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    Help with old laptop Compaq LTE 5380

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Hayoung, Jul 12, 2014.

  1. Hayoung

    Hayoung Notebook Consultant

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    Got this ancient beast laying around that someone gave me a long time ago, figured I'd post it up to see if we can do anything with it.

    Here's some photos of the outside, no idea how to resize the photos, using iPhone to take them and photo bucket to host them, I'll have them hiding in spoilers :p

    The lid
    [​IMG]

    Ports
    [​IMG]

    Overview
    [​IMG]

    Back information
    [​IMG]

    Upon boot up
    [​IMG]

    After restarting
    [​IMG]

    It has interchangeable floppydrive/cdrom. When I first got it I had some command prompt that I could type stuff but had no idea what to press, on the first bootup I couldn't type anything, and on the restart it only lets me press H, pressing anything else doesn't seem to work. It has a harddrive but I need a screwdriver to open the hatch.

    Update: turned it on again, said starting Windows 95, booted, then it says C:/> No idea what to type in or do from here. It's a black command screen like shown before. I took a photo but to lazy to upload.
     
    Hayoung, Jul 12, 2014
    #1
  2. KLF

    KLF NBR Super Modernator Super Moderator

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    type win and press enter

    That message saying HDD Fail doesn't look good though, yet right now is hard to say if the drive is actually bad or there's some other problem.
     
    KLF, Jul 17, 2014
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  3. Hayoung

    Hayoung Notebook Consultant

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    I put it away as I didn't get any responses, I'll try typing in win over the weekend.

    When I typed DIR I got this:

    volume in drive C has no label
    volume serial number is 1F53-07BD
    directory of C:\

    COMMAND COM 93,812 08-24-96 11:11a
    1 file(s) 93,814 bytes
    0 dir(s) 1,353,216,000 bytes free
     
    Hayoung, Jul 21, 2014
    #3
  4. KLF

    KLF NBR Super Modernator Super Moderator

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    Apparently the hard drive is practically empty. There is no file structure for windows, so the command win won't launch anything.

    To make any use of that computer, you'll need to install a new OS. Windows 95/98 aren't really useful today, unless you have some kind of retro gaming machine in mind. I'd look for some light flavor of Linux altough I know nothing of them.
     
    KLF, Jul 22, 2014
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  5. mikey9876

    mikey9876 Newbie

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    The drive bay can also take a second battery. If you look at battery the cover slides to cover the wider opening. Windows 98 is probably the best windows it can handle. I used to have a 5280 running 98 and used it to program fire alarm panels. I opened a battery pack and replaced the cells. As for Linux I recommend Damm Small Linux (DSL). It is built for computers like that and has program installer.
     
    mikey9876, Jul 24, 2014
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  6. mikey9876

    mikey9876 Newbie

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    I just remembered, WIFI is possible. You need a 16 bit PCMCIA card. Most are 32 bit but 16 bits are still out there.
     
    mikey9876, Jul 24, 2014
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  7. Hayoung

    Hayoung Notebook Consultant

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    Forgot all about this, thanks for the responses!

    I have no clear intentions for it, just want to get it up and running while spending nothing If I can.

    Only linux experience I have is the little I used of ubuntu in a virtual machine trying to get a TF2 hat, so not sure which OS I should go for. To install do I just put it on a disk and put'er in? Any commands to activate it?
     
    Hayoung, Jul 30, 2014
    #7