On Saturday 10 April 2004 06:11 pm, you wrote: branded systems... espaically compaq are designed for 1or2 Os's. when u go outside what they are designed you may well have difficulties. driver issues, etc. i have a compaq, and i moved it from xp home to pro. yes that was a problem. i worked in a compaq shop 4 a couple yrs and understand your woes. you could install win95 sr2 which supports fat32 and usb, but the usb module will let you down from time to time as it was badly written. install win98 and you have difficulty getting drivers. (spec the devices thr device mgr (win95) and search for them. ofcourse... you will have to load the drivers manually whether it b win98 or linux. neither os will pick the pcmcia cards (windows may and linux may thr scan tools but not a garantee). i agree with the below comments. flash bios, do unconditionally format aswell. i cant see why would have a prob with win95sr2, win98 or linux... u might just have to jump thr some hoops... (do some execise). win98 you'll have to install devices manually thr its graphical interface or linux some hard-core topic searching will determine you device installation method, whether you configure them at the terminal or use graphical tools. my linux method is to whack on an old external modem, maunally config it, and jump on the net and download the drivers and tools i require. hope this helps... ps. if you would like further info we have corparate compaq partnership at work giving us access to additional repair agent info, you will notice compaq doesn list drivers... only if they have changed.. std compaq support does blow.
Download the ROMpaq's and the Softpaq's, reinstall with windows 98 se, run windowsupdate behind a firewall, defrag the disk and give it back to them.
I was in the same situation with a very similar laptop not so long again, if you put linux on it you're only opening yourself up to a myriad of problems and endless free technical support.
As a second thought, tell them that the laptop is practically worthless, and that it's becoming a burden to support and that they should probably get a machine thats more capable. People don't factor in the increased 'support' when using older machines if they can get support for free.
Pick your fights..etc.
James ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Pearce" <g_and_s_pearce(a)xtra.co.nz> To: <wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz> Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 6:11 PM Subject: [wlug] compaq armada 1592
Someone unkindly hoisted this on me to get going!
It came with win95 on the disk and 2 pcmcia modems .. us botics xejm3336 and a 3com device ..
Anyway .. I got the damn thing working under win 95 for internet stuff ..
then he went and bought a usb printer
for which there was no win95 driver
_______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug