I was very proud my laptop computer, it did all the stuff I needed (mostly) and best of all cost less than £100. It was an old Dell C640 originally running MS Windows 2000, but last year, I upgraded to MS Windows XP.
Yesterday, it let me down. I shut the computer down the night before as usual, but in the morning switched on to find the hard disk “missing”. I opened the drive bay and found the hard drive where I’d left it the night before. I rebooted a couple of times before removing the drive, installing it in a USB caddy and connecting it to another computer.
I managed to recover the data partition but something had gone badly wrong with the Windows OS partition. I copied the data off to the other computer and went off to find the Windows XP media. Refitting the hard disk drive, I restarted the computer, booted from CD and waited for the recovery console to appear.
I had planned to try repairing the Boot Sector and Master Boot Record (MBR) from the recovery console. However, the console would not load. I disconnected the disk and booted from the CD and setup loaded, but then complained that I had no hard disk to install on!
The problem appeared intractable. I loaded up a Ubuntu DVD which worked fine both without the disk and with it. I even tried another copy of the Windows XP media. Armed with the knowledge that I could potentially flatten the laptop and start again, I decided perhaps that a new laptop was a good idea and I would install Ubuntu or similar Linux distro on the C640. A quick trip to PC World and I am the prod owner of a Lenovo G580 (Core i3, Windows 8). Despite the mixed reviews on the web, it fitted my budget and the need to get a laptop up and running quickly.
Reinstating my data and applications will no doubt throw up a few issues, so I’ll record a few things here just in case I need them again!
allincircles 