Gregory West

Well, if you gave us explanation of what this error message was, most of us would be able to help you further. But if you feel the need for linux, congratulations for using it, you'll be amazed on what can be done Tada...I found the problem, well sort of. We took out the hard drive and reinstalled it. Changed the bios to boot from the CD and loaded Linux. Through the loading process we deleted Windows, so this laptop is now strictly a Linux machine. Thank to everyone who offered help...maybe this might help someone later...but it doesn't explain the mystery either. Some things cannot be explained I suppose. thanks, greg

First go here -- http://www.bootdisk.com/ Then get a blank 3 1/2 floppy disk and make that then restart the computer with the 3 1/2 I tried the boot disc and it didn't work. But what did work was we removed the hard drive and put it back in. Then changed the bios to boot from the CD rom and put in the Ubuntu disc...bingo it worked. Now we wiped out Windows 98 and have installed Linux. For now I will work with Linux until there is a need for Window again...who knows. tons of lurkers but not much response to the questions... Thanks phatcat42141 you were the only one who tried to help... greg

I installed a 4 port USB hub, plugged into the single port in the back of my tower. For two years it has worked fine, until now. I cannot get a USB card reader or thumb drive to show up in My Documents...or will they work at all in this computer...work fine in my laptop. Any suggestions??? thanks, greg Title Edited - Please follow new posting rules from now on. --Zxian

First go here -- http://www.bootdisk.com/ Then get a blank 3 1/2 floppy disk and make that then restart the computer with the 3 1/2 Thanks for the site...I did that without luck. The only thing I can get working is on startup, pushing F8 I get a test box...test everything and still no windows. Any other suggestions???? thank you, greg

First of all, this is an old IBM pentium II Thinkpad with a 6GB hard drive. Of course all the original discs are long gone for this laptop. On the startup, when I press F8 I get an ERROR message and a box to test the system. I run all the tests but still cannot get windows to start up. Any suggestions PLEASE? thanks, greg

I joined here as I give up trying to do all this troubleshooting alone. I look forward in working along in this forum. greg