PCMech Forums - View Single Post

GaryRouth · 01-03-2005, 03:19 AM

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I've been away with the family on vacation [and the online time was pretty much corralled by the youngsters

]

You could try life without the diagnostic partition, since it's a small drive... I think you'll get more usability from the laptop that way (4 gig fills up quickly nowadays!).

You can clear the hard drive like I mentioned in my earlier reply, take the precautions (disable the Bios Antivirus, remove PC Cards in the slots, etc.), and try a clean install.

If you'd like, visit the webpage rjfvillarosa mentioned for the drivers & burn a driver disk ahead of time - this can help speed up things.

. . . Gary

[P.S. ... also, if you'd like, you can use 3rd-party diagnostics to test the memory and hard drive. You can try MemTest86 for the memory ( http://www.memtest.org ) and go to the manufacturer of the hard drive for the disk diagnostics - these will run in DOS from a bootable floppy --- it's likely you have the IBM TravelStar 4.3gb drive in there, so you can use the IBM disk diagnostics]

01-03-2005, 03:19 AM	#14
GaryRouth Member (12 bit) Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Woodland Hills, CA (suburb of Los Angeles) Posts: 4,014	Sorry for taking so long to reply, I've been away with the family on vacation [and the online time was pretty much corralled by the youngsters ] You could try life without the diagnostic partition, since it's a small drive... I think you'll get more usability from the laptop that way (4 gig fills up quickly nowadays!). You can clear the hard drive like I mentioned in my earlier reply, take the precautions (disable the Bios Antivirus, remove PC Cards in the slots, etc.), and try a clean install. If you'd like, visit the webpage rjfvillarosa mentioned for the drivers & burn a driver disk ahead of time - this can help speed up things. . . . Gary [P.S. ... also, if you'd like, you can use 3rd-party diagnostics to test the memory and hard drive. You can try MemTest86 for the memory ( http://www.memtest.org ) and go to the manufacturer of the hard drive for the disk diagnostics - these will run in DOS from a bootable floppy --- it's likely you have the IBM TravelStar 4.3gb drive in there, so you can use the IBM disk diagnostics]