• Parent's computer has gone to shit
    8 replies, posted
System in question: 2.53 Ghz Pentium 4 1 GB RAM 128 MB Nvidia GeForce 5700 LE WD 160 GB 7200 RPM hard drive Windows XP Professional It takes nearly 30 minutes to boot up, only to have it freeze at the desktop. And not even safe mode works. So I'm thinking its time I reformat and such. Since it was 4 years ago when I did it last. Its pretty old, but I'm sure its still good enough for them so it doesn't warrant buying a whole new system yet. I'm thinking of using a Ubuntu LiveCD and copying all their stuff to my external hard drive. Is it possible to back up their bookmarks and emails and shit without being able to boot into Windows? I know I should be able to get photos, and music and stuff though. They use Firefox and Outlook Express btw.
idk if this will work, but try rebooting from the ubuntu cd, hit try ubuntu, browse to the main drive where all their stuff is, copy all of it to your external drive, then thats it.
More ram and stick a new gpu in there.
The GPU probably isn't stressed by his parents (most I know aren't into gaming).. I think you can get their bookmarks and such.
[QUOTE=LinuX;23022719]More ram and stick a new [B]gpu [/B]in there.[/QUOTE] Why the fuck would they need a new GPU? Reformat and get another gig of ram.
It's probably not worth it to upgrade the RAM to 2 1GB sticks. It's a pretty old system (DDR), and who knows when they will just get tired of it and buy a new one. All they use it for is web browsing, itunes, and email. It's not like the system is being overtaxed or anything either. One time I managed to get task manager open, and it was showing 5% CPU usage, and 700 MB of RAM left. Then tried to see the processes tab and it locked up.
don't upgrade it, not worth it
Okay, now I think I might have a more serious problem at hand. Ubuntu won't even boot. It gets stuck at the boot logo, and just goes to a flashing cursor. Well, I'll just put the hard drive in a different computer and backup there. This computer might be royally fucked. [editline]11:48AM[/editline] Okay, I took out the hard drive and put it in another computer so now that's backing up. But now when I started up Ubuntu, it works perfectly fine without the hard drive! I wonder if the hard drive is dying. As long as it lasts long enough to pull all their stuff off of it, I don't care.
Does your parents have any enemies that are smart? Someone could be botnetting it. Otherwise, it's probably a trojan or something. That's strange. When you take out the hard drive, it starts up perfectly? I don't see a reason that would change your start up..
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