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Raggle:
I'd just like to endorse Vtsteam's remarks concerning Puppy Linux and add the link to the overview  page

http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

It really is as good as it says and as fast as your machine.

I've been trying to wean my wife off Windoze now for 11 years, without success. Her desktop PC got the blue screen of death some months ago and while she was able to use Puppy live CD to recover all her files she was not impressed enough to climb the (very short) learning curve to migrate.

I hate Win with a passion and the sheer tiny size of Puppy makes me wonder what Win DOES with all that memory, etc. For a machine that is net connected in a minute or two from cold it is impressive, but not just one machine. Your friend's (with his permission) becomes your machine right away.

Burn the CD "incomplete" and it updates when you end your session.

Ray

andyf:
I had a laptop go down. The local computer repair shop fixed it by vacuuming out the dust. Might be worth a try; remove everything that comes out easily, and apply lots of suction to the resulting holes.

Andy

vtsteam:
Or blow it out. That is usually the solution to heat sinks on the microprocessor clogging with dust and the mP overheating. Assuming it didn't fry altogether. Usually that is a gradual process, and you notice more frequent crashes, and loud fan noises on hot days, etc.

Another frequent cause of death among laptops is cracked solder joints in the ram socket pins from flexing over time. Also cracks in the solder joints of the power connector -- also from flexing.

One nice one (if you know about it) is the wearing out of the RTC battery -- at least in older laptops. It's a small disk shaped battery with pigtail plug -- a few dollars to replace, but when they go, the laptop often just posts an error message number and that's it.

Since fatiguing and cracked solder joints is such a common occurrence, you can lengthen the life of a new laptop considerably, by using two hands instead of one to pick it up, and supporting it well when using, etc.

Fergus OMore:
A bit more on my own trials and tribs about PC's and I watched the guy  'Break in' my Windows 8 PC-- and it was with XP.

Hint about your Lap top. Try swopping your crap hd onto another lap top.

woodguy:
If I allow the battery in my Toshiba laptop to go completely flat, it will not boot when recharged.  If I hold the power button down for 5 seconds, 3 lights on the keyboard light up. I tried everything and eventually realized that the bios settings had been lost.  There are 2 pads on the circuit board accessible by removing a panel on the bottom of the unit. If shorted together briefly with the battery removed, the CMOS memory is reset to factory settings and the unit will then boot.

If any of this sounds like a fit to your situation, look for the method of resetting cmos memory on your unit.

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