You will need the following tools:
- A week-old laptop, present from relatives preferred
- Um...that's it
Note: no brain is required for the purposes of this tutorial.
Method:
- Make sure you have finally finished customising and configuring your new laptop after having spent the last week getting lost in its preinstalled Windows Vista.
- Decide to be geeky and install a second Operating System. You have done this before (it was a fluke, but no one has to know that) so this should be no problem at all.
- Run through installation of said Operating System, making sure not to miss the part about partitioning the hard drive.
- Yay, new OS installed. Reboot! Windows will then say it cannot run.
- Realise you have completely messed up the partitioning and therefore have chopped Windows in half. Rectify this mistake by simply deleting and reformatting the partitions of the hard drive that you want back.
- Reboot! Your computer should now display a lovely error message saying the boot partition is corrupted or similar. Congratulations, you have now completed this tutorial.
Oh yes, that was me yesterday. I've had this laptop a week and I've broken it already. Luckily I was able to repair most of the damage without reinstalling everything (yay rescue disk) but some things (e.g. wireless) are still broken :( Blah.
Rachael
3/09/2007 at 20:15
You broke it?!
That's insane!
I haven't broken mine yet... I'm taking good care of it. I haven't even dropped it yet.
I'd be too scared to try and install a second OS on it... *shudder*
Zala
3/09/2007 at 21:33
I tried to install Linux just a few days after getting my new laptop because I can't stand Vista. I failed, but no serious damage has been done. I did manage, though, to make a typo when writing in a long password and as a consequence I had to reinstall everything. Now I don't mess with stuff like that anymore, because I'm too scared. Huh.
Kaylee
3/09/2007 at 21:41
Or, you could just throw it against a wall. Should cause the same amount of damage ;)
There's a reason I don't even mess with that stuff. I hope you fix everything soon, though!
Daniel
4/09/2007 at 0:10
Ouch... the longest part is always customizing it before you start using it. It sucks if you ruin it.
I recently did a dual boot on my own laptop.
I ran Ubuntu and it actually works pretty well and I am happy with it. I didn't back up anything: it was all or nothing.
For the wireless, you might just want to check if you the driver is messed up. If that's the case you can just reinstall it.
Rilla
4/09/2007 at 1:00
Lol that sounds... happily sad. Can you not say it crashed by itself and give it back to the manufacturer under the warranty?
Eina
4/09/2007 at 3:04
Awww, I hope you fix your wireless!
I'm fine with Vista, as weird as that might sound, lol :P But I've learned from installing all my games and whatever that you should probably turn off the User Account Control and be ready for those messages! Those are ever so annoying :P
Amber
4/09/2007 at 10:08
And I thought I was clumsy! The worst thing I've broken is a glass. I think you've just totally owned me in that area, Amelie!
Jamie
5/09/2007 at 3:40
While I didn't break mine..it broke on it's own.. I've been without my laptop since Friday and it worked great Thursday night. The computer restore (manufacturer not Microsoft) and the back up disks didn't fix it so we're guessing it's a hardware problem. Ick. It goes it to the computer hospital tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn't take FOREVER to fix.
I'm glad you got yours all sorted out though. Quite the feat to break your laptop so soon!
Melissa
5/09/2007 at 4:02
First of all...happy belated birthday, Amelie! :D Yay! :D
Aw, that's not cool. :( Poor laptop. If it makes you feel any better...exactly a week after I got my first car I wrecked it. :P Well, ran into the back of a truck as I was admiring the sunrise... XD
I hope everything turns out with it soon, I know how frustrating that stuff can be. :(
Malin
5/09/2007 at 17:51
Ooh ouch! :( I hope you get everything sorted again!
Hanna
7/09/2007 at 5:10
I hope you get your machine working again. :)
Something bit similar happened to my vista laptop. First I installed there Ubuntu and it all was good. Then I thought I could replace Vista with XP. It wasn't good idea cos then I couldn't use Ubuntu. *sniff* So finally I ended up in situation where I had two Ubuntu's and one openSUSE. Now I have just one Ubuntu and I don't even wanna know how my HD is partioned.
Peter Green
8/09/2007 at 17:57
How about forgetting Microshaft altogether and install Ubuntu Linux... Open Source is the way!
P.S. Hope you don't mind me posting?!
Amelie
8/09/2007 at 18:52
^ Well you see, that's exactly what I was trying to do! Except it was Kubuntu, not Ubuntu (KDE > GNOME). :P
And no, I don't mind you posting :)
Elyse
10/09/2007 at 14:42
You work from the inside out. I work from the outside in. My poor Metatron has been smacked and scratched and scraped and bashed against doors (don't ask). She still works... she's just not very pretty. LOL!
If you want your laptop gone... I'll finish the "job" if you want me to... I'll make it look like an accident.
Amelie
10/09/2007 at 14:46
Oh I bashed my old laptop around on the outside far more than I bashed it on the inside... It still works but the cover is scratched, cracked, dented and sticky. I've spilt numerous things on/in it as well as dropping it, slamming it into doors and wrenching bits out of it (none of which were done on purpose, by the way). :( Not surprised it was starting to give up... After 4 years of that sort of treatment, who wouldn't?! :P
Kelly
12/09/2007 at 21:08
Remember to download some driver packs from the manufacturers web site - I rebuilt my old laptop only to find the sound wouldn't work.
:)