" I know what i should do,"
Pretty much takes care of the situation.
But of course if you are just setting the table for some of the
low lifes to participate that's a different thing.
You can always bait a coupla trashmouths and get a hit or two.

How's that hook taste?

Similar to the one in your lip.

And you're asking me? If the foo chits wear it.

Treble hook snags two sculpins.

Dave,

were you there for that speech as well?

Sorry couldn't help myself....

Try to cross the border without getting caught?

Become a boxer?

I wasn't there when he spoke it but I did write it.

...feel sorry for you?

Maybe the old bitty is a tad smarter than you assume. She knew it could be fixed easily and now has a bug inside your home.

well Jesus answered me last night... i turned it off for the night after watching some videos, and seemed to work fine...

this morning tho, little bit different...

it started making the same F'd off noise it did when i first got it, its like a fan noise, which i thought thats what it was, but its not... i turned it on, and the blue screen came up (it took 8 minutes or so to even get to the blue screen)

error code 0x0000007b (0xF7B4A528,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)

wich, is a motherboard/hard drive issue... mother drives and hard drives are fairly cheap... well, a mother board would be, hard drive would require the re install of Windows XP, and its either 75 installed with no disk, or i buy the disk for 100+ dollars... hard drives are about 80 bucks for a 120 gig, and with this being a 30 gig, it will actually up grade it... i could even get a 60 gig for probably around 40 bucks..

so i will be into it about 150-200 bucks, i can do all the work myself as its fairly easy, so i wont need to pay some shop 50 dollars an hour to do something i can do...

so im gonna keep it... because Jesus just basically told me to...

but first, i will tell her what the issue is, and how much it will cost, as this was probably a 700 dollar computer, and 150 isnt much to fix it really... she may want to just fix it...


oh yeah, and to the smartass that said this was a cry me, attention post... i get enough attention already if you havent noticed, once again, i was just asking other members a question... if you would like, go back to not posting and stop reading what i type... oh wait, you cant do that, that would be stupid right? some peoples kids

anyways thanks guys, looks like i have another project on my hands...

It is easy to be cocky when you are clueless.

Work that "magic", redhook.

"MEASUREMENTS"... still cracks me up.

clueless? yeah ok...

i will still be fixing it, and it will still be cake... i ALMOST fixed it without spending a dime...

far from clueless...

also, if i wanted to, i probably could keep messing with it and get it to run again, but what would be the point if its just going to take it all away?

clueless....


yeah...

ok...

I didn't start this. You're the one talking yourself up about "working magic" and fixing a computer that is now still broken. Just sayin'.

You've managed to unite people on this board that wouldn't want to drink the same water.

i work plenty of magic... like when my dads 2200 dollar Toshiba crashed (we dont need to talk about "why")... and i took it to one of the computer shops down the street, and they said the hard drive was fried, and will never work again, and took 45 dollars from me, for doing nothing... then i had some work done on our big computer at another shop, and was talking to the guy there about the whole ordeal, i told him that i stopped system restart, and the code popped up... we tracked it down to a software issue, NOT a hardware issue that the other shop said it was, after taking my 45 bucks...

so i went home (and worked my "magic") and got the thing to fire up just fine... the problem was, is that the other shop had completely erased my entire HD...so i lost everything regardless... pictures of my dad, grandfather, great grandfather, jobs we did, ect... all because they were to lazy to stop the process and check the codes... oh well... i still need to get a OS disk for that one too, but im upgrading the HD from 80 Gigs to 160, so i havent done it yet...


and the last part of your comment... that was my whole intention... some of you guys need to loosen up, and stop being blatant dicks to each other, and have fun once in a while... its almost pathetic the way you treat each other... go ahead and do it to me, but be warned, you wont win, ive dealt with far worse... so your just wasting your time...

live, laugh, have some damn fun once in a while... change your tampon, or whatever you need to do, but just live life and enjoy it...


ahhh screw it, you aint gonna listen to me LOL...

You did make sure the drive was seated properly didn't you?

Late lunch today......

The 8600 is just a an older P4 running the mobile variant of that chip. It's good for a door stop and that's about it.

I wouldn't bother spending any time on it and I'd just donate it to one of the computer charity places. Take the write off on your taxes.

Or, sell it on ebay. I bet you'd get $50 for it. Maybe.

1. Run a hard drive diagnostic.
Take a look under the hood and see what make it is.....they all have their own free diagnostic utilities.
I believe that they are all on this free diagnostic disk...
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

2. If the HDD is declared physically OK after the diagnostic...
Some Dells have a "hidden" recovery partition. You'll have to Google around for the procedure.
It's there to recover the operating system after a fatal crash and restores the system to an "as shipped" condition. All personal data is lost, which doesn't matter in this case.
You can also ask the woman if she has any of the disks that came with this Dell.
(having these will simplify everything)

3. There should be a product key taped to the bottom of the lappy.
All you need to do is borrow an XP disk and input that product key at the prompt during the install.
Note:
The XP disk must be the same variant as the original, for example...
Chances are greatest that this machine was loaded with an OEM copy of XP Home.
The product key will identify variant and it will be an OEM copy (as opposed to Retail)

4. Cleanup.
After you get up and running with a generic XP disk you are also running on generic drivers.
Install security software and update drivers.
Recommend custom install (turn off what you don't need) of AntiVir for the best freebie AV solution.

Parker, this is a 20 inch model i believe, or 19 or whatever... when i was watching videos on youtube last night, it had better quality than my Toshiba Sattelite Pro laptop... but, its not a very good computer, you can tell by the quality of contsruction... picture wise, awesome tho... we have needed another laptop for a while, but i refuse to buy the 359 dollar Compaqs from Walmart and Target... i was figuring that i could fix this one (likely upgrade everything), and my GF can use it for her school (she will be entering the Nursing Program this summer)... we really dont have 1500 extra dollars to buy a nice laptop... i refuse to buy junk, but i will take what other people consider junk, and see if i can change that...

but i could just sell it like you said, and upgrade the Toshiba with the money...

DD, thats what i was planning on doing today, is cracking it open, and seeing whats going on in there, and if i can fix it or not... the lady gave us litterally everything, including the box it came in... all driver disks, photo programs disks, ect... but they dont come with the XP disk as its usually factory installed... and you are correct, it is XP Home... i think however, the Toshiba is XP Pro... my question is:

if i buy the Home, and upgrade the HD in the Toshiba, will i be able to use that disk for both computers, or is the system on the Toshiba not compatible with it? would i need to buy both OS disks?