On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:22:46 -0600, OSIRIS wrote:
Hi all
I have a Compaq Presario SR1150NX belonging to a friend. I just set up
a new PC for him, so he's OK, but I suggested that I try to fix up his
old one so he could use it as a spare at his office.
It has Windows XP, but so many people have tried to "help" over the time
he's owned it that it's loaded down with, not only the bloatware that
HP/Compaq puts on, but also a couple of dozen freeware/shareware things
and some programs of suspicious lineage wink nudge. Anyway it would
be faster to do a fresh install rather than try to clean up up all this
crap.
Question: Do these machines come with a restore partition, the way
laptops come these days; or do I require some sort of a rescue disk?
If it's a restore partition, how do I "trigger" it?
If it's a disk, what would it be called, so my friend could search his
office for it?
Thanks.
* * *
OSIRIS,
Use the free Dban to wipe the system!! Please remember it will wipe any
hard drive attached to the system - Flash memory sticks, including USB
and sometimes networked hard drives...
http://majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?
lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=426016&docname= bph07145#
If you have a generic Winxp disk install with that one in violation of
Microsoft rules, using the COA serial number attached to the case...
I have one of these computers that the motherboard failed, it was to
expensive on ebay, or there were no replacements. I replaced it with a
$33 GeForce 6100 Motherboard, AMD 140 single core processor combo that
was on sale in my local computer store.
I installed 2 Gigs of ebay Used DDR2 6400 memory and put a $25 re-
certified 500 gig Sata hard drive in the system.
$ 33 - CPU & Motherboard combo
$ 25 - WD 500GB hard drive
$ 30 - Kingston DDR2 PC6400 memory (2x1GB)
$ 19 - Raidmax Power Supply
$107 and I installed a 64-bit version of Mepis 8.0.15 Linux operating
system and the system is purring happily in an older neighbor home down
the road. Not having windows in this system insures she will not have
malware or infections or clean the system and do all the maintenance to
use her e-mail, banking, youtube, flickr and other web surfing she may
want to check out, or accidentally opens in a spam e-mail ...
She recently got a 32 inch 1080P TV she uses for her monitor
I did add SMplayer/XBMC Player for DVD movies she watches in bed, and the
free Gimp she is learning to use. She is experimenting with the photo
editing she and a neighbor lady are taking with a inexpensive Digital
camera.
She has a HP 4280 printer her son gave her that installed hooking it to
the computer, no drivers were needed. Best of all she has learned to
scan using gimp, crop and adjust color and make greeting cards with the
latest free Open office software.
A Linux operating system installation needs little support. I find it
easier for the older computer users, they do not need to remember or
spend the time to do all the scanning, and viral package updates required
for a older Microsoft operating system...
If the hard ware works, install Linux. Try one or a dozen different
Distros until you find one you like and install that one, play and
experiment using liveCDs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD
I use a Xfce window manager on my 64-bit version of Mepis 8.0.15, and a
very quick AntiX distro with all the KDE tools installed. But any of the
top 100 listed on
http://distrowatch.com/ should be easy to experiment
with on this hardware, (lower left side of the web page)...
My 2 cents
JR the postman