HI I'M HOPING THAT SOMEONE CAN HELP ME. THIS IS AN OLDER COMPUTER WITH
AN AOPEN MOTHERBOARD AX342 II. I HAS AN ACER 40X MAX CD-ROM DRIVE AND A
FLOPPY DISK DRIVE ALSO. I CAN ACCESS SYSTEM SETUP BUT DON'T KNOW WHAT
THE HELL I'M DOING. IT WAS GIVENTO ME FROM A HIGH SCHOOL, THEY HAD TO
WIPE IT CLEAN, SO I KNOW I NEED AN OS. IT WILL HAVE TO BE A FREE ONE.
SO ADVICE ON WHICH ONE TO USE COULD BE HELPFUL ALSO. IM ABLE TO BURN
CDS ON MY OTHER COMPUTER, BUT IT HAS NO FLOPPY DRIVE.

THIS IS ALL THE INFO I HAVE:
AWARD MODULAR BIOS V6.00PG
DISK DRIVE A: 1.44M. 3.5IN
DISK B: NONE
PRIMARY MASTER: NONE
PRIMARY SLAVE: LBA,ATA 100, 20021M
SECONDARY MASTER: CD ROM ATA 33
SEC SLAVE: NONE
DISPLAY TYPE: EGA/VGA
SERIAL PORTS: 3F8 2F8
PARR PORTS: 378
INTEL PENTIUM III, CELERON, VIA C3 CPU, 133 MHZ

ANYONE WILLING TO HELP ME?

<J.R.F160@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158269164.998596.79690@p79g2000cwp.googlegro ups.com...
not likely, your shouting got you somwhere between nowhere and nowhere.

J.R.F160@gmail.com wrote:

...a broken keyboard.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu is a 700MB download, so if you don't have broadband, find a
friend who does, and who can burn .iso files.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck.

J.R.F160@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not familiar with that mobo. Nothing at aopen. Searching the ng
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.aopen I'm finding an old post about a AX34Pro
II

So then from there I found a pretty extensive review from 2000 Nov which
has a lot of spec information and you should find very helpful
http://www.thetechzone.com/reviews/m...o2/index.shtml
AOpen's AX34 Pro II Socket370 mainboard

From the POST setup page you should be able to find out how much ram and
what your cpu speed is, because that can have an effect on which
operating system setup is going to work out. This is going to be a very
old and slow machine, so the ram situation will have to be taken into
consideration.

What you are going to be doing is either using a lightweight linux
distro that you will have to get a CD for somehow, or perhaps
'borrowing' someone's Win98 install disk.

If you are into ethics and morality, the borrowing should be temporary
until you can buy your own license for that antiquated unsupported OS.
The problem with buying a Win2K which is supported is that it is more
demanding of resources, whereas you can use something like a lite Win98
and use less resources with a graphical machine than with a linux
version which is using bloated Xwin graphics.

If I were going to do it with Ubuntu, I would use one of the lighter
versions, such as Xubuntu^1, but there are many other linux versions
which emphasize older low resource hardware.

^1 http://www.xubuntu.org/ Xubuntu is a complete GNU/Linux based system
with an Ubuntu base. It's lighter, and more efficient than Ubuntu with
GNOME or KDE, since it uses the Xfce Desktop environment, which makes it
ideal for old or low-end machines, as well as thin-client networks.

The reason I'm thinking about Win98 is because I suspect it would be
easier with the old hardware to get something up and running. Then you
would have some resources to use to explore and investigate a linux
version which you could own instead of borrowing or stealing the license
for.

--
Mike Easter

Mike Easter wrote:

OTOH, maybe you already have some resources. You are currently
accessing this ng with googlegroups and charter.com connectivity, so you
have access to some kind of computer and connectivity.

If you currently have access to 'someone's' operating system disk/s, it
would be useful to know what they are, if they have something light
enough to borrow to install. If you are using someone's computer, then
it might have CD iso downloading and burning capabilities. That would
give you easier access to linux CDs than having to order them by mail.



--
Mike Easter

Mike Easter wrote:
Now I'm getting myself oriented at the aopen museum and support
structure, so I'm thinking you have one of these, probably the 2nd.

AX34
AX34 II
AX34 Pro
AX34 Pro II

.... and I got my hands on a .pdf manual for the AX34 II

I recommend that during the post you hit your pause or break key at just
the right time so that you can see what the bios sees for your hardware
so that you will know which cpu and speed and how much ram you have.


--
Mike Easter

J.R.F160@gmail.com wrote:
Subject: BOOT FROM ATAPI CD-ROM. FAILURE TO BOOT.INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND
PRESS ENTER.

Subject: failure to boot from atapi cd rom. please insert system
disk?????

Would you care to put those subjects into some kind of context?

What is on that CD? Obviously it isn't bootable, but maybe it has
something useful on it.


--
Mike Easter

Many Linux distros (distributions) now have a "live" cd version. go to a
bookstore, but a linux magazine such as linux format, many of which come
with free distro cd's or dvd's. Mandriva one is a live fully functional that
runs off the cd, or look at sourceforge for damn small linux (DSL).

of course, this pc will not play the latest version of quake or doom, or
half life, but you can make a very functional workstation that can run open
office, do web surfing and other very useful computing needs by finding one
of these small footprint linux versions.

the BIOS is set to boot from cd first, and it sees no hard drive partition ,
that is why you recieve the error code you do, you will need a boot disk to
fdisk the partition if you do happen to "borrow" an old win98 disk.

The Linux solutions probably offer teh best (and legal) bang for your lack
of buck.Also the chance to learn a nice operating system without the bloat.