danleff

Sorry if you took my posts the wrong way. Good luck.

Understood, but the point was as the Western Digital faq page noted for the product; Quote: There may not be enough power currently supplied to the machine's USB port. Most computer systems only supply 500mA of power through USB ports. The WD Passport hard drive requires a little over 1000mA of power at spin up. My point was that itś the power that the motherboard passes to the USB ports, not if it is an inexpensive system. A Google search will reveal that many have this problem. So, they admit that the product needs more power passed to the USB port than what many motherboards generally allow. They suggest that if Windows does not see the device properly, then this may be the issue. Hence, they suggest buying their external power supply for the drive. Also, since this thread started over a year ago, with other postings with the same problem before the patch you mentioned, it seemed to point toward a hardware issue. But, see what you find out and post any solutions. There are many nasty USB posts on this forum with windows XP.

Most likely the problem with this unit, is just what the manufacturer says (see my earlier posts), either the motherboard does not supply enough power to run the drive, or, like in Richie2066's case, he found a faulty/loose cable connection. Also, USB external hubs can be a problem for Windows. Kinda a catch 22. But, WD notes that they have an external poer supply that may solve the problem. Prearve also was told that he had a faulty drive by WD. He did not post if this solved the problem, but it could also be possible. I had one external drive that came with a dual USB cable. If plugged into the system with just one, the unit would not be recognized. If I used both and the unit was seen correctly by Windows. So, an issue with having enough power through the USB ports was the issue in this case. I have also seen an issue with front mounted USB (aux. ports) on some systems. Use the USB ports on the back of the computer (the ones directly connected to the motherboard) and the unit works. Also a power issue.

Sorry, but this would be unethical and probably illegal to help you run this commercial package by generating a key/serial number crack. You can always buy it for $19.99 from Nero. Any reason why you don't use a Linux based burning software? There are several good ones out there depending on the desktop and distro that you are running.

RedHat 9 is no longer supported and is quite old (circa 2003). Most likely you will have a good deal of trouble and spend a lot of time trying to run this flavor on the system, or finding "drivers" to run the wireless and bluetooth. You would have much better luck running a newer distro like Fedora 8 SuSE 10.2 or Ubuntu. This laptop has many configurations, can you post your system specs.?

There is never a need to settle for using the CD all the time. The issue is that folks decide to install Linux next to XP and allow Grub to overwrite the boot sector of the primary drive, then try to either just delete the Linux partition, or in the case above, remove the second drive that Linux was installed on. The problem with this, is that by just removing the partition or second drive, you remove the Grub reference files on the Linux partition to boot the system. The solution in these cases is to rebuld the MS MBR. The method depends on what version of Windows that you are using. XP and Vista have different methods of creating the MBR, thus different methods are used to recover the MBR.

Saw your thread on another forum about this here. Did you ask your neice if she tried to install any programs or what web sites that she visited? Sounds like you may have a boot sector virus, or she tried to install something that messed the system files. What make and model laptop is this? If it is a new one, the battery would be fine. ...and it worked fine before you let her use it?

Take a look at the post here from Hardware Central forums. This should provide you with the information that you need.

Generally, there is no need to update the bios unless you are having a specific problem. What problem are you having with the system? BTW, I only see version A11 for this model on the Dell website.

Your description does not match the general Compaq beep codes, as seen here. What model Compaq is this? Also, have you added any hardware, such as memory or a new video card? If so, try re-seating video or the memory. If you added memory, did you assure that you matched the memory correctly?

Take a look at this post on another forum that describes the issue and some possible solutions.

It would be helpful to know exactly what card that you have...model number and revision of the card, if possible. Some cards have support for Linux from the manufacturer, some need special packages (programs) to get them running, as the manufacturer's don't directly support Linux.

That depends on what distro (flavor of Linux) and version that you are using. Can you post what distro and version that you are using? There is generic support for Conexant chipsets from Linuxant but the distro may support the card if we may know what you are using. You may also want to read this article.

First realize that Dell's have a lot of proprietary hardware and may need some drivers installed to function correctly with all your hardware. When you say that Red Hat does not see the XP disk, do you mean that the cd does not boot, or that XP does not see the hard disk? XP can't see disks partitioned with Linux filesystems. You would need to use a Red Hat boot disk to re-partition the hard drive free of the Linux filesystem, then install XP. The other option is to use the hard drive manufacturer's utility to rid the drive of the Linux partitions. Then install XP. If the system is set to boot from the CD first and it does not do so, then there is another problem. Red Hat does not take over until the bios loads the actual bootloader.

Take a look at this article and see if it helps.

What happens when you run; sudo route add -net 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev eth0 Hmmm...Compaq proprietary hardware!

Did you uninstall the old drivers before installing the new card and then install the correct drivers for the new card?

Does this article help at all?

First, let me say that I have thought about this a lot, given your comments about using your neighbor's internet conenction. By doing so, he is probably in violation of the terms of use agreement with his ISP. So telling you how to do this would be unethical. That being said, I can offer some general comments. What we now know, is that you are using a wireless setup. In order to get wireless going you need to know what the chipset is on the wireless card that you have. Many manufacturers do not support Linux, so you need to use/find drivers for Linux, depending on your wireless chipset. Some support WPA outright, some do not. End of comments on this. You should use the wiki for Puppy to learn about using Linux, since that is the distro that you are using. Different distros have different support for hardware and ways of doing things. The saving settings issue depends on how you are using Puppy. The Live CD or a hard drive installation? If the former, did you save the settings on exit, as prompted, to your hard drive, or omit this process? Saving them on the screen using the Live CD of puppy is one thing which saves the settings for that session. Saving the session to the hard drive will allow you to use the Live CD again with the settings manitained, as Puppy looks for the saved setting file on the hard drive on your next boot.

Sounds like you did learn a lot! I'm a bit rusty on Ubuntu, but it looks like you have aquired an IP address. I wonder if there is a firewall issue. What I did find by googling, is that this version of Ubuntu had issues with this LAN card (Intel). The posts seem to indicate that using a newer version of Ubuntu seems to solve the issue. Apparently there are some issues with this version and that LAN card. So, this invalidates my comment about a patch not being needed! Unfortunately, there is no mention of a patch that I can find. Any chance in trying a newer version of Ubuntu?

Did you consult with your IT department before re-installing Windows to make sure that you had the correct settings for the proxy? Is this copy of Windows a corporate copy, or an image that has a corporate license? You do have 30 days to activate the installation. You will be prompted for the activation for 30 dats, then the system will disable itself if not activated. If you are installing a non valid copy of Windows (non licensed for that PC) this is how Microsoft prevents such copies from being used on PC's that it is not intended for (non-licensed copy for that environemnt).

It is unlikely that there was corruption in the installation disk, if Ubuntu installed all the way. Otherwise, it would not have allowed a complete installation. The problem is more likely how your connection is set up. Is this ISP's truely dynamic, or on all the time? Are you required to log into the connection? When you say that that the ISP rep. said that your settings are fine, what do you mean? What settings? Static or dynamic? If you are connected all the time, say by cable like RoadRunner or Verizon Fios, then you only need to set auto DHCP and allow the software to find a valid IP address. This assumes that the correct driver (module) is loaded at boot time. I don't use Ubuntu much, but you can also check the status of your settings (and if they are working) by typing into a console (terminal) window, the command; sudo ifconfig This will give you information about such things as if an IP address is set etc. What does that show? Many ISP providers don't know much about Linux and an easy out is to say that you may need a patch. Also, you can check to see if the module is working for the internal LAN card. It should work, from what I have read about this laptop, if the module (driver) is loaded automatically at boot time. I think your card may use the eepro100 module. You can use the command in a console sudo modprobe eepro100 to see if it is loaded. If you just get a return to the command prompt, then see if the connection works.

It's not really appropriate to give you a step-by-step guide here, but to point you to the resources to do so. There are a ton of resources out there to assist in this regard. Could you tell us a little more about your situation? 1. What distro (flavor) of Linux are you using, and what version? Fedora, Ubuntu...? Is your network at home, school work? Do you have permission to link to the "certain network"? For example, if ths is a school or work LAN, this is important. If so, then we can assist. Then we can guide you better by linking you to say a wiki page that is designed to give you such detailed information.

What exact address are you typing in for the router access? Do you have the computer configured for DHCP, as per the instructions? Are you connected to the router via an ethernet cable from your computer?

A little more specific information about the problem would help troubleshoot what is going on. Does the hang and reboot happen when the system is booting into the OS, or when you are in the OS and performing certain tasks (games, surfing the net....)? What exact OS are you running? Windows XP, Vista...? Is this a system that has been running fine for a while, or a new build? Any new hardware or software that has been installed recently?