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Author Topic: Uses for an old Laptop  (Read 2366 times)

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Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
on: February 18, 2004, 08:38:34 am
I recently came into the possession of a Sony vaio PCG-R600 HEK. It apparently had taken a bit of a knock and my friend was about to throw it away now that he has a new one. I told him to hand it over to me as I figured I might be able to do something with it.

Anyway the situation is this

1) CD Rom Drive doesn't work (The drive is actually on the dockstation not the laptop itself)

2) Windows 2K won't run. The bar moves all the way up and then it bluescreens and resets to black screen with Sony written on it.

3) The bios is locked. My friend has no idea what the password was. He seems to vaguely remember it being an animal of some sort (Helpful huh? :rolleyes: )

4) I've got an ethernet cable so I can connect it to my computer easily but since the computer is using W2K I don't have DOS to play around with and I've got no idea what.

5) I'd prefer to put windows of some sort on it so that I can play Freespace away from home but if I can't do that I really don't care what OS I manage to get working on the system.

6) I have a copy of both WindowsME and Windows 2K that I'm not doing anything with.

I'm thinking along the lines of using a very small footprint OS to boot  up the laptop from a floppy and then use a network connection to copy either Windows CD to C: and then install from there.  I'll quite happily go as far as fdisking the HD and dual booting if that will help.

Anyone got any ideas what I should do with it?
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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Offline Martinus

  • Aka Maeglamor
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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #1 on: February 18, 2004, 08:42:24 am
[color=66ff00]Short the cmos pins to erase the password for a start.
[/color]
 

Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #2 on: February 18, 2004, 08:48:13 am
I'd need to know where they are and which ones to short first. I've done it before on a desktop machine but I had the manual in hand for that. This time I've got the laptop and nothing else (I wasn't in time to save the recovery disks etc)
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]
 

Offline Nico

  • Venom
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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #3 on: February 18, 2004, 09:10:49 am
Just remove the mobo's lithium battery, and put it back.
SCREW CANON!
 

Offline Sandwich

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #4 on: February 18, 2004, 10:08:53 am
What Venom said.
SERIOUSLY...! | {The Sandvich Bar} - Rhino-FS2 Tutorial | CapShip Turret Upgrade | The Complete FS2 Ship List | System Background Package

"...The quintessential quality of our age is that of dreams coming true. Just think of it. For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so  on, and so on: and, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams - we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease our consciences. The truly wishful dreams, the many-minded dreams are now irresistible - they become facts." - 'The Outward Urge' by John Wyndham

"The very essence of tolerance rests on the fact that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Stretching right back to Kant, through the Frankfurt School and up to today, liberalism means that we can do anything we like as long as we don't hurt others. This means that if we are tolerant of others' intolerance - especially when that intolerance is a call for genocide - then all we are doing is allowing that intolerance to flourish, and allowing the violence that will spring from that intolerance to continue unabated." - Bren Carlill
 

Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #5 on: February 18, 2004, 11:34:45 am
Tried it. No effect. I'll try leaving the power disconnected for a while in case there is a capacitor somewhere that I have to let discharge.

Anyway any ideas for what to do with this thing once I've got the bios working?
« Last Edit: February 18, 2004, 11:37:01 am by 340 »
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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Offline Bobboau

  • Just a MODern kinda guy
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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #6 on: February 18, 2004, 11:47:24 am
POOL!
Bobboau, bringing you products that work... in theory
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My latest build of PCS2, get it while it's hot!
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Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #7 on: February 18, 2004, 11:53:48 am
You've lost me :confused:
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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Offline kasperl

Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #8 on: February 18, 2004, 11:53:56 am
well, without a working CD-drive your options are rather limited, really.try putting a DOS floppy in it and see what parts are still allive. if you had a CD drive you could use knoppix, but since that doesn't work, you'd be best of trying to run winME.
just another newbie without any modding, FREDding or real programming experience

you haven't learned masochism until you've tried to read a Microsoft help file.  -- Goober5000
I've got 2 drug-addict syblings and one alcoholic whore. And I'm a ****ing sociopath --an0n
You cannot defeat Windows through strength alone. Only patience, a lot of good luck, and a sledgehammer will do the job. --StratComm
 

Offline Thorn

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #9 on: February 18, 2004, 01:23:10 pm
You have several options available.
I'm sure it would make a nice doorstop. Or something to prop the short leg on the couch up with. Or as a blunt object to beat someone that pisses you off with.
 

Offline Nico

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #10 on: February 18, 2004, 01:28:27 pm
or you can do the old way and use floppys.
SCREW CANON!
 

Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #11 on: February 18, 2004, 01:53:49 pm
A boot disk works fine. I know that most of the hardware works. I think my friend killed the W2K install trying to fix[//i] things after the cd drive stopped working when he dropped it

The problem with a boot disk is I don't know enough about DOS to make one which will allow me to use networking. If I can do even that much I'm 3/4 of the way there.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]
 

Offline Taristin

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #12 on: February 18, 2004, 02:00:14 pm
Hmm. If I give you the bootable disk images and program from on my win2k cd, you might be able to activat the recovery console, which is in essence a DOS prompt.

But I don't know if you'd need the win2k install disk. Which I have, and is only about 80 MBs of data...
Freelance Modeler | Amateur Artist
 

Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #13 on: February 18, 2004, 02:12:40 pm
Sure. I've got broadband and nothing better to do tonight :D

How do you want to handle the transfer?
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]
 

Offline Taristin

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #14 on: February 18, 2004, 02:24:15 pm
Hold on, when I have everything ready, I'll PM you.
Freelance Modeler | Amateur Artist
 

Offline aldo_14

  • Gunnery Control
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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #15 on: February 18, 2004, 04:49:45 pm
You could always use it as a really thick placemat.
 

Offline karajorma

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #16 on: February 18, 2004, 05:52:06 pm
Seems a pity to wase a perfectly good (ish) laptop on that. Especially considering that the dodgy CD drive is on the dockstation and that the laptop therefore was designed to work without one.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]
 

Offline Liberator

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #17 on: February 18, 2004, 06:14:17 pm
The ultimate rescue disk...http://www.menuetos.org/
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

There are only 10 types of people in the world , those that understand binary and those that don't.
 

Offline Odyssey

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #18 on: February 18, 2004, 06:33:06 pm
[color=cc9900]Menuet doesn't support NTFS though, which could cause problems if that's what the laptop is formatted in. Unless a complete low-level is going to happen anyway.[/color]
 

Offline Kazan

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Uses for an old Laptop
Reply #19 on: February 18, 2004, 07:21:50 pm
make fedora network install disk

put fedora cd in computer on your network and allow FTP access to the drive

install fedora

Enjoy
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