I have been trying to revive the old Vista laptop, primarily not to recover any files in it, but to find other use of it aside from gathering dust in a corner. And I have second thoughts that ditching it in the bin, to charity or recycling centres might create more trouble if somebody can recover private details from passwords to emails and financial institution that might contain in there.
Desperate solutions.
After my failed attempts of using the recovery disks that was made during it's maiden voyage many years ago, the elementaryOS on a USB not loading because of 'no configuration file found: No Default or UI configuration directive found' error , and I am still having a problem with my other laptop's DVD (windows 7) drive (could not burn an ISO image of the EOS), a streak of light suddenly has revived my hope when I saw the old desktop's XP recovery disk. At this point, my main goal is to know if the laptop's hard drive is still functioning and can install programs on it. And if it accept's the XP disk, this means there's still a chance of reviving it.
The installation was successful. Windows XP has been restarting fine in the old machine. I was ecstatic for a while after witnessing the windows XP set up screen. Everything was alright until errors about 'not found drivers ' were appearing. I thought I can live with those but when the driver for the sound card is missing that rendered the laptop not to output any sound except bleeps, got me thinking for a second.
I just realised that because the rescue disk was meant for the other machine, it did not have the correct drivers necessary to make the laptop's component work, particularly to the laptop's sound hardware. If the sound card would have worked, I should be contented with the XP and take no more further steps.
I was left with no other option but to find a fix to my other laptop's DVD drive, burn an ISO image of EOS and try to install it there. Fortunately I found a fix online for the DVD.
..see the solution to 'fix DVD not recognised' here..
As the laptop's problem is the soundcard gone with XP installation, I need to reinstall the particular driver by using the same Windows Vista recovery disk again, before trying the EOS. Although Vista is showing a missing 'Bootmgr' after installation, I was hoping that the driver for the particular hardware has been installed, as I can not test the laptop with the error during start up. The good thing is I also know that the hard disk is not in failure as it did installed the XP earlier.
As I hoped for, the laptop accepted the EOS disk and installed it wihout any errors. And the drivers were all installed with the Vista disk as there were no error messages, and the sound card working. I was happy everything went very well!
With the the clean interface and the fast to load system, I am beginning to like it! I compare it to like a Mac in speed and neatly packed menus and buttons, but totally free.
I am now using the old laptop with the EOS installed, and I can say that it is fast to boot, open applications, and shut down. Having said that there are also 'limitations' of this pretty and able operating system, which I will discuss on the next post.
Successful installation.
The installation was successful. Windows XP has been restarting fine in the old machine. I was ecstatic for a while after witnessing the windows XP set up screen. Everything was alright until errors about 'not found drivers ' were appearing. I thought I can live with those but when the driver for the sound card is missing that rendered the laptop not to output any sound except bleeps, got me thinking for a second.
What happened?
I just realised that because the rescue disk was meant for the other machine, it did not have the correct drivers necessary to make the laptop's component work, particularly to the laptop's sound hardware. If the sound card would have worked, I should be contented with the XP and take no more further steps.
No other choice.
I was left with no other option but to find a fix to my other laptop's DVD drive, burn an ISO image of EOS and try to install it there. Fortunately I found a fix online for the DVD.
..see the solution to 'fix DVD not recognised' here..
Restore the drivers.
As the laptop's problem is the soundcard gone with XP installation, I need to reinstall the particular driver by using the same Windows Vista recovery disk again, before trying the EOS. Although Vista is showing a missing 'Bootmgr' after installation, I was hoping that the driver for the particular hardware has been installed, as I can not test the laptop with the error during start up. The good thing is I also know that the hard disk is not in failure as it did installed the XP earlier.
Successful EOS installation.
As I hoped for, the laptop accepted the EOS disk and installed it wihout any errors. And the drivers were all installed with the Vista disk as there were no error messages, and the sound card working. I was happy everything went very well!
With the the clean interface and the fast to load system, I am beginning to like it! I compare it to like a Mac in speed and neatly packed menus and buttons, but totally free.
I am now using the old laptop with the EOS installed, and I can say that it is fast to boot, open applications, and shut down. Having said that there are also 'limitations' of this pretty and able operating system, which I will discuss on the next post.
Post by Prakticality.
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