My dil has a computer that won't boot up. She has a recovery disk for it but her Cd/dvd drive doesn't work. I have one of those portable USB hard drives. CAn I copy her recovery disk to my portable drive and plug it into her computer and boot to it?
computer question
- Thread starter stehansen
- Start date
- Replies 5
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gf beranek
Old Schooler
It's a long shot, but you may be able to, Steve. At boot go into your configuration settings and select which drive you want to boot from in the menu, if it is listed. luck
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Possibly... You will need to go into her bios and tell the computer where to boot up from..
Usually hit the delete key or an F key as the computer is starting up. Assuming it is the operating system that does not boot.
If the computer won't try to boot up at all (prior to the operating system boot) you can try to reset cmos on the mother board. There is usually a jumper for that that you switch positions on for a few seconds while it is unplugged at the power cord.
Usually hit the delete key or an F key as the computer is starting up. Assuming it is the operating system that does not boot.
If the computer won't try to boot up at all (prior to the operating system boot) you can try to reset cmos on the mother board. There is usually a jumper for that that you switch positions on for a few seconds while it is unplugged at the power cord.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
On the "computer won't boot normally what do you want to boot to" screen, the portable drives shows up, but in the bios it doesn't. If you try and boot to it in the error screen you get an invalid disk error. Ah well, I give up. Thanks guys.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Bummer...
Sucks when you lose the cd drive off the unit.. They are pretty cheap at New Egg. DVD/CD read write are a dime a dozen these days.
Sucks when you lose the cd drive off the unit.. They are pretty cheap at New Egg. DVD/CD read write are a dime a dozen these days.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Not sure if we have a real computer thread as yet.... This seems appropriate.... Good title and all...
I know most of you already know I have been playing about with a Linux OS called Ubuntu.
My poor little Think Pad lap top crashed the other day (not really clear why) and could not boot up Ubuntu. Seeing I already about had everything backed up and the bios seemed to be functioning proper, I went ahead and down loaded the newer 11.04 version of Ubuntu that was previously some what unstable. So far so good and the desk top is really nice. Somewhat different than what I was used to on the last version. Have some navigation issues to solve. Every time we upgrade to a newer OS no matter, there is a learning curve regardless of who makes it.
It looks like they have crossed over some of the KDE goodies into this one that is Gnome. Still only 32 bit for those that want to know.
I have to say .. Ubuntu has made it easy for me to keep some of my older gear still running nicely.
My printer is back and all my network shares are working peachy.
In fact, the network printing is working as well with my old dinosaur HP4p.
The new desktop will eventually be running the new version after Kat gets used to playing in Linux. Once she is comfortable with it, I will transition her to the new one.
Looks fairly configurable like the KDE that has all the graphic goodies.
You can run those goodies on Ubuntu or down load Kbuntu or Xbuntu to do the same.. We tried the Kbuntu, but it seemed a tad unstable. So you just plug the KDE packets into Ubuntu and it has all the goodies and runs nicely.
It seems Open Office has gone paid for and now, some of the programmers that still feel it should be free software have added Libre (pretty much the same program from some of the same people) to Ubuntu and it pretty much looks just like the Open Office.
Should be Google doc friendly as well so you can import and export docs to and from there.
So if you get tired of Windows or Apple, there is a viable solution that is free, easy to transition to, and has support and lots of goodies to run on it.
Netflix is still out of the picture as are some other Windows dependent programs.
If you want to try it, you can just burn it to a disk or a thumb drive after you down load it and fool around with it.
You can install Windows and Linux and run them side by side. I have had no great success with that as Windows does not play well with others, but there are work arounds on the Linux forums.
Just wanted to share my experience as I work with this OS. Maybe someone here can benefit by it like I have
I know most of you already know I have been playing about with a Linux OS called Ubuntu.
My poor little Think Pad lap top crashed the other day (not really clear why) and could not boot up Ubuntu. Seeing I already about had everything backed up and the bios seemed to be functioning proper, I went ahead and down loaded the newer 11.04 version of Ubuntu that was previously some what unstable. So far so good and the desk top is really nice. Somewhat different than what I was used to on the last version. Have some navigation issues to solve. Every time we upgrade to a newer OS no matter, there is a learning curve regardless of who makes it.
It looks like they have crossed over some of the KDE goodies into this one that is Gnome. Still only 32 bit for those that want to know.
I have to say .. Ubuntu has made it easy for me to keep some of my older gear still running nicely.
My printer is back and all my network shares are working peachy.
In fact, the network printing is working as well with my old dinosaur HP4p.
The new desktop will eventually be running the new version after Kat gets used to playing in Linux. Once she is comfortable with it, I will transition her to the new one.
Looks fairly configurable like the KDE that has all the graphic goodies.
You can run those goodies on Ubuntu or down load Kbuntu or Xbuntu to do the same.. We tried the Kbuntu, but it seemed a tad unstable. So you just plug the KDE packets into Ubuntu and it has all the goodies and runs nicely.
It seems Open Office has gone paid for and now, some of the programmers that still feel it should be free software have added Libre (pretty much the same program from some of the same people) to Ubuntu and it pretty much looks just like the Open Office.
Should be Google doc friendly as well so you can import and export docs to and from there.
So if you get tired of Windows or Apple, there is a viable solution that is free, easy to transition to, and has support and lots of goodies to run on it.
Netflix is still out of the picture as are some other Windows dependent programs.
If you want to try it, you can just burn it to a disk or a thumb drive after you down load it and fool around with it.
You can install Windows and Linux and run them side by side. I have had no great success with that as Windows does not play well with others, but there are work arounds on the Linux forums.
Just wanted to share my experience as I work with this OS. Maybe someone here can benefit by it like I have
