computer gurus help needed please

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plumcrazy704406

plumcrazy704406

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I have a client who's ex husband passed away and has asked me to try and see what's on his laptop. It's a lenova thinkpad which I think is running win98, but it boots to a:\ drive in dos. How do I read the hard drive to see what's on it for her? There is a separate external hardrive.

thx up front.
 
win98 boot to floppy? Trying to remember here- as it powers up, hit delete, or try f8 button, you have to catch it fast. That will bring up boot screen, then tell it to boot from c.
 
look through the guys floopy disk collection for a disk that
is marked "win. 98 boot disk" put it in and then turn on lap top and follow the directions. if there are more then one "boot disk" use the one with the newest date.

Good luck
 
Wheels said:
look through the guys floopy disk collection for a disk that
is marked "win. 98 boot disk" put it in and then turn on lap top and follow the directions. if there are more then one "boot disk" use the one with the newest date.

Good luck
Click to expand...

there is a cd that says "boot with ghost" in the drive, but I can't get it to boot to any drive.
 
Anything new enough to be Lenovo (instead of the older IBM) should NOT have Winhoard98 on it.

But if it boots to an A: prompt, then it must have a floppy drive connected and a disc in the drive, OR it may be booting from a CD/ DVD which is configured like the old Win98 discs, which even though booting to a CD, "emulated" an A drive along with the CD, normally, D drive. Turn it on, punch the CD/ DVD drive button until it opens, and remove whatever is in there.

If it won't boot......................

I'd recommend you buy one of the little "hard drive copy" dongle setups which will allow you to yank the drive out, plug it into a second machine, and read it from there. This will solve boot problems IBM/ now Lenovo USED to be known for their great support, you might look on their website

One like this will handle ANY type hard drive you are likely to encounter

You can find them cheaper, I saw one at Best Buy's website for 10 bucks

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300
 
Buy a hard drive reader from best buy for $40. You can access the drive from the reader without booting it. Just like an external hard drive.
 
Try this. I found this on another web site. Type c:
then do like in the red

In safe mode click start - run - and type "msconfig" and press enter. This will bring up the startup configuration utility. In the general tab be sure 'start normally' is checked.
Another place to check is in the MSDOS.SYS file located in the root of drive C: You will need a plain text editor to look at MSDOS.SYS. To view it you first need to change the file attributes from 'read only', 'hidden', and 'system file'. In MSDOS mode type the following command from the c: prompt:
attrib -s -h -r msdos.sys
then type
dir msdos.sys
you should then see the MSDOS.SYS file. Start your plain text editor and view the file. Look for a line that says 'bootGUI=0'. Change this to 'bootGUI=1'. Save the MSDOS.SYS file. DO NOT MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES TO IT! You should then reset the attributes with the following command:
attrib +s +h +r msdos.sys
now reboot your computer.
 
norshorblufish said:
Try this. I found this on another web site. Type c:
then do like in the red

In safe mode click start - run - and type "msconfig" and press enter. This will bring up the startup configuration utility. In the general tab be sure 'start normally' is checked.
Another place to check is in the MSDOS.SYS file located in the root of drive C: You will need a plain text editor to look at MSDOS.SYS. To view it you first need to change the file attributes from 'read only', 'hidden', and 'system file'. In MSDOS mode type the following command from the c: prompt:
attrib -s -h -r msdos.sys
then type
dir msdos.sys
you should then see the MSDOS.SYS file. Start your plain text editor and view the file. Look for a line that says 'bootGUI=0'. Change this to 'bootGUI=1'. Save the MSDOS.SYS file. DO NOT MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES TO IT! You should then reset the attributes with the following command:
attrib +s +h +r msdos.sys
now reboot your computer.
Click to expand...

I WOULDNOT do any such thing. You have no idea what is going on with this computer, and as I said earlier, it could be as simple as having left a stray Winwhored98 CD in the drive.

If it HAS had 98 installed, it should not be booting to an A: prompt unless it either has a bootable CD/ DVD in the drive, or a floppy in the drive, this last possiblility being UNlikely. Anything with the Lenovo name is probably new enough NOT to even HAVE a floppy drive!!

If it booted to a C prompt you normally only have to type "win" and hit the "ENTER" key to produce Whinehozed98 IF that's what's on the hard drive.

Frankly I doubt it.
 
Try switching to c: from the a prompt. When all else fails type help
 
I would try boot the laptop off a linux Live cd most linux versions(distributions) out there have a live cd function were you can boot off a CD and have most of all the OS functions. The best part is that it is all run in memory and temp hard drive space and usually one takes 5 min or so. Just don't install it run the LIVE CD option.

I like PClinux KDE version because it similar to windows OS (look wise)
http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=180

Once you boot off the CD you can brows through the hard drive. I like using linux in these cases because if you use windows sometimes you run into permission issues. Linux will usually let you read anything on the hard drive.
 
Listen to 67 - Pull the HD and place it into a reader. If there is any data on there you are after you may lose it by many of the means everyone is suggesting. When you start messing with msconfig and any other scrip areas and you are not sure what you are doing you will run into issues. Ghost will overwrite, 98 Disk will overwrite etc.
 
n00blike said:
I would try boot the laptop off a linux Live cd most linux versions(distributions) out there have a live cd function were you can boot off a CD and have most of all the OS functions. The best part is that it is all run in memory and temp hard drive space and usually one takes 5 min or so. Just don't install it run the LIVE CD option.

I like PClinux KDE version because it similar to windows OS (look wise)
http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=180

Once you boot off the CD you can brows through the hard drive. I like using linux in these cases because if you use windows sometimes you run into permission issues. Linux will usually let you read anything on the hard drive.
Click to expand...

This too is a good option. You can download many many versions of Linux, I run Mint "Maya." You can download a (DVD) which is automatically both a live DVD as well as an installation DVD. You can download them in either 32 or 64 bit.

What EXACTLY is the model and type number of this thing? Should be a model somewhere up on the keyboard area, and a "type number" on the label on the bottom WHAT does it have for a Winhozed license sticker? Once again, anything new enough to be Lenovo is probably XP or Windows7
 
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