From Mac to Microsoft OS...

I received a laptop from an individual who says the machine (basic level ACER) was partitioned and set up for a Mac OS. But now it's not booting at all.

Options?

 

That would be something we call a Hackintosh, and is not allowed by Apple's TOS.

As such, we cannot discuss it past putting Windows back on the machine.

 

That is actually exactly what I'd like.

I'm not a Mac fan and just need to get this to basic functionality.

 

Ok, what is the exact model and do you have any OS or recovery disks?

 

I have it in bios right now: Asus 1101HA Intel Atom 1.33Ghz 0.5 Gig RAM

It says it's running Chimera 1.11.1 but like I said, any Windows based platform is great but I really need it working is the key thing.

Thank BTW to any and all who drop in.

 

with just 1/2 gig of ram you're going to have a difficult time running any modern version of windows. You need to get that ram up to at least 1 Gig, preferably 2 gig.

 

lol I was thinking good ol XP might do the trick.

As far as the exact model I'm unsure, the stickers off the bottom are conveniently missing and there's nothing on the machine to indicate exactly what it is.

 

Oh, I just noticed that you're running an ATOM CPU. No, Windows will not run on that. Your best bet is to hunt down a system CD/DVD.

 

Think of trying to find drivers for this product. LAN-Wireless? It's got solid-state storage, maybe an SD card slot?

I wonder if Win98-SE (and that new unofficial SP3.31!) will run off an SD card? One of those super-slow PNY USB sticks? Win98-SE runs well on 256Mb, and 512Mb would make it run circles around Win95-B!

Fortunately, those drivers are mostly INF text files... get those model numbers and hack up some drivers that'd work... Office 98... Adobe Reader 4.4 (when reading a PDF only took 18k - ah, the good ol' days)...

So... what were those lite-Linux names again?

 

(Not that there's anything wrong with Win98-SE. Installation's a snap - copy the files to a drive, run SETUP and point it to C: and off it goes! It runs on a Dell Lat 610, and plays every DVD in our collection on its ATI 8k video system.)

 

Everything is wrong with 98se these days.

Impossible to find software and difficult to navigate the Web and have it display properly with very outdated browsers.

This might work better with a lightweight GNU/Linux OS.

 

What?

It came with XP. Of course Windows will run on it.

 

http://www.geteasypeasy.com

I've seen some netbook owners suggest this.

 

Ah. FOR YOU. For some of us, we know how to accomplish this. But for you, yes, I understand "everything is wrong". ha ha

As long as this comes with XP, then all driver issues are moot!

 

Not for me, everyone. It is not a matter of knowing how to accomplish this (do you honestly think I don't?), it is a matter of it being utterly useless and impossible to properly protect.

Despite me apparently not knowing how to do this, I actually did this very thing for a Dell Dimension desktop about a year ago. I formatted it, installed 98se, installed unofficial service packs. I had to network it with another PC after i spent a good hour finding the latest browsers and updates I could, which ended up being years out of date. Why did I have to network it, you might ask? Because its DVD player wouldn't read burned CDs. In addition, flash drives prompted the OS to look for drivers (which of course do not exist). Same thing with an external hard drive.

Is it doable? Sure. Worth it? Not even a little bit. The cons outweigh all the pros. Wait, what pros?

You will find almost no software for it. You are equally unlikely to have all drivers for the netbook considering it was designed for XP.

You are better off with GNU/Linux or the original XP at this point. GNU/Linux would have more available software than Windows 9x.

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2013/10/12-great-linux-operating-systems-for.html

 

A bit touchy, eh? Those limits are certainly showing themselves.

 

A bad suggestion is a bad suggestion, no matter how you propose it.

I am certainly not touchy, but I am not interested in your pot shots, including this one. Might I suggest you stop continuing to fire shots at me? The only limits I have are in the form of patience with those attacking me.

Thanks.

 

@Forge04, can you verify that the original XP recovery partition is no longer present?

See here on how to access it.

http://support.asus.com/Troubleshoo...0&m=Eee PC 1015E&s=1&hashedid=n/a&os=&no=1718

 

I have the Eee PC screen but nothing as far as F9.

 

F9 is a key on the keyboard, or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

Shut it off, turn it on, tap F9 until something (hopefully) shows up.

 

I apologize. I meant that when I hit the F9 key nothing happens.

 

At this point, you can contact ASUS for recovery media but will probably need an external optical drive to use it.

Alternately, there are some user friendly GNU/Linux distros out there.

 

Awesome. Again thank you for the help. I've actually gotten somewhere with it now, installed a Linux based OS and at least now can get to a menu and the web. So if I so choose I can get XP or what not.

Again, thanks.

 

Awesome. What distro did you try?

 

I found Crunchbang and it's working quite well. As I'm looking to get into the IT field I'm thinking I'm going to stick with a Linux based system to learn it. Ubuntu is pretty popular so I've gotten it downloaded now and will be trying to set it up later.

 

Crunchbang is fantastic. Good choice

 

Again thanks for the help.

If I may ask, are you an IT specialist in RL as well?

 

Kinda.

I have a Bachelor's degree in IT. I have several years of tech support under my belt, some QA, and some software development. I am trying to break away from the whole tech support thing and get solely into software development, but I am not having much luck yet. I have a couple small applications here on Majorgeeks, although most of what I do right now is proof of concept or code snippets. I also work with web development too.


Most of my tech support experience is with Windows despite me running OS X.
I develop mostly in Windows, though I also am branching out into Android and iOS.