outlook that I edited over the weekend. I'm looking for a middle ground between the Department of Defense seven-wipe wiping standard and/or total reformat, and just leaving behind entire folders full of potentially-personal things.

What's a reasonable way for me to clean files and browsing history off of the computer? Is there a good checklist of folders to empty out? Is there a way to know which folders have exclusively system files and which have user-created documents? If you delete a file, then empty the Recycling Bin, is that pretty good or is there one step further you need to take to keep someone from accidentally encountering TMI?

If it matters, I am one of three users on the machine, and I don't know if I have full admin privileges, but I can add and remove programs.

I realize this is a pretty common question, and I've found some decent eHow articles, but I trust AskMe more than my googling skills. Thanks a bunch for any advice you can offer.

Help me repair this Windows installation, with minimal tools.

jbickers — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:29:18 -0800

Trying to fix a friend's Windows laptop, which is behaving strangely. So I need to get this thing working for a friend by Monday morning, and it is acting very strange. I had put a suite of freeware diagnostic/repair tools on a USB stick in the hopes of using them, but none of the USB ports are recognized.

So I went into control panel > hardware > device manager, and that screen is totally blank. It's like there are a whole host of basic Windows services that have been somehow turned off.

Another possible clue: When I try to run the Dell Support Center built-in diagnostic, it tells me "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed ... the Windows Installer is not correctly installed."

She doesn't have her Windows XP disc, so a reinstall is not possible. Anything else I can attempt? Any other clues I can look for that would help figure out what's up?

(Win XP Media Center edition, if that helps, on a Dell Inspiron 6000)

Looking for the perfect laptop for traveling

Afroblanco — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:31:20 -0800

Looking for the perfect laptop for traveling. Priorities are durability, lightness, and battery life, in that order. Performance is not too important, but it must run Windows 7 like a champ. Willing to consider netbooks. Can spend up to $2000, but obviously I would like to spend no more than I absolutely have to.

Did dude steal a Dell?

ChurchHatesTucker — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:16:05 -0800

Is this computer hot? A friend of mine found a good deal (person to person) for a Dell Windows Vista laptop. He's wondering if the deal is good because the computer is hot. Is there any easy way to get a fair idea? (He's a newbie, I'm a Mac.)

What on earth did I do to my laptop?

nostrich — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:15:54 -0800

My laptop hasn't been the same since blitzing some particularly nasty malware. What on earth did I do? I like to think I know what I'm doing with computers, but this one has me stumped. And just to pre-empt the inevitable good advice of just reinstalling Windows: not an option. This thing's as old as the hills; no CD drive, it doesn't boot from USB, and I don't have the necessary hardware for a network install. I've just about given up all hope of fixing this being anything other than a wild goose chase, so you smart people are my last hope. Here's what happened.

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to infect my laptop -- which runs Windows XP -- with some nasty spyware. I forget the name, but I can dig into removal logs and find out, if it makes a difference. It was one of those that stops you running executables and the task manager, replaces the background with a warning about spyware (which I found deliciously ironic), and installs (if that's the right word) a fake spyware detector that encourages you to pay to remove all the infections it "finds" (none of which matched up to the real infections, naturally).

Trying to remove it was a hellish experience, but for once the age and terrible boot speed of this thing did me a favour, and I was able to launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (adivce from MeFites in other questions lead me to that, by the way, so thanks!) before the exe-blocking stuff kicked in. I thought I'd managed to remove all trace of the nasties -- and even un-ticked some boxes in the boot options and got XP booting at a wonderfully fast speed. But then I noticed some odd behaviour with the Windows Classic theme.

This screenshot demonstrates it quite nicely. See how the titlebar has inherited the dark blue of the background behind it? That's what it does now. It inherits whatever is behind it, and that becomes the new titlebar background. Moving the window around just leaves whatever was there before. I think it's a symptom most XP users have seen before when trying to move windows around and finding the background moving with it, except this is permanent. That would be manageable, except a side-effect is that everything becomes awfully sluggish (and this laptop only has 256MB RAM, so it's sluggish enough to begin with). Changing the theme to the awful default XP theme fixes this, for the most part, but certain apps still cause everything to crawl to a halt -- Foobar2000 and Filezilla being two examples.

This stumped me for a few days, but I made some progress when I tried to play a game using Mame. It simply would not work! Something about a driver not being loaded. I assumed that to refer to either DirectDraw or Direct3D -- maybe they're the same thing? I don't know, my knowledge gets a little vague around here, forgive me if my explanations aren't up to par. So I fiddled with the config, disabling some graphic options and made no headway at all.

So I moved on to dxdiag, and tried running the tests. The first two DirectDraw tests go fine (the windowed ones), but the fullscreen ones do not; the bouncing box only manages to move a few pixels before the test ends -- extremely slow, basically. None of the Direct3D tests worked. So I reinstalled DirectX. Didn't fix a thing, except it now tells me gcdef.dll is not the latest version, which may cause some problems. Except it's certainly the latest version I can find.

And that's about as far as I've come in trying to figure this out. My best guess at the moment is that something relating to the onboard graphics card has become corrupt. I've reinstalled the display drivers (which were difficult to find), but that made absolutely no difference. It's a Trident Video Accelerator Cyber-XP4.

Until a resolution is found, I've completely disabled hardware acceleration in Windows. This, rather happily, allows the Classic theme to be used again without slowdown, and everything is actually rather hunky-dory, except for the fact that I can't play any games!

I recognise that the best course of action here is re-installing Windows, but as mentioned above, that's not an option. The only reason I even keep the thing around is for playing some games I really like that don't have OS X counterparts. (Big Jap shmup fan, none of those guys develop for Macs!) So not being able to do that makes it useless.

Here's one final thing that is probably irrelevant, but in the interest of presenting all the information, I'll include it. This happened after all of this -- the very next day, in fact. My life is truely a comedy of errors. I managed to spill a little tea on the upper-left of the keyboard -- literally, the tea only touched 3 keys in the upper left corner, but apparently spread much further once it got inside. It was fine at first, but after a while, started just persistently beeping, the way it does when to many keys are pressed at the same time. No amount of cleaning, blowing, and praying fixed it, and I eventually just disconnected it from the mothership and use an external keyboard instead now.

What do you think? Anything I can do? It's not the end of the world if I can't do anything about it; I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to dual-booting Windows (or virtualizing it) on my Mac, but that's definitely an option -- it just seems a little overkill for three or four games I'm too addicted to go without and only play a couple of times a week. It also seems a waste to give up on an otherwise fine laptop.

install Windows XP on Vista laptop

gigimakka — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:43:49 -0800

Trouble installing windows xp on a vista laptop (Acer 6530) I wiped my acer 6530 laptop hd, and upon attempting to install windows xp, it only recognizes 131 GB of the 250 GB hard drive.

Is this because I did not install the Win XP BIOS before I wiped the drive of Vista? (I have the XP bios on a flash drive, downloaded from the Acer site.) I did change the original Vista bios settings from AHCI to IDE, and boot order to DVD ROM drive first.

I'm considering 2 plans: 1) Install Win XP on the 131GB space I do have, and then install the Win XP BIOS, re-wipe the HD and re-install Win XP, or 2) Re-install Vista, replace those Vista BIOS with the XP BIOS, and then re-wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of Win XP. Which would you recommend?

Alternatives? Thanks...

Which distro of Linux should I try?

n3rt — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:20:04 -0800

Which one of the multitude of Linux distros should someone who's never used Linux before give a go? I''m by no means a PC-phobe [or a Windows-phobe for that matter] but I've just done a couple of system backups and reinstalls of Vista, and am looking at my laptop [Acer Aspire 720Z with 2GB RAM, Intel Core-Duo] with a "hmm, what if eye, and wonder whether I should finally give a Linux distro a try.

My computing background was initially Amigas [hey, configuring Ami-TCP by hand was fun! To a certain extent... :) ] and I'm a graphic designer by profession. I already use a fair bit of Inkscape / GIMP so I'm not scared of new apps to replace anything, I'm just stumped at what to try from the various advice proffered by various techy-types here.

Any advice greatly appreciated - and play nicely! :) [Remembers the Amiga vs PC debate years ago...]

Local Profile Not Found...Wha???

too bad you're not me — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:56:42 -0800

I recently logged onto my computer (Windows XP), and it said "profile not found". Help, please! Today I started my laptop, and at the welcome screen it said that my local profile was not found, so I was logged onto a temporary profile. All my personalized settings were gone (i.e. desktop picture, menu settings, default internet browser, etc).

I tried to google the problem, but haven't been able to find anything super helpful, and the only AskMe question seemed to be about a work computer that was connected to a server. Mine is a home laptop not connected to a server.

I'm fairly certain all my files on the hard drive are still there, but is this indicative of a problem with the hard drive?

Has anyone had this happen? Why did it happen? Basically any info would be great! Computer savvy people...come to my rescue! :)

When will Windows 7 be standard on new computers and how should this affect my intent to buy a new laptop?

jefficator — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:54:56 -0800

When will Windows 7 be standard on new computers and how should this affect my intent to buy a new laptop? I am in the market for a new laptop--mine is ANCIENT. I figure I might be best served by waiting until Windows 7 is standard, since all I ever hear is cracks about the quality of "Mojave".

When will Windows 7 be standard?

Is this a good idea?

Please keep the level of discussion in the kiddie pool; I'm no expert!

Defragging problems

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:35:31 -0800

I have a Toshiba laptop running Vista (alas) and a recent spate of problems (extremely slow operations, mostly) seemed to have possibly been caused by fragmentation. I tried defragging, with mixed success. This is my work computer. I checked the properties of the hard drives and for the defrag option, it seems to be set up to do this automatically weekly at 1:00 am (when the thing is never in use, of course). Just to be sure, I manually started the defrag when I left Monday evening and when I came in Tuesday morning it was still going (fifteen hours later). I stopped the defrag and worked. Yesterday I took the afternoon off and worked from home,again starting the cycle when I left. 22 hours later when I came in again, it was still in progress.

I see a couple of possibilities. One is that the weekly automated one is not happening, and the machine has not been defragged in two years, which might explain the time it is taking now. A cowroker suggests that when I am doing the defrag now, when I leave it alone for a few minutes it is going into sleep mode and so is not doing any real defragging.

Any suggestions?

Give me your tired, your poor laptops yearning to breathe free.

googly — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:46:46 -0800

Help me take a forlorn old gateway laptop and transform it into a sleek new multimedia monster. Or something. What I have: Gateway solo pro 9300. At least 10 years old. Windows Millennium Edition (sorta). No idea how much RAM or hard drive space or processor or anything like that. Nice big screen, though!

What I want: A media center which I can at very least use to store and play mp3s, possibly vids and web browsing etc.

The problems:

At some point many years ago, a catastrophic problem occurred and I tried to reinstall windows, but it crashed halfway through and I was unable to complete it. In particular, I get the following on bootup:

"WARNING. ERROR. 0271: Check date and time settings"
"Windows has detected a registry/configuration error. Use SCANREG to correct this error."
"The following file is missing or corrupted: IFSHLP.SYS"

And then, sometimes, this blue screen of death: "While initializing device IFSMGR. The Microsoft Installable File System Manager cannot find the helper driver. Please ensure that IFSHLP.SYS has been installed. System halted."

Additional problems: Neither the floopy drive nor the CD drive work, so I can't use a boot disk. There are USB ports, but no up-to-date drivers for them. And Windows Me does not seem to allow me to access DOS on startup. Argh.

My questions:

(1) Is it worth it to try to do something with this? I'd prefer to get some use out of it rather than toss it in the landfill.

(2) If so, how? I'm happy to spend the time putting Ubuntu or some other non-Windows operating system on there, but how do I install a new operating system if I can't access DOS and none of the drives work?

(3) Any other ideas for what to do with this?

Pixels not included.

_dario — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:02:44 -0800

I'm at my wits' end trying to find a suitable LCD monitor to use as a secondary screen for an oldish Toshiba laptop. I have an laptop, a Toshiba Satellite A30 with an intel 82852-GM graphic chipset. I would like to buy an external monitor to use it (mainly) to watch movies. My size and price requirements direct me towards a 22" flat panel, so I looked into the market for those. Speakers are not a requirement since the audio output from the laptop is hooked to a hi-fi system, and the input port should be the classic VGA.

First disappointment: I saw an LG panel that looked great, (WG2234, apparently not marketed in the US) but - turns out - the laptop is not able to drive the panel with its native resolution (1680x1050). A little research on forums pointed out that there are many laptops with that same problem - apparently all those that have that graphics chipset which - besides Toshiba - was used by Dell, Acer and others.

A possible solution that was presented would be to download a developer kit from Intel and compile a custom driver for the resolution/frequency of that specific monitor. I don't want to do that, since success is apparently not guaranteed and I'd need the monitor anyway to make tests, etc., with a sizeable chance (I think) to damage it or void the warranty by feeding it the wrong res/freq values.

Browsing the list of resolutions the graphics card is capable of, turns out that no 16:10 resolutions are supported, while 16:9 resolutions as 1920 x 1080 are, so I turned my search into 16:9 screens, such as this Samsung 2233SN (apparently marketed as SW in the US), which looks good and has the right resolution.

Second disappointment: I had the monitor ordered from the store and took my laptop to check if everything matched, just to be sure. Despite numerous attempts by me and the guys at the store, there was no way to have the laptop and the monitor hook up correctly: even when the laptop resolution on the secondary desktop was 1920x1080, the monitor would have two black lateral bands, and all icons and such would be horizontally compressed, so in the end I had to leave it at the store.

My only hunch is that the 1920x1080 res. from the laptop is actually a lower resolution, which is then supposed to be stretched to a 16:9 factor by the display, but other than that, at this point I'm out of ideas. Can you suggest alternative models or - preferred - a way to have the (Samsung) monitor work as expected?

Why can I install Ubuntu but not Windows?

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:54:58 -0800

Why can't I install Windows XP Pro on my Dell laptop? I get an error message that says "acpi.sys is corrupted". I can install Ubuntu 8.04 just fine. I've searched various forums for this issue and haven't seemed to make any headway. I used (retail) disc to successfully install XP Pro on my sister's Gateway laptop just to see if it was a problem with the disc. It wasn't, and the install proceeded normally.

I updated the BIOS to the latest version and that didn't do anything. I've searched every BIOS setting for anything related to ACPI but can't find anything. I know ACPI is a power management setting, but there's nothing in the BIOS that says ACPI anywhere.

I've tried pressing F5 during the install to change the Hardware Abstraction Layer. I've tried every option there with no luck. I finally tried to install Ubuntu 8.04 and that worked perfectly. I just need to be able to install Windows to run a couple of applications that can't run under WINE/Crossover Linux/Other Emulators.

It's a Dell Precision Workstation M65 with 2 GB of memory, with the A10 BIOS version (formerly tried under A04 and got the same error). It used to have a corporate image of Windows XP Pro on it, but when I lelft my job I was locked out of the laptop (I used a live CD to back up all my data and then reformatted the drive). After that, I can install Ubuntu but I can't install Windows. Weird.

Any clues? I'm getting by with Ubuntu and Open Office, but I'd really prefer the option of running Windows here.

Laptop and projector need to play together nicely.

wile e — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:02:33 -0800

Managing a projector with a laptop at a different resolution. The short: classroom training sessions with a Dell laptop hooked up to a projector is giving me some issues, looking for advice on how to rectify the situation. Windows Vista Ultimate
Dell Vostro 1400 w/ embedded Intel video card (temporary, my Nvidia motherboard blew up, long story)
2gig Ram
2.0ghz Core 2 duo
VGA output

Half of my time is spent in a classroom training on how to use a particular software. The classroom changes weekly, so cannot give specs on the projector, but all are generic classroom projectors that take a VGA input on them.

When I hook up my laptop to the projector, it takes me out of my 1440x900 default resolution, and kicks me back to 800x600. If I try to change it back to 1440x900 it refuses as the projector cannot handle the resolution, even if I have it set up to not share my desktop. I can get it to work with 1280x768, but since this is not my default resolution, it annoys me to screw up all my settings on my laptop during the session.

So my question is this: Is there a way to better manage all of this, since I spend most of my time dealing with this? Are there programs to aid in this? I have briefly looked into Displayfusion and Ultramon, but they seem to be more aimed at permanent multi monitor setups. Whereas my situation tends to only be during 9-5 every other week or so.

It just seems the management utility that is in my laptop now cannot be the best thing. I would like to have some real control over what happens, not just resolution if possible. Like I would like to share certain windows on my screen with the projector, but not all.

Well anyway, if anybody has some insight into this, I would appreciate the help.

I will be checking this throughout the day, so any info I left out, feel free to ask and I will supply the answer if I have it.

What good is a windows COA sticker?

washburn — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:41:24 -0800

What does it mean when a used laptop is advertised as having Windows XP installed and coming with a COA sticker? Without having a Windows install cd, is there any benefit to having such a sticker? Would it, for example, permit one to call MS and obtain a new install disk for Windows XP?

How can I reinstall Windows onto an old Toshiba Portege 7010CT with no external drives?

ajp — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:16:50 -0800

How can I reinstall Windows onto an old Toshiba Portege 7010CT with no external drives? I've inherited an old Toshiba Portege 7010CT with Windows 2000 on it. It's also chock-full of viruses. I don't have any external drives for it, and I hope I don't have to buy one. It has one USB port.

Is it even possible to reinstall Windows on the thing? I'm planning on XP, but I guess I can live with 2000 if necessary. But it's the lack of drives that's the problem. The BIOS doesn't have an option to boot from USB. I've no idea if it's possible to change that somehow...?

So, any advice much appreciated.

In case you're wondering, my plan is to use Remote Desktop from the Portege pretty much exclusively, so it can act as a reasonably lightweight and portable visual interface onto my heavier hardware. I'm hoping a wifi dongle in the USB port will achieve this.

Merry Xmas :-)

What should I look for in a laptop?

Caz721 — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:32:11 -0800

What sort of specs should I look for for my new (sub-$600) PC laptop? My old laptop has been giving me a lot of problems, and as it is nearly 6 years old, I think I'm ready to get a new one. However, I'm having trouble figuring out what specs I should focus on as I compare what's available. Any advice as to what to focus on or caution as to what to avoid would be appreciated. I'm not sure exactly what details are relevant, so I apologize for the length below. I have read the previous questions on similar topics, but none seem to fit exactly, so I hope someone will have some advice.

I use my computer for internet, Microsoft Office, Itunes, and digital photo storage. I'd like something that has adequate memory so I won't have to worry about storing music/pictures. Additionally, I'd like something that I can use when I work from home, instead of bringing my work laptop home. Working from home I connect to my office network through a VPN, and sometimes use document review and database programs, as well as Office programs. My work laptop is an 80 GB Dell Latitude and is 2 years old or so (running windows XP I think). I use a cable internet connection at home, if that's relevant.

Size and weight is less of a concern, because I don't travel with my laptop often. I've ruled out the little netbooks based on size however because I need a larger screen size when I work from home (I've considered the netbook + monitor, but I usually work on the couch in apartment, so I think that would be awkward). I think my current screen is 15" and it doesn't have to be exactly that, but in that range would be best.

I've recently heard/read here at AskMe that people seem to be unhappy with the current Dell laptops. Is this true? Is there a brand recommendation or should I concentrate more on a set of specifications? Which ones?

Thanks for all your help.

More like WRONG arrow key, amirite?

Rhaomi — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:52:28 -0800

My laptop's right-arrow key is remapping itself. Any tips for diagnosis or repair? The right-arrow key on my laptop is behaving badly. It seems to be wildly remapping itself several times per second, varying between a few keys. After a little testing, here's what I found out:

- Inside a text field, pressing it will produce either "n/ " or "b". It varies between the two randomly with repeated keypresses. Example:

n/ bbbn/ n/ / bn/ / n/ n/ bn/

(Yes, I realize it typed "/" twice in the middle there -- no clue why)

- When it does type "b", it also minimizes whatever application I'm using.
- When testing in Notepad, pressing the arrow also displays the little underscores under "File", "Edit", etc. that usually appear when you press "Alt", suggesting this key is getting selected, too.
- To see exactly how the key was working, I brought up a driving game that has an area in the menu to test the controls -- pressing the acceleration key will fill up a bar slowly to the maximum speed, for instance. I mapped this function to the arrow, then pressed it. Instead of filling the bar smoothly, it caused it to jitter around a bit but never increase, as if I was lightly tapping the key over and over again.
- Lastly, and most puzzling: the problem comes and goes, seemingly not tied to any one program or process. It'll be there when I boot up, disappear for awhile, then return for no visible reason.

I thought the problem was rooted in a Windows Update I had recently added that XP had been nagging me to install, but rolling back to the pre-Update (and pre-problem) state via System Restore didn't fix it. Rebooting does nothing, either. And I don't have any spyware or viruses, to my knowledge -- my AV software hasn't given me any warnings lately.

My laptop is a Dell Latitude D820, running Windows XP SP2.

Any thoughts? Are there any Microsoft diagnostic tools I could run to repair this irritating little problem?

What happened to my windows\system32\config\system file??

otherwordlyglow — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:44:35 -0800

How do I remedy the error message I'm getiting on my laptop about the windows\system32\config\system file being missing or corrupt? Yesterday while working on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, I got some weird blue screen about there being a system problem and needing to shut down the computer. I wish I could remember what it said other than it doing a memory dump, but I can't. So I shut down and restarted and now always get the "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt :windows/system32\config\system" message.

I do not have system install disks. I found documention from Dell saying that they don't provide them routinely but that I can request them from their support group. I've done that but it could be days before I receive them. In the mean time is there anything I can do?

I tried pressing f8 as it was starting up and got the Windows Advanced Options Screen, but none of those options does anything except lead me back to the screen about my file being missing or corrupt.

I'm reasonably computer proficient but need things spelled out for me with regards to Windows (why is their support written so badly?). There is another computer in the house that I can use to download programs or get other support. I'd prefer not to have lose all the data on my laptop in order to make it work.

This is not my beautiful OS.

tmcw — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:59:40 -0800

My fantastically unstable IBM T42 (which is on it's 3rd, soon to be 4th, life) died a little while ago, no longer booting into Ubuntu. However, it loves to boot into Windows. How do I nuke both? I'd like to run Ubuntu on this computer for another few months until it takes all of my vital data with it again. I've tried running LiveCDs to fsck the primary drive (ubuntuforums didn't care, apparently), but all of these failed. I can boot into Windows and it works fine - and I can even run some ext3 drivers/wrappers and access my linux partition from there (I have, so all of my data is now backed up). However, what I can't do is boot into any OS other than Windows. I'd like to basically wipe drive and boot partition so that I can put a new install of an OS on it - and I'm considering DBAN, although wondering if that's A) recoverable, in that the drive will still be usable B) going to fail like LiveCDs did.

Plan 2: I can get this laptop fixed under a very good warranty. Good enough that I've already gone through two hard drives and an LCD on it. However, they believe that a Windows installation is enough for any student. Not this student. So if I can just botch it up tremendously, I can get a clean slate by that method.

Thanks for any help. I'm getting a mac, and backing up my data, but to have a formerly high-end ThinkPad running XP is just a loss of potential.

Bluetooth Automatic Syncing Between Laptops

0bvious — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:35:59 -0800

Syncing between laptops: How can I easily and automatically sync files and documents between two laptops using Bluetooth? Ideally I want to load up one machine in the vicinity of the other and have all my recent data (documents/data/RSS feeds etc.) syncronised with NO hassle. Any good apps out there? I already have a not-very-portable WinXP laptop, with bluetooth. I am also awaiting arrival of a new ASUS EEE PC. I will probably end up installing Windows XP on it, but might opt to stick with Linux.

The internal Bluetooth was a key component of my purchase.

I am interested in using the Asus as a portable addition to my writing and reading routines. I'd love to load it up and have all my recent file changes synced on both machines without me doing anything. Just like the way iTunes syncs my iPod, but with Bluetooth as a sweet bonus.

I would also LOVE for all recent RSS feeds to be downloaded in FULL and sent to the Asus, ready for me to read on the train.

Any hints would sure be grand

Should I reinstall XP?

Kiwi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:38:37 -0800

Should I reinstall XP to speed up my laptop? After a couple of years of use, my laptop is starting to run a little slow. I've heard that uninstalling and reinstalling Windows XP and all other programs can speed things up dramatically. Is it worth the hassle of doing this? How long before it starts to slow down again?

Clean me up, Scotty!

rhoticity — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:47:51 -0800

What's the best way to erase my hard drive for resale if I don't have original OS reinstall CDs to work with? I have a 1.5 year old Dell laptop running Windows XP SP2 which I'm selling in the next couple of weeks (getting a Macbook... YESSSS). I'm going to make an attempt to sell it here on campus or through Craigslist before I try other methods, and so as soon as I transfer everything I want to keep over to my new computer, I want to clean the hard drive off as well as I can. The problem is that, in a misguided money-saving attempt when I first ordered the Dell, I did not request physical Windows XP reinstall CDs. Obviously I cannot just completely reformat the hard drive, then, since I will have no way of reinstalling the OS.. right? What do I do to get this thing ready to sell to a stranger?

For the record, there's nothing terribly "sensitive" on here, just personal/academic documents and photos, but I'd rather get it as clean as possible just in case some total weirdo gets a hold of it.

Any other tips on dealing with the less-than-stellar electronics resale market would also be appreciated.

Best US$1K laptop?

bodega — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:43:41 -0800

Best US$1000.00 Windows laptop? This is mostly for word processing, email, and browsing, but I'd like to get the best value possible. And, even be able to run a game or three.

Other requirements:
* Would like to order online today or this weekend
* OS should be included - XP preferred, but not essential
* Ability to game (WoW / Hellgate / Civ) important, but not essential
* Reasonable portability (~15" screen?)

Here's a baseline (refurb) machine from Dell for about $920:

Vostro 1500 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
Operating System: XP Pro
Memory: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz (2 DIMMs)
Hard Disk Drive: 160 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Video 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Media Bay 8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write

Any other suggestions?