On Thursday 12 November 2009, John Heinen wrote:

The hard drive has windows xp on it but it won't start and we can't redu it on account of the lost cd with the numbers. I tried to install a legal windowsf 98 ( she is familiar with) and then as an intrduction e.g. puppy linux, but the computer hangs up and keeps looking for windows xp. with it's ID numbers.. John H

you gotta love windows -- what i would do is recommend she allow you to reformat the drive and re-install suse, without win98 if she can't live without windows, and your win98 media is installable, you could install dual boot, but still reformat the drive first sc -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On November 12, 2009, John Heinen wrote:

The hard drive has windows xp on it but it won't start and we can't redu it on account of the lost cd with the numbers. I tried to install a legal windowsf 98 ( she is familiar with) and then as an intrduction e.g. puppy linux, but the computer hangs up and keeps looking for windows xp. with it's ID numbers.. John H

What error does it give on startup? Can she get to the recovery console? 98 is a different beast from XP so it's not much help What was she (or you) doing before this happened? I recall linux takes precautions so you might have created a bootsector backup. It's always nice to get someone using linux by choice, not as a last resort. -- Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org