[Novalug] EeMachine mini tower EL1200-05w anyone ever put linux on one?

James Ewing Cottrell 3rd JECottrell3@Comcast.NET
Mon Jul 30 14:04:14 EDT 2012


On 7/28/2012 10:57 PM, Bonnie Dalzell wrote:
> I have a friend who is interested in computers but just learning about
> them in detail who has 4 or 5 windows machines with OS problems - in
> some cases blue screen of death, but in the case of the eMachine
> el1200-05w it is failure of windoze to boot because of a  corrupt
> hall.dll file for its windows xp home install.

I have seen this before. Attempts to replace it with a similar one from 
another one usually fail. I take this as a sign to Reinstall.

> This machine was made in 2008 and purchased from walmart and of course
> there is no actual windoze xp home install disk available for it.

I have found that the best way to get a Complete Working copy is to find 
a Reinstallation CD (XP Pro SP3) from Dell...you can usually pick up a 
few from Work...then google for "Stupid Productions XP Activation 
Crack", download and run that.

> so i thought - let us put linux on it.
>
> so after i booted it with a mint live cd it seemed to run ok for 5 or 10
> minutes and then came up with a strange screen that looked like it was
> paved with tiny white bricks. (thas was a mint live xfce cd) so then i
> tried an ubuntu live cd - same result - ran ok for a while then the
> strange graphic mess up.

Sounds like a Hardware Problem. Removing and Reseating the boards and 
cables may help, but may not.

I like Jay's suggestion about a New Battery.

> then i google about installing linux on that model of eMachine. several
> reports on the weird graphics, some discussion that maby the nvidia
> drivers were housed in flash memory and even a discussion from someone
> with windoze on the thing announcing that they also had the weird screen
> of white bricks effect.

Windows more likely than Linux. Linux tends to ignore the BIOS as soon 
as it can.

> i removed the harddrive and mounted it in a linux computer and got
> all her personal files and photos off and put the on a DVD for her.

Good Move.

> i read about fixing this problem by using wine and expand to move a
> hal.dll file from a windows install disk to overwrite the damaged file on
> the system disk and tried that using a windows xp upgrade disk that I
> have.
>
> did not work to get the thing to boot into windoze when I put the
> harddrive back into it.

See earlier comment about HAL.

> grrrrrrrr
>
> this was a $400 computer new from walmart but did not come with an
> official windoze xp install disk.

Or a Recovery one?

> neither I nor my friend have a installable copy of windoze xp so it cannot
> be restored to window hood unless we find some one with a source disk.

You may be able to get on from the original Vendor by providing the 
License Key for about $20 or so.

> i ran memtest from the linux cd. memory seems fine. my hardrive health
> feature on the linux computer I mounted it on says the harddrive is
> healthy.
>
> so it appears the choices are
> (0) use it as a paper weight

Or perhaps Dog Chew Toy?

> (1) pay a store a $99 service fee to get windoze working again - but then
> as she says she could have the same problem the next time some eletrical
> surge damages the hal.dll file (which according to the googleing I did is
> really common).
>
> (2)trade the computer in as standing to one of our local ma and pa
> computer stores
>
> (3) - the preferred solution - get linux working on it
>
> (4) salvage the harddrive, cdrom drive, cables and memory and junk the
> rest. everything else seems to be one of thes integrated motherboards.
>
> so if anyone had ever put linux successfully on one of these - i would
> like to hear from them with details including which flavor of linux was
> used.
>
> so far my friend is overjoyed with her experience with linux which she is
> running from a live mint cd on one of her other computers. once she gets
> her important files onto a safe back up we are going to put linux on that
> computer. just in case repartioning, resizing the harddrive messes up the
> data currently on it.

It doesn't necessarily have to. Something like Partition Magic is 
actually a Good Investment. Then again, so are External USB Disks.

> thanks a lot for any help
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>                          Bonnie Dalzell, MA

JIM




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