Case mod for old Laptop

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:26 pm

Ok, so I got this laptop at a thrift store the other day for $7. Other than the completely dead battery (9.6v NiMH pack reading 1.5v is dead), its in pretty good shape. So after trying to sell it here and deciding I wanted to keep it, I ripped the poor sucker apart. Then the power adapter for it decided to die or something, but I found out that it takes 12v through the contacts meant for the battery very well.
Well, the old case has seen better days, some of the hinge stuff was bent, so I want to give it a new home. I was thinking of something like those metal cases for DS and PSP, and leaving it a laptop with a couple sealed lead acid batteries under it for power. Another idea was making it into a tablet PC, which would be cool, but I don't think DOS can use touchscreens and the viewing angle for the screen is kinda bad. I was thinking of building it into a desktop, too.
So what are your ideas for it? And does anyone know if it can run Windows 95 (i486 processor; I don't want to take that part apart again to see the specific model, the motherboard is connected by a ribbon I can't unplug, 12MB ram, I think a 120MB hard drive)?

Post by **Triton** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:39 pm

should run windows 95 just fine, dont know why it wouldnt. i think a tablet type thing would be sweet

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:54 pm

You should be able to run 95 without a hitch, though 98 would be more useful. (Yes it will run. It will be slow but it will run. As far as I know XP is the first consumer version of Windows that requires a Pentium.)

Aside from word processing and DOS games it's pretty useless.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:25 pm

bicostp wrote:You should be able to run 95 without a hitch, though 98 would be more useful. (Yes it will run. It will be slow but it will run. As far as I know XP is the first consumer version of Windows that requires a Pentium.)

Aside from word processing and DOS games it's pretty useless.

So are you saying DOS is useless, or the laptop no matter what OS it has? Hey, it was $7! Thats why I want to make it look cool, to make up for its uselessness.

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:31 pm

ahh.. nice. i have an old toshiba satellite that i got for free. i built my mp3 player into it. its pretty cool

Edutainment · Post by **Edutainment** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:01 pm

I'd just spray paint it like in Hackers

Although that's not much of a mod.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:15 pm

How would I install Windows 95 or 98 without a CD drive or any way of moving large amounts of data? Take the hard drive out, install with it in another computer, and put it back in for the restart to load the correct drivers?

EDIT:, Nevermind, Google answered me.

Post by **Triton** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:25 pm

or use floppy version of win95 lol

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:37 pm

Triton wrote:or use floppy version of win95 lol

Yeah, that'll only take a few days to copy over.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:49 pm

Took about 4 hours from memory.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:19 pm

vskid wrote:
Triton wrote:or use floppy version of win95 lol
Yeah, that'll only take a few days to copy over.

You're thinking 98, 95 should take very long. In fact I think I have a copy of that on floppy and it's something like 24 or 25 floppies, could be wrong I never touch the thing. CDs 4 the win!

I have a old laptop that isn't that much more advanced then what you have. The only thing I though of doing was un-portablizing it... if such a word exsists. Namely removing the screen, putting it in a more ventilated case, and making the PCMCIA card slots more easily accessible. But the damn thing serves a greater purpose for now... I use it for notes during lectures and it's old enough why bother stealing it?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:37 pm

Sparkfist wrote:I use it for notes during lectures and it's old enough why bother stealing it?

Thats one of the reasons it would be cool (or uncool, to everyone else).
I think I'll do a mix between a laptop, desktop, and tablet. For laptop/desktop mode, keyboard slides out the bottom at 90 degrees to the screen. For tablet mode, the keyboard is slid into its spot, and its a tablet (duh).
Here is a side view of my concept. Don't make fun of it, I made it with Paint.NET.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:09 pm

Ok, I need help getting the laptop to boot from a different hard drive.
I put the 95 files on a 4GB laptop hard drive via UBS, but the laptop won't boot from it. I even made a DOS boot floppy and copied the files to the hard drive (after removing 95 files) and it still wouldn't boot. It doesn't even try the floppy when the hard drive is plugged in, but the floppy works without the drive. I think the original hard drive is formatted in FAT, the 4GB is FAT32, but XP won't let me format it as FAT. Is that the problem?

paul4990 · Post by **paul4990** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:37 pm

some older boioses only read fat16 so you would need to patition it into 2x2gb or get a 2gig drive, how big is the old drive?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:49 pm

paul4990 wrote:some older boioses only read fat16 so you would need to patition it into 2x2gb or get a 2gig drive, how big is the old drive?

I love you (in a not gay way). I tried the 2GB partition and it allowed me to format in FAT. I thought it supported 4GB, but I guess not. I'll edit this post when I find out if it works.

EDIT: Crap didn't work, with or without the DOS startup files (with 95 files on both times though, if thats the problem).