Whoops.... I've killed my friend's laptop

[Rats]

I'm sure you can get usb drivers you can run in dos. just shove one of them on a floppy

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Ah yes, but my plug to plug USB cable is in my ex-girlfriend's house, 200 miles away, and I don't really want to pop over there this afternoon.

[Rats]

OK, you can tell the highly strung german girl that it was all my fault if you like, tell her some of the other bad things I've done as well. I'll PM you my address.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

I'm not fully aware of all the other bad things you've done.

Perhaps you could summarise them in a list here....

[Duffy]

If you can somehow get the CDROM to be recognised, I've had great results using Knoppix to copy files from unbootable machines. Otherwise, that adaptor for the hard disk is your best bet, unless you happen to know someone with a laptop that's compatible with your friend's hard disk.

[Bernard]

Hang on, hang on. This "friend" of yours is clearly a pirate. Where is her Windows ME license and restore disk?

I'll tell you.

In her fucking booty.

[Duffy]

Not necessarily. Toshiba, for example, usually only ship restore discs which completely rebuild your laptop's OS. This process usually wipes out everything that was there before.

[Frinky]

And HP include thier restore stuff on a seperate partition on the HD. Though it never went wrong on me, that never struck me as a very clever idea.

[Duffy]

And of course the system can't see the CD drive anyway, so any such recovery discs would be of precisely nil use.

[EDIT] Hang on, that's not necessarily the case. Looking back, all it said was it couldn't find a boot record from the CD; maybe that was just beacuse there was no bootable CD loaded at the time. So, if your system can boot off the CD, I would highly recommend the Knoppix approach I alluded to earlier. I used this to recover files off my mate's unbootable laptop and it worked like a dream, despite the fact that the normal Windows recovery method failed:

- Download a distribution of Knoppix and burn it onto a CD;
- Put the CD into the dodgy laptop and power up;
- Knoppix boots completely from the CD without need to access the hard drive. Even if you're not a UNIX-head, the GUI is pretty easy to get your head around. The File Manager should be able to see all the hard drives, folders and files on the laptop, even NTFS partitions. Knoppix can open Word documents, play media files, the lot.
- You then need to configure the laptop with an IP address; just use something like 100.0.0.1;
- Get a crossover LAN cable and connect the laptop to another machine (doesn't have to be a PC; anything with a NIC and an IP stack will do);
- Configure that computer's IP address as 100.0.0.2;
- Use FTP to copy all needed files to the other machine.
- When you're happy that all the files are copied over and look OK, reinstall the OS on the laptop;
- Copy the files back by whatever method takes your fancy.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Wow, thanks Duffy... that's a pretty thorough response!

Hang on, hang on. This "friend" of yours is clearly a pirate. Where is her Windows ME license and restore disk?

I'll tell you.

In her fucking booty.

No, in her parents' atic... in Germany.

[Bernard]

Ok. Sorry. Not deeply though.

By the way, when I said booty, I meant as in pirate treasure chest, not street slang for her rear.

[The Man With Brass Eyes]

show her this thread.

[Baxter]

Keep meaning to tell her that you've totally fucked up her property but fail to find a good time to bring it up, you could even keep us updated i'm sure we all need another thread just like that.

[The Man With Brass Eyes]

you could even keep us updated i'm sure we all need another thread just like that.

the more the better.  no please.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

I think this thread is really rubbish so I'm going to post about how rubbish it is, bumping it up to the top, despite the fact Adrian hasn't posted to it for almost 24 hours.

[Baxter]

I think the fact that someone else has bumped an allready boring thread by commenting on how pointless it is, is quite basically silly infact I feel so strongly about it i'm going to bump it myself.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

I think this thread is really rubbish so I'm going to post about how rubbish it is, bumping it up to the top, despite the fact Adrian hasn't posted to it for almost 24 hours.

Well, it was Sunday yesterday and it was sunny.... and I'm back at work today. I can't spend all my time in these forums!

[El Unicornio, mang]

I had a problem similar to this and ended up having to fix the boot.ini file using System Recovery. Don't know if that would fix your problem.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Thanks... it's on my list of things to try.

[untitled_london]

look!

just tell the girl that this laptop just isn't gonna work for you.
sorry, but you tried, its not her, its you.

its not that you didn't want it to work, but that you couldn't make it work.

(sorry)

[Cerys]

Grow up, you lot.

giggle

[Dark Sky]

Whilst on the topic of pointless problems which no-one can really do anything about...

Anyone know how to cover up a hole burnt into cheap carpet by the rather foolish action of placing an iron face down onto it "just for a second" in such a way that it won't be noticed by the housing agency and I won't lose my deposit?

Anyone?

[Dusty Gozongas]

Anyone know how to cover up a hole burnt into cheap carpet by the rather foolish action of placing an iron face down onto it "just for a second"?

Glue an iron over said dark patch and write "1 Ton" on it with a magic marker.

[Cerys]

Find a patch of carpet that's covered by something which is rarely or never moved.  Cut out a patch large enough to substitute for the damaged bit, and swap them.  In the event of your subterfuge being discovered, deny everything.

[ccab]

Embroider it with "Housing Association are Ace" motif.

[Lewis]

Anyone know how to cover up a hole burnt into cheap carpet by the rather foolish action of placing an iron face down onto it "just for a second" in such a way that it won't be noticed by the housing agency and I won't lose my deposit?

Buy a shit old rug from a second hand shop and place it over the carpet hole... it worked for me! I also bought some 'art' and 'accidentally' left it on my old living room wall, which just happened to cover a load of dart holes, I'm guessing the housing agency didn't do a thorough search.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Oh dear, that old problem! A friend of mine from South Africa once did exactly that while attempting to iron a shirt without an ironing board in one of the guest bedrooms.

They handled it by never inviting this friend back and re-carpeting the whole of upstairs.

[George]

Buy a stuffed cat caught in mummified sleep and nail it over the burnt patch. Tell them it's bad luck to move a sleeping cat. Oh yes it is.

[The Man With Brass Eyes]

Buy a stuffed cat caught in mummified sleep and nail it over the burnt patch. Tell them it's bad luck to move a sleeping cat. Oh yes it is.

forge the Egyptian scrolls to make it all the more credible.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Anyone know how to cover up a hole burnt into cheap carpet by the rather foolish action of placing an iron face down onto it "just for a second" in such a way that it won't be noticed by the housing agency and I won't lose my deposit?

Buy a shit old rug from a second hand shop and place it over the carpet hole... it worked for me!

It also worked for my new landlord - I didnt think to move the rugby the kitchen to find the iron-shaped silhouette burned there - although it had clearly been left there for more than 'a few seconds'. Not that I care of course, plenty of rugs and its rented anyway.