my success story with troubling laptop
 

Dear All,

I write this while I wait for my success to mature. I know this sounds like I am being to impatient, But the very process to the end makes me feel Now I can't fail, that is why I feel the urge to write up this one.

This is a story about an OS installation and how I succeeded in installing. I have a laptop (Advent 7038) with a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-103, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive and WinXP Home Edition that came pre-installed in it. Recently, It got infected by a worm (possibly Brontok), My big brother in a vain attempt to cure the worm, installed Norton AV 2003 and the problem started. The AV installation prompted for a reboot, which my brother gladly accepted. But after it rebooted, the login started failing. It gave a message like 'Windows was unable to check the validity of this copy because of ...', then when entered the correct password, the system will try to login but automatically logout, leaving the user in the login screen again.
I thought this is easy, I will just replace the c:\windows\system32\config with a fresh copy and the problem will be history. Now comes the infamous role of the DVD-RW drive, it doesn't let me boot of it. I tried every possible options in the BIOS and didn't succeed. Then I saw this and I nearly cried. Since, I couldn't manage to logon to windows, the firmware upgrade was out of question. I decided to pull out the hdd from the laptop, put it in another usb hdd case and continue with the config replace option. I did managed to change the config and all the registry hives therein but to my surprise, windows still complained with the error and didn't let me log in. I tried it several times, thinking I must had done something wrong in the previous attempt and sometimes just experimenting in the vain hope it would some how work. It didn't.
This took place during the interval of several days. Whenever I got any free time I would work in it. Next, I thought I would install a fresh copy of windows in the hdd by attaching it into another desktop computer. The windowsxp installer went up to the point where I could actually see the hdd and even re-partition it. I was joyous thinking this was going to work but alas, it didn't. the installer complained about its in-ability to installed into this kind of disk (said it wasn't a bug but purely an inability) and I was thinking why the heck the installer would let me re-partition the drive but wouldn't install. Then I thought it's windows, ofcourse I should have expected something like this. A google search led me to believe M$ has officially denied windows could be installed on a usb drive. Though there were many work around that many netizens had devised, they all were either lengthy or I had a gut feeling I wouldn't be able to make it work. So, I thought I would install Linux, surely Linux could easily be installed in a usb pen drive, so why not usb hdd. I booted with a RHEL4 cd, went with the 'expert' mode. The installer warned me that it couldnot see my hdd and gave me an option to load any drivers I think would be useful. I just ignored it as suggested by some netizens and went ahead. And I came to the point, where the installer ask to partition the disk. I tried manual partition with disk druid-the installer complained that it couldn't see and hdd, I rebooted and tried autopartition (as suggested in the net) and again it complained. Finally I decided to give the device driver selection a try. I chose YES in the driver selection option that the installer had so generously provided, went inside and chose all the drivers that were even remotely related to usb or scsi drives. Next, I came out of it and proceeded, and this time surely Linux picked up the hdd and let me partition it. Its amazing, how things work out.
Right now, I am in the 59% of the installation. After it has finished I will put back the hdd back into the laptop and see if it just works. Well I am hoping it to just work. Did I miss something in this haste? I don't know, but even if i did, a couple of tries more will surely lead me to success, that I am confident about. Wish me luck.


P.S: Any typos or misunderstanding of the process by my insane mind is apologized. I am just trying to make it work any how and I mean any how.

well it works!