A new challenge

A friend had both hers and her husband's computers unable to boot at the same time. I took on the project and this is my notes should this crop up again in future with someone else.

The first was a Compac Presario 2500 that went to the screen to choose safe mode, normal, etc. All options would take you right back there. First I checked that the machine did indeed boot from a Ubuntu live disc and had success there. The next step was to back up all the files and get hold of the restore discs which thankfully were still available. Once the restore discs were loaded, I ran updates, added AVG Free antivirus and replaced all the data files. Job took only 2 hours from start to finish.

The second was an old Apple Pismo laptop (the black clamshell case from the early 2000's) from the PowerPC line. I was told it wasn't working but after leaving it plugged in for 30 minutes, it booted right up. In the mean time the friend had purchased a brand new MacBook, the task was to copy the files to an external drive for transfer to the new computer. The Pismo's issue was a dead PRAM battery. Should one need to be replaced, there is a link to that repair at Apple.


The friend was more than satisfied and they are back online with their computers.

I had been concerned that this would not go well but it worked out very nicely. She has a trustworthy new Mac, and can use the Pismo for her 2.5 year old to play games on. Her husband has his computer back in business.