[Stryke 9]

Ooh... laptop BIOS protection is ****in' insane. If you've taken all the batteries out and it's still got that password prompt, you've probably run into the same thing I did. Which means, basically, the thick placemat suggestion's probably the best one. Theoretically, there's some jumpers you can reset to wipe the BIOS back to factory settings, but unless you have a good layout of the motherboard it ain't gonna happen, and paying some repair guy to do it'll cost more than that hunk of junk is worth. I couldn't even find a jumper on the one I tried to password-crack.

If it did work afterward and you just neglected to mention that, then damn you, you lucky bastard.

[Bobboau]

just randomly short out random circits around random chips

and isn't it 'pool' people shout when skeet shooting, I wasn't sure if it was that or pull or something

[Stryke 9]

...


...


DAMMIT! Why the bloody hell did that never occur to me? That's exactly the sort of solution I'd do, too (well, actually, I'd find a way to short out all of the circuits at once and hope I don't cook anything vital. But I didn't even think to do that). Still one hell of a lot of trial-and-error, but eh.

And it's "pull".

[Mr.Garibaldi]

Do what I did and install Windows 95 completely from floppy

[Bobboau]

you could dunk it in watter, thhat would short everything out, just give it a good week or two in a moderately warm place

[Stryke 9]

That'd also make sure it stayed shorted out in parts. Provided, of course, my nasty-ass water didn't calcify everything or eat through something important in the meantime. Also, since in order for the short-out to have an effect the thing would have to have its power source in, that strikes me as a quick way to get electrocuted.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]And to think, I was under the impression that laptops loved water.[/color]

[Stryke 9]

Actually, depending on how much you've ****ed with it, your average laptop should be pretty much watertight. Ports are iffy, but they seal the cases pretty well. They're also ****in' hard to crowbar open without breaking anything.

Guess it's a good thing they make 'em hard to kill, seeing how hideously overpriced they are and all.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]You seem to have forgotten about cooling vents. Fast track to the processor.[/color]

[Stryke 9]

Ah. There is that.

Don't think water'd hurt the processor itself too badly anyway. Whole deal's pretty much compartmentalized, you'd need to give a laptop a good soak for the water to bridge from the batteries to anything delicate, so while it'd act funky until you gave it time to dry out there wouldn't be a lot of permanent damage.. I'd worry more about the fan motors...

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]I class dropping it in a bucket a good soak, myself.
I agree with you about the lack of permanent damage, though. I spilt squash into an old Toshiba Satellite's cooling port a good few times, with the end result just being the fumigation of the room with burnt-on flavouring. Worked fine afterwards, although it smelt for a while.[/color]

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kazan
make fedora network install disk

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

install fedora

Enjoy

Sounds like a nice enough idea. I'll give it a try

[Liberator]

There's always Knoppix.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]If he can access a CD drive over the network, yes. Getting there is a different matter.[/color]

[karajorma]

I've followed Kazan's advice and I've got the CD images downloaded (I didn't burn them yet I just mounted them with Daemon tools instead) and I've booted up the laptoop using the install disk.

The only problem is that I'm a bit stuck what to do next. The only options that aren't local are NFS Image, FTP and HTTP.

The only problem is that my main machine isn't running a HTTP or FTP server and I've got no idea how to use NFS.

[kasperl]

i can't help you, but i think that linux offers basics for running servers, i am completely geussing here, but if you have a knoppix disk handy it might be worth it to sniff around it's network utitlities.

[Nico]

what I'd do is completly format the thing, put DOS on it, and use it as a "DOS console" to play old games.
Oh yeah, I'd definitively do that.

[karajorma]

I think I may be able to set up a HTTP server and use that.  

I thought XP had an FTP server built in somewhere (turned off by default of course). I guess I must be mistaken cause I couldn't find it.