Netbook woes............

[scifiguy1]

Hi guys, I repair pcs for a hobby.
Just enough to keep myself entertained.
I have been doing this for about ten years now.
Anyway, I have a new project.
It is a Supersonic Netbook 10.1 .
Model number SC-10NB.
A guy at work asked me to look at it for him.
His girlfriend won it in a raffle.
They say nothing has been touched, they just took it out of the box and this is what it did.
When it is powered on, the power light comes on and then it just keeps
displaying..........."loading device drivers"...........forever.......
This is what it does.
Now I looked on the back and someone has already tampered with the battery compartment as the tag over one of the screws has been torn to turn the screw underneath.
I have not done anything besides turn it on and see what the screen says.
Also the screen goes black after awhile , but you can use a flashlight
and see that it is still loading.
It has Windows CE embedded OS.
I truthfully know nothing about this os except that I know it exists.
What is my next move????????
According to the manual you can reset the netbook by pressing the "RESET" button locatd on the back of the rig.
I tried that and nothing.
It appears the the os is not loading.
I believe he said that she had it on her bicycle when she went for a ride after she won it.
Let me know what you think!!
Thank you,
Dick

[Nuclear Krusader]

Windows CE!! That thing was garbage. I find it surprising to find that in a netbook, at the time Windows CE came out netbooks didn't exist; WinCE was designed for handheld PCs. Totally useless nowadays.

Is this the machine in question?

[jdeb]

Install Linux Puppy on a thumb drive and give it a go.

Puppy Linux Community - Home

at least you see if the hardware is in fact function-able and we can go from there.

[strollin]

I've never used a Windows CE device but I wonder if the hardware designed for CE would be compatible with Linux? Most likely CE is in ROM so not readily changed out anyway.

Amazon sells that netbook for $219.

[kilgoretrout]

Given Windows CE, the generally vague specs(533MHz processor) and the cost, I would assume that you have an Arm cpu in there. If that is the case, Puppy Linux will not run on that hardware as it's compiled for x86. Neither will any other form of Windows.

In theory, Android and an Arm compiled standard linux distro may be able to run on that hardware. However, Arm based hardware is not nearly as uniform as x86 and x86_64. If I'm right, getting anything not originally designed for that specific netbook hardware to even boot, much less install and run, will be a challenge.

[scifiguy1]

OK guys.
I see by your answers that this is probably a lost cause.
I assume that I will not get another os to run on here??
If that is what you believe I will go with that.
Well he told me I could have it anyway.
Should I try that Linux Puppy?
I do not know enough about crossover on what systems will run on what hardware , but I am learning.
How do I get into the bios?
To answer NK s question, yes that is the machine.
Thank you for your time so far.
Dick

[kilgoretrout]

I doubt it would work. The only reason anyone would put Windows CE on a netbook is because it has an ARM processor and WinCE is the only offering from Microsoft that currently supports ARM. When dealing with ARM, you are entering the realm of embedded operating systems which is a whole different animal than your typical x86 PC. By way of example, pretty much all smart phones use ARM, iphone, ipad all androids. Generally, this hardware is designed to run only a very specific operating system and to access the bios or install other software, you have to jailbreak the device. In short, everything is typically pretty locked down to run only the operating system the device manufacturer wants. Your netbook may be more open and modifiable than your typical smart phone, but unless you can find some online tutorial walking you through the process, you are pretty much screwed.

[quartet-man]

That reminded me of this "gem" that a friend asked me about last year. They might have had it for less than that at that point.

Buy Sylvania 7" NETBOOK online at CVS.com