Posted on 11/18/2013 5:19:19 AM PST by raybbr
Hello to all you techies, geeks and lurkers.
I've got an older Lenovo laptop (3000 N100) that crashed for the second time in a month. It was definitely software related. Had W-XP preloaded by Lenovo. It's been running slow lately so I thought this would be a good time to Linux on it.
My sons use it for home schooling. I don't need it to do much other than surf the web and play some flash videos.
Lenovo has this thing called Lenovo Care that is installed on the LT. Does anyone know where this resides? I can't find anything in the BIOS and it still comes up without a hard drive installed.
What happened is the Lenovo Care (LC) function would come up and the LT would keep rebooting.
I put the recovery discs in and it starts the process but I would really like to get rid of LC and use the LT without it using Mint if I can. When the original disks get to a certain point it comes up with a fault. I can't remember what it is but it stops the process. I believe it has to do with hardware and the fact that the original DVD is not in there.
I pulled the hard drive out and reformatted to NTFS on another LT. It's and 80G that shows 74.5G available after formatting. I've run several tests on the HD and all come up good.
I have no internal DVD drive. I am using an external drive and the BIOS sees it and connects okay.
I put the HD into the Lenovo and boot. The screen comes up saying "No operating system found". Okay, I put an XP disc in and it tries to boot. It still shows no operating system. I tried the Linux Mint disc - same result.
I think the problem is with the LC. It still shows up during the boot process. Is it possible that it resides in some hardware and is the default boot. I can't find very much on Lenovo's site about the inner workings of LC.
I now have a LT that is working okay other than an OS. All the hardware seems to be doing its job but I can't get an OS on it.
Any help would be appreciated.
Tech help ping.
There’s a list I’ll provide below...but Linux is a hardy system - but the laptop may just be outfight gone...they produce a lot of heat in tight quarters...you may have to look for a replacement hard drive and then load the free Linux OS on to it making sure the memory is good to go as well...Laptops can last a long time if properly maintained - but, like all computers - heat = death eventually.
oh - also completely wipe the drive using Darik’s Boot And Nuke
Then change the Boot order to DVD or CD drive - and try loading Linux OS in a clean install...
The hard drive is okay. I’ve had it out and tested and formatted.
do you or anyone you know have a bootable USB of Linux?
My HDD failed last year and I got a new one. I put Ubuntu on it and I am happy with it.
I burned the Mint Iso to a disk. I tried using that. I thought it would automatically try to load.
It shows up with no hard drive in it. And, the Lenovo Care button still works. It calls up a selection screen that gives four options to boot. None of them work. Still get "Operating System Not Found".
Already done that.
Turn it on.
you might look at the RAM
I had a 2003 HP XP laptop that kept rebooting
so old it has serial, parallel (!) and 3.5” floppy, IR, etc, i wanted to keep it alive as a relic for those old school interfaces. maybe use as an air-gapped device
but it kept rebooting. or locking up in BIOS (before “Windows” load screen bmp appeared.)
No POST beeps, by the way.
HDD checked out
swapped slots on the 2 dimms
was ok at first, then problem recurred
pulled the dimms one at a time.
ran full mem tests
One dimm was intermittently throwing errors
I just stopped using it but had decided that I could get get replacement dimms at Newegg for about $50.
might try a ham /pc fest if one’s near you to pick up some out-style dimms
I guess that would depend on the boot order, but if the rest of them could not be booted it should have tried. Do external DVD drives not work for a bootable drive?
The LT boots. It could be the RAM - didn’t think of that. But, it seems like it’s okay. Boot screen shows RAM okay. BIOS shows RAM okay. It’s a thought.
Depends on the bios. I've got a couple of HP servers that boot just fine off of external DVDs.
/johnny
On some machines, there will be a boot selection you will need to do to get it to boot to some other media, including the CD-rom drive. This is completely separate from selecting the boot order in the BIOS.
Most often, it’s the F10 key, although I think the Lenovo may use F12 for the Boot menu. Click F12 while it’s still doing the POST, select the CD/DVD, then space bar to boot from the external disk.
Mint will need to re-do the partition schema, so if it doesn’t see any available drive space on your NTFS formatted drive, you may need to tell it delete the old partition and use all available space after that.
Good luck.
The POST test for RAM is perfunctory. Your problem with not being able to boot to the external CD/DVDdrive isn’t RAM related.
Of this, I am positive.
Now... If you are having crashes once you get a os install program up and running... Then you might have other issues. Including proc and/or memory.
Yep. Did that. It seems as if it's accessing the DVD but still says No OS.
Mint will need to re-do the partition schema, so if it doesn’t see any available drive space on your NTFS formatted drive, you may need to tell it delete the old partition and use all available space after that.
If I could get that far I'd be happy. :(
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