Linux *uckup.

[SaneSmile]

my mate recently bought a laptop of his gran, its an Eee Asus 700 notebook, his gran couldnt get it to work being 70ish so he thought he would give it ago, hes absoluted messed up the linux install to peices so much that even his password doesnt work, imagine a linux noob deleting registries......
im trying to delete everything, the partions everything, but ive ran into a problem....
i cant use a windows disk due to their being no disk drive and i dont have a external one to fit......

any suggestions??

[Vulpine]

Go go, bootable USB!

[SaneSmile]

Go go, bootable USB!

i feel really really stupid...

cheers!!!

[AnubisTheJackle]

Go go, bootable USB!

i feel really really stupid...

cheers!!!

Don't we all...I just found myself in a "requires caffeine" situation here. Couldn't remember what the hell a bootable USB was. fml

[d3v11]

lmmfao it happens to the best of us.

[msbachman]

so he thought he would give it ago, hes absoluted messed up the linux install to peices so much that even his password doesnt work

I thought those came with some version of linux. Why install it again and lose drivers/etc., everything that came with it?

im trying to delete everything, the partions everything, but ive ran into a problem....

My suggestion is, after you've followed suggestions that have already been given, is to hope to god that you're able to figure out how to restore full functionality to most of the programs, drivers, etc. you're going to lose.

Anyone want to place bets on there being a thread here on how to get a wireless adaptor to work in a few days' time?

[enthdegree]

Registered to the forums just to be able to reply to this thread. Going through convulsions at all the inaccuracies.

First off, getting any eee PC you're in really good hands:
you have a community wiki and an extremely helpful forum w/ a subforums dedicated to each group of models:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/
http://forum.eeeuser.com/
most of their stuff is very well documented

An eee 700 is one of those early-on models that had really oddball hardware to make it as cheap as possible, which also made them really badly supported out-of-the-box by many popular Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. To compensate for this, Asus made their own Linux distro ( based on Xandros IIRC ) with everything the laptop needed to run well included. Asus also understood that some people might want XP on their laptop so with the laptop they included a booklet explaining how to get XP on it without an optical drive. If you didn't get that with your netbook you can probably find a copy of it online, if you ever decide you want XP on it, that is.

As time went by they stopped providing updates for their Linux distro and it disintegrated into obsolescence, but by that time the fine folks over at eeeuser.com had already largely replaced it with really good hardware-specific respins of lots of popular linux distros complete with patched kernels tailored for the netbook.

Try and find a guide for your model somewhere on that website, it makes it very easy, even for non-technical people.

Also, keep in mind that this computer was considered underpowered 3 years ago, imagine how underpowered it is now.

I used to own an eee 2G Surf, fun little laptop