On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 3:36 PM, Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Alan McKinnon wrote: >> >> Apparently, though unproven, at 00:01 on Tuesday 16 November 2010, Dale >> did >> opine thusly: >> >> >>> >>> OK. I took a nap and it seems everyone on the list wanted to chime in. >>> lol This is one reason I posted here. I knew I would get at least a >>> few replies. Just picking one to reply to so not pointing at Alan here. >>> >>> First, the drive is not full. It has about 30% or so left. I think the >>> virus broke something and I don't have the OS media to reinstall. If I >>> had my way, that puter would have Linux and a root password that only I >>> know. >>> >>> Second, it has not been kept up to date for sure. They are little kids, >>> oldest is getting about old enough to understand how to maintain things >>> tho. >>> >>> Third, I'm not going to go to to much trouble with this thing and trying >>> to get it back to shiny new. If it doesn't work to their liking, I'll >>> tell them to get a CD/DVD with the install on it or I can put Linux on >>> it for free. Let them decide. >>> >>> One post mentioned that this needs to be reinstalled, I AGREE. >>> >> >> Same here. I find this approach workable: >> >> Tell them the machine needs an OS re-install. They can pick >> >> Windows - which they will pay for >> Linux - it's free >> >> Either way they will lose their data. Give them that choice and let them >> decide for themselves. >> >> >> > > I'm just adding one option. Hope it works as is. They are kids. Even if > windoze won't boot, I'll put the drive in my system and copy anything > important over, pictures or something. Then they are left with the options > you gave. Because it is kids, they don't want to buy the OS. They will > break it anyway. lol Then again, if I reinstall it, they will still break > it. :/ They are kids and it is still windoze. > > I'm going to mention putting Linux on it tho. I can install Mandriva on it > pretty quick and just not give the kids the root password. They check > email, play those games on facebook and that is about it. The oldest one is > getting close to the age where she can start learning to upgrade too. > > This is like dating, time will tell. ;-) > > Dale > > :-) :-) > > Dale, I spent my day working on my big Gentoo box that has a 980x processor with 6 cores/12 threads. I only mention this because I was running 3 copies of Windows (2 XP and 1 Win 7) all day long in VMWare Player. If your kids just want to run a basic Windows then consider going that direction. I ran a numerical program all day long crunching numbers in a VMWare instance with 4 threads (Win XP), traded live in the market using TradeStation on a 2 thread machine (Win XP) and ran NetFlix Instant Watch in a 3rd machine (Win 7) with a single thread. Not a hiccup anywhere.
And remember, even though Windows breaks, AND IT DOES, I have backups of the 20GB VMWare disks so I can rollback 1 week in a matter of a few minutes if things go bad with Windows. The whole Windows installation is just a bunch of files. Restore that one directory and you're back in business. I play games in VMWare on Gentoo once in awhile. It's OK for me, probably not for my son looking for lots of 3D performance, etc. Also, I own and use SpinRite. If you want or need info get in touch off list. I like the program but it does have issues and it's not all that actively updated anymore. (From what I can tell...) Cheers, Mark I didn't have time to dig into my copy of SpinRite to reacquaint myself with that tool, but I've found it helpful. The problem is that for large modern drives its pretty slow as its testing features
