pc N00b trying to sort out an old fujitsu

johnny-fatality

Hello,

I've got my hands on an old Fujitsu - Siemens Esprimo Mobile laptop and would like to clean it all out and see if it can be made into a rehabilitated member of society - just for basic internet use, docs etc.

Problems -

.It's battery seems to last 80 seconds then turns off. Won't start up again unless plugged in.

.When plugged in, it will just restart or turn off of its own accord, during use, every 2 hours or so.

.Its previous owner has a dodgy trial version of Win7 OS on it, as well as it being full of torrented albums and general bric a brac. It has a celeron processor and came with windows vista pre installed. I'd almost like to put XP Pro on it tbh, call me old fashioned.

.I want to backup stuff for him onto DVD but it says that write speed of blank dvd is not fast enough for it to work (write speed is 2x, and laptop says it supports 1-16x i think)


Any advice? Is it un saveable? I'm not going to plug much cash into it, would just like to reinstall a different OS. Battery problem is my main concern, and dvd backup obviously.

Thanks!

jumbone

That sounds like an enterprise evaluation edition of windows.

It's perfectly legal but only lasts 90 days after that it will shut down every hour

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee388361 wrote:

Q: When does the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial expire?
A: Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial is valid for 90 days after activation. After expiration, your computer will shut down every hour.

If you press start type "Command Prompt", right click it and select "Run as Administrator" and say yes/OK to any User Account Control prompts.

Type "slmgr -rearm" without quotation marks.

This will reset the trial timer and you'll have another 3 months which should be plenty of time for you to sort out the other problems.

If you are having trouble burning, look up your DVD drive in the device manager and try find new drivers, it's probably trying to use the built in windows 7 drivers. Maybe even install a trial or demo of a software like Nero or Roxio as that may install any drivers/layers you need.

Windows 7 with aero switched off is as quick as XP on most old hardware, both of which will be faster than vista so unless you are going to reuse an existing licence maybe stick with Windows 7.

If you never want to bring it back to vista, you'll get a bit of hard drive space back if you delete the restore partition.

Try borrow an external hard drive and you'll have the backup done in an hour

mp22

Battery 60-70 euro,a usb key might be the way to go for backing up files ect.

johnny-fatality

jumbone wrote: »

That sounds like an enterprise evaluation edition of windows.

It's perfectly legal but only lasts 90 days after that it will shut down every hour

Hm. I think it could be, but it hasn't stopped working in the year or so since it was installed - it just says to buy a 'genuine copy' every time it boots, then if you click Ok it proceeds as normal.

If I type that into the command prompt maybe that little hurdle might go away though.

As for dvd writing - I'll try the freeware option and see what happens.

Backup - I'd prefer dvd r's just for the ability to give them to the lad who I got the laptop off, I'm most probably going to keep them in storage here for a good while before I see him.

Last thing - how do I delete the vista partition? Do I need some sort of OS CD?

mp22 wrote: »

Battery 60-70 euro,a usb key might be the way to go for backing up files ect.

I don't think I'm going to invest money into the battery until/ if I get everything else sorted - the fact that it shuts off when plugged in is my main worrying point.

Also, it's about 12gb I'd like to backup - USB logistics won't suit me for this particular job.


Cheers for the replies.

FSL

You can get 16GB usb sticks for a reasonable price. http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=112221

I'd back up his data and install a lightweight Linux distro on it. If you are only using it for browsing, emails, playing music/videos and word processing, then all that and more is freely available.

p.s. give it a good clean to remove any dust etc blocking the ventilation.

Allyall

I have an old Esprimo Mobile i just cleaned up. Scrubbed Vista off it, Installed a pared down version of XP on it using nLite and it's working great.

XP drivers weren't so easy to find, but i searched via the hardware.

If you aren't sure how to use nLite, there's a nice tutorial HERE.

Is the laptop blue screening, before shutting down?

Or is it shutting down when the battery is not inserted?

Update BIOS and chipset, and try it..

johnny-fatality

FSL wrote: »

You can get 16GB usb sticks for a reasonable price. http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=112221

I'd back up his data and install a lightweight Linux distro on it. If you are only using it for browsing, emails, playing music/videos and word processing, then all that and more is freely available.

p.s. give it a good clean to remove any dust etc blocking the ventilation.

I presume to install Linux I just get an OS Cd and boot from Cd? If not, how do I go about it?

Good call on cleaning vent. Hadn't even crossed my mind!

Allyall wrote: »

I have an old Esprimo Mobile i just cleaned up. Scrubbed Vista off it, Installed a pared down version of XP on it using nLite and it's working great.


Is the laptop blue screening, before shutting down?

Or is it shutting down when the battery is not inserted?

Update BIOS and chipset, and try it..

Hmm. It's got 7 on it but originally Vista like I said.. Where does that leave me?

Bluscreen - nope.

I'll take out battery and see if it restarts/shuts down by itself. Tried watching a film on it last night and it self restarted 90 mins in.

Update BUOS and chipset - I've heard these terms before, but have absolutely no idea how to go about that!

Thanks!

FSL

You can boot from a USB stick if the BIOS supports booting from USB.

I find YUMI from Pendrivelinux works perfectly. There are versions for Windows, Linux and Macs.

johnny-fatality

FSL wrote: »

You can boot from a USB stick if the BIOS supports booting from USB.

I find YUMI from Pendrivelinux works perfectly. There are versions for Windows, Linux and Macs.

I just looked it up. Not sure if laptop can boot from usb, will have a gawk when I'm home.
It seems a bit unclear on the YUMI site - do I need the usb every time I start up the computer? I presume not but the site as I said is a bit ambiguous.

Does it completely wipe the current OS, as well as all files on it?

Sorry for these maybe obvious questions, like I said I'm not the most knowledgable.

FSL

You can just run any Live distro from the USB. You are able to access your hard drive and if needed copy data to another USB or even the same USB.

You don't need to install onto your hard drive unless you choose to do so.

The big advantage of a multiboot USB stick is you can try out a variety of distros without installing them on your hard drive or without burning a host of CDs. The other advantage is you can include AV and rescue tools on it.

Depending on the Motherboard/Bios it will depend whether the USB is recognised as a USB or a hard drive.

I have a 16GB multiboot USB stick. On my laptops it is recognised as a USB. On my main desktop it shows up under hard drives.