Computer techies... need a lil help

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

I sold my desktop to my aunt and she gave me her old pile of junk. Its pretty outdated. Iam not sure what it processor its running havent really paid attention, but im guessing its a celeron. The HDD was so corrupted with viruses that the computer wouldnt boot. I took the 20GB hdd out and hooked it up to my external hdd enclosure and formatted it. I was going to install windows on it; however, I figured installing Linux on it would be better plus I wanted to experiment with linux for a while.

So i downloaded the PCLinuxOS distro and burnt the ISO. Since the HDD doesnt have anything on it it wont boot and I couldn't get it to boot from CD for some reason. Finally figured out that the optical drive was bad. But i didnt think of that til later.

I tried installing linux by using the hdd as an external hdd thru my laptop. I installed it just fine but everytime i start up my laptop it trys loading Grub Loader even tho i just want windows to load up. I have to hook up the external hdd just to load the grub loader so I can start up windows. How can i fix this?

I have linux running good on the old pos now. but now the grub loader is gone from the external hdd and I cant shut down my laptop or i wont be able to load up windows again

Click to read more...

 

[bk12321 10+ year member]

Can u put it on a floppy?

 

[CaliforniabOY5 10+ year member]

intresting. . . . im not too DEsktop Support oriented. . im a network support kinda guy but this thread interest me, i am curious of the suggested fix....

 

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

Can u put it on a floppy?

No my laptop dont have a floppy drive and I no longer have an external floppy //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[JustStoppingBy 10+ year member]

you can do a USB boot on most if they have a USB port.

go grab a 1 gig+ USB drive and put the Linux install on it for a NON - HDD boot.

yes, you can run Linux Live off a CD or a USB with NO HDD... try and repair your GRUB loader that way.

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

When you installed Linux you wrote to the MBR (master boot record) to load Grub. Easiest way to fix it, can you choose windows from the list in Grub? If not can you go into it and add it to the list, then just set the wait time to 0, so it'l boot right away.

Otherwise, get out your XP install disk, and go into the recovery console and type fixmbr, restart and if that doesn' twork go back into the recovery console and try fixboot. If that still doesn't work there are ways to fix it, but they are typically a nightmare and seem to end up causing more problems than its worth. So I'd say just do a new install of Windows, don't reformat or anything, and you should be able to do an upgrade kind of thing that won't really change anything, just replace system files. Good luck with it,

 

[crricha13 10+ year member]

where did u get linux i wanted to play around with it too, is it free? i have a spare dekstop i can test it on //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

where did u get linux i wanted to play around with it too, is it free? i have a spare dekstop i can test it on //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

http://www.ubuntu.com

 

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

where did u get linux i wanted to play around with it too, is it free? i have a spare dekstop i can test it on //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

There are lots of versions of linux and all of them that i have found are free. I am using PCLinuxOS i like it. http://www.distrowatch.com has alot of info. I cant remember the link where i got Pclinuxos but you can google for their site and find it. You just download it and burn the iso. It runs of the cd but I put it on my hdd so its faster.

 

[Ku-sama]

http://www.ubuntu.com

fuck ubuntu

get Sabyon...

it's better and comes with XGL and Beryl

 

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

iam a newb to linux too. Is either of the distros above have a better gui and more friendly ui than PCLinuxOS?

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

iam a newb to linux too. Is either of the distros above have a better gui and more friendly ui than PCLinuxOS?

Not necessarily, like Ku-Sama so elegantly stated Beryl does spiff it up a bit, but you can install that into your distro, so thats moot. The differences between linux distros, at least the basic desktop ones, are minimal. I've been using Ubuntu for the past couple years and I just like all the support it has, but in reality it makes no difference.

 

[Ku-sama]

fuck ubuntu


get Sabyon...

 

it's better and comes with XGL and Beryl

^^^^^

 

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

When you installed Linux you wrote to the MBR (master boot record) to load Grub. Easiest way to fix it, can you choose windows from the list in Grub? If not can you go into it and add it to the list, then just set the wait time to 0, so it'l boot right away.
Otherwise, get out your XP install disk, and go into the recovery console and type fixmbr, restart and if that doesn' twork go back into the recovery console and try fixboot. If that still doesn't work there are ways to fix it, but they are typically a nightmare and seem to end up causing more problems than its worth. So I'd say just do a new install of Windows, don't reformat or anything, and you should be able to do an upgrade kind of thing that won't really change anything, just replace system files. Good luck with it,

Put in my windows cd and it wouldnt let me do the recovery however when i exited the setup cd and restarted the laptop it loaded windows up just fine. Guess its working now. Thanks for the advice:graduate:

 

[SocMunky 10+ year member]

When you installed Linux you wrote to the MBR (master boot record) to load Grub. Easiest way to fix it, can you choose windows from the list in Grub? If not can you go into it and add it to the list, then just set the wait time to 0, so it'l boot right away.
Otherwise, get out your XP install disk, and go into the recovery console and type fixmbr, restart and if that doesn' twork go back into the recovery console and try fixboot. If that still doesn't work there are ways to fix it, but they are typically a nightmare and seem to end up causing more problems than its worth. So I'd say just do a new install of Windows, don't reformat or anything, and you should be able to do an upgrade kind of thing that won't really change anything, just replace system files. Good luck with it,

This mans got the answer, same thing I was gonna tell ya, you wrote grub to the mbr. No worries really...you can even modify grub if you don't have your windows disk. Boot the laptop into linux, and as root, go to.../boot/grub and edit the menu.lst. Simply place a # in front of the linux portion of it, leaving just the windows portion as a viable choice, then save. Now it will still boot up with grub, but the only option should be windows. Still tho, it you have your windows disk, that would be the prefered method, this is only if you DO NOT have it. I ran PCLinuxOS for quite some time, now I run straight Debian. Let me know if ya need any help! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif