One person's trash....

[Mageslayer]

My grandmother was allowing two computers to sit around and collect dust. I asked if I could take them and see what I could do with them, figuring at the very least it could be a learning experience. I'm pretty sure both have less than 1GB hard drives. They're old as the earth itself, but like I said, all I really want to do is learn from them. I have a windows98 disc to install but am thinking about looking into Linux as I really know nothing about it. The only one of the two that I've turned on (as there's only one monitor between the both of the computers) gives me a hard disc error so I figured I'd at least try formatting it. After I format it, how do I change the boot order so I can boot it off of the 98 install disc? Thanks in advance.

[evza134]

When you start up there should be a key that you an press to get to the setup menu. (it will be something like f3)
Once you do use the arrows to navigate to some thing like boot order then set it so the floppy boots first.

[Mageslayer]

Thanks. I found it, however, the computer's rubbish. I quit.

[loup]

wow, you appear to have given up on your project kind of quickly. In what way is the computer rubbish? is the hard drive not working? is it that it's just a lot slower and older than you thought it would be?

A very old computer can still provide some valuable learning experience with linux. A lot of the more popular distros will actually have trouble running quickly on really old computers, but you could always try something like damnsmalllinux.org

If it's not working, you do have two computers, try figuring out which parts are at fault and swap them between computers, see what kinds of results you get.

Be careful though and unplug the computer when you're swapping parts

[Mageslayer]

Well, I got to the point where it tried to install windows, but as soon as it said "copying necessary files from cd" it suddenly bugged out and all kinds of random characters appeared on the screen. I thought maybe it was still loading, so I went, ate, played my psp and came back in an hour only to find the screen still messed up. I tried it once more with the same results.

I thought that maybe the hard drive was beyond repair so I unplugged the computer, opened up the case and took a look inside. I had a 4GB laptop HD laying around from a previous failed attempt to find out what makes a computer tick and I wanted to see if it would fit. I had heard that laptop HDs weren't able to be used in desktops but I wanted to see anyway.

I disconnected the HD, looked at the connection and found out (as expected) that my laptop HD wouldn't fit. I replaced the orginal HD and plugged the computer back in. I turned it on only to find that it wouldn't boot. After grumbling and WTFing for a few minutes, I looked inside the computer again. The connections to the drives were these gray... things, they're hard to describe and I don't know the name of them but 'll try. They look like a bunch of wires lined up in a row encased in gray plastic that's soft enough to be able to move. On each end and on some parts in the middle are these little black things that connect to the drives or to the inside of the computer itself. There are two types of these "connectors," one that fits a bunch of prongs in it (used to connect my CD drive, hard drive and if I remember correctly my 3.5 inch floppy drive) and one that you insert a single piece into (this is how my 5.5 inch floppy drive connects). The connections are labeled as follows with (p) marking a connection for prongs and - representing the gray wiry thing:

[(p)no label]--------[(p)b]----[a]----[(p)a]

There's also another one of these where the prong section is a bit wider, the wide one being for my CD drive and my HD. It looks like this:

[(p)no label]----[(p)no label]----[(p)no label]
I hope that makes sense....

Anyway, because I had given up I disconnected all of my drives and decided that if I figured this out, I'd untwist the grey wire thing, as it was twisted to all hell. Inspiration struck again at 5:30. Not having slept at all, I decided to try it again. No luck there, as no matter where I connected what the computer just did not want to boot. I'm assuming that in my stupidity I still haven't hooked everything back where it was.

Also the other computer won't even hook up to the monitor I have.... Grr.

[loup]

failure durring an OS install tends to point to either bad memory or a bad motherboard. As the memory is easier to replace, try swapping that out. Also, if the computers are really old there is a chance that there is a lot of built up dust inside the case, you can try vacuuming it out or blowing it out with compressed air. It is possible for dust to cause problems, so getting as much out as possible is a good thing. if you use a vacuum, be careful not to bump into things on the motherboard with the hose.

The grey ribbon cable you described is called an IDE cable, you can use it to connect hard drives and optical drives (as it seems you already knew.) a 3.5in floppy drive actually uses a slightly smaller, but similar cable. You could try replacing this cable too if the old one was in pretty bad shape.

[atari2600a]

As previously stated, the random characters might be a mobo &/or memory problem, but check to see if the CD is dirty or scratched up. When installing the IDE cables, make sure the red line is facing the molex power connector on the drive. (this might not always be the case for floppy drives)

Connect the drive with the connector on the IDE cable that's in the middle. (the middle one is Master, the end one is slave)

Can you tell me what type of CPU this is (sounds like a 486DX or something similar), & how much memory it has?

[timmeh87]

2.5" laptop hard drives are pin-compatible with the larger 3.5" desktop ones, you just need a $5 adapter to make the connector bigger.

[dman762000]

how long have the pc's been sitting around cause it could be that the cmos has gone bad due to bad battery

[atari2600a]

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that one! REPLACE THE BATTERIES! You wouldn't want them to leak on your mobo's!