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Rick
01-17-2010, 09:08 PM
Co worker is getting rid of her machince and asked me to wipe it for her first.

Told me there was a probelem that just poped up that wouldnt let her in the OS.

So I take it home and sure enough there is a windows screen telling was not shit down right how do you want to boot, auto boot normal mode in 30 seconds.

Keyboard is not working at this point though...works in bios and to tell it to boot straight from CD rom. but soon as it hits boot...no power to keyboard.

Normal mode never loads just keeps going back to the windows was shut down wrong will boot in 30 seconds.

After telling it to boot from cd rom you get the press any key to boot from cd...well since keyboard won't fire in boot mode can't press a key...so goes back to harddrive mode and never loads the OS.

Trying a different approach.

I had a ubuntu live cd sitting around so poped it in. Said boot from cd, loads the cd. Keyboard doesnt work at this boot either but it auto loads the cd and when live version loads ubuntu keyboard is working(no can't be a hardware problem with motherboard I wouldnt think) so im telling it to install.

Then the idea once it installs is hopefully the keyboard will work during boot up and I can then boot from windows disk and reformat/install windows on it.

Any thoughts on if the plan will work and if not what any other steps might be?

Denver Native (Carol)
01-17-2010, 09:19 PM
Did you try it on another computer to see if it would work there?

Thnikkaman
01-17-2010, 11:08 PM
Co worker is getting rid of her machince and asked me to wipe it for her first.

Told me there was a probelem that just poped up that wouldnt let her in the OS.

So I take it home and sure enough there is a windows screen telling was not shit down right how do you want to boot, auto boot normal mode in 30 seconds.

Keyboard is not working at this point though...works in bios and to tell it to boot straight from CD rom. but soon as it hits boot...no power to keyboard.

Normal mode never loads just keeps going back to the windows was shut down wrong will boot in 30 seconds.

After telling it to boot from cd rom you get the press any key to boot from cd...well since keyboard won't fire in boot mode can't press a key...so goes back to harddrive mode and never loads the OS.

Trying a different approach.

I had a ubuntu live cd sitting around so poped it in. Said boot from cd, loads the cd. Keyboard doesnt work at this boot either but it auto loads the cd and when live version loads ubuntu keyboard is working(no can't be a hardware problem with motherboard I wouldnt think) so im telling it to install.

Then the idea once it installs is hopefully the keyboard will work during boot up and I can then boot from windows disk and reformat/install windows on it.

Any thoughts on if the plan will work and if not what any other steps might be?

Is this a USB or PS/2 keyboard?

You said you can get into the bios. Do you have legacy usb keyboard/mouse support (HID support) enabled?

If that is disabled, that may be the issue.

OrangeHoof
01-17-2010, 11:51 PM
I have an older version of windows that will not react to the keyboard until I unplug the USB port for the keyboard and plug it back in and press F1 ... then the keyboard works.

Cumbersome but I'm used to it. If I shut off power, I have no trouble keyboard to work on reboot but it means a full shutdown everytime which is just as many steps as replugging the keyboard.

Rick
01-17-2010, 11:55 PM
legacy issue did it..

Now though there is an issue with trying to get it back to windows.

I can run in the ubuntu install just fine.

If I try and load windows disk to reformat I get a boot error with hit F1 to retry, blah blah over and over again till I put back in the ubuntu disk and then hit the F1 for retry.

So I assume its due to the boot loader.

So what I figure then is on some research I did I can just load the live cd for ubuntu again and and tell it to reformat the drive then I should see the xp disk at reboot.

Problem is now the live cd can't load. The disk loads up, I tell it to try ubuntu without changes to system and it goes to the ubuntu spalsh screen, bar cycles back and forth a bunch then it just goes to a screen telling errors for loading.

Currently its on [ 658.785146 ] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 338794

I have a feeling right now I might just pass this machine to the new person who just wants it for kids to write reports on, charge mp3 players, and do a bit of internet and just tell them they will be using ubuntu

Rather pass on the system they know though...

Rick
01-18-2010, 12:57 AM
Finnaly got the live cd to load again, reformated the linux partition to fat32, restarted, forced load to cd and am currently installing xp again.

Proably when done will have to fix the master boot record but thats fine atleast its finnaly reformating.

Thnikkaman
01-18-2010, 09:42 AM
legacy issue did it..

Now though there is an issue with trying to get it back to windows.

I can run in the ubuntu install just fine.

If I try and load windows disk to reformat I get a boot error with hit F1 to retry, blah blah over and over again till I put back in the ubuntu disk and then hit the F1 for retry.

So I assume its due to the boot loader.

So what I figure then is on some research I did I can just load the live cd for ubuntu again and and tell it to reformat the drive then I should see the xp disk at reboot.

Problem is now the live cd can't load. The disk loads up, I tell it to try ubuntu without changes to system and it goes to the ubuntu spalsh screen, bar cycles back and forth a bunch then it just goes to a screen telling errors for loading.

Currently its on [ 658.785146 ] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 338794

I have a feeling right now I might just pass this machine to the new person who just wants it for kids to write reports on, charge mp3 players, and do a bit of internet and just tell them they will be using ubuntu

Rather pass on the system they know though...

You sure the disk isn't failing. If you are getting buffer I/O errors it sounds like that drive is on its last legs. They could easily get a new drive for the thing for around $40.

Rick
01-18-2010, 10:32 AM
Could be, wouldn't be surprised. lady thats having me wipe it doesn't take good care of her machines.

XP finnaly got on it though and am running windowes updates currently.

I will have the lady who is taking it keep an eye o if it keeps having problems reading from the disks. If so to just get a new drive.