Thank you Linux
To explain my daughter's Toshiba laptop suddenly wouldn't boot even in safe mode and she didn't want to use the recovery CD as the documents weren't backed up.
So I sent her the following - XP OEM SP3 disk, BartPE boot disk and pclinuxos-2009.1 disk.
First try - full repair install using the OEM key on the laptop - invalid CD key
Second try - BartPE with network support - booted fine but couldn't see the other computer nor a USB stick
Third try - Linux - booted fine, both computers can see each other and now files are being transferred -
Next stage is the recovery CD once everything is backed up.
This is at long range (over the telephone) with someone who has never used anything other than Windows
So I sent her the following - XP OEM SP3 disk, BartPE boot disk and pclinuxos-2009.1 disk.
First try - full repair install using the OEM key on the laptop - invalid CD key
Second try - BartPE with network support - booted fine but couldn't see the other computer nor a USB stick
Third try - Linux - booted fine, both computers can see each other and now files are being transferred -
Next stage is the recovery CD once everything is backed up.
This is at long range (over the telephone) with someone who has never used anything other than Windows
