I have loaded up quite a number of computers, some recently with less than 1GB using live CDs. Memory should not be a problem here. Anyways, what you are essentially looking to do it seems is access files on Windows (FAT-NTFS) to copy to another machine? In that case, why not just remove the hard drive and install it as a secondary in another machine? Transferring and accessing files would be infinitely quicker. Alternatively if Linux gives you some issues there is always WinPE, which is essentially creating a XP live CD. Useful when you need certain Windows only programs in a live environment. I have used this to access servers that I needed to slipstream in specific drivers. However, unless the hardware is rare or non supported you shouldn't need this. In my experience the WinPE is much quicker and responsive than the mainstream Linux Live CD distros like Ubuntu which essentially try to load an entire OS full of junk. Ubuntu even loads the bleeping eye candy crap. At Tuesday, 03-08-2010 on 11:53 Thomas Rieff wrote: Jason, Thanks for responding. I have 1024 memory installed. It is a P4P800MX with a 3.0 GHz processor. I have been using Win 2000, to avoid the upgrade mania it creates. Our customer database is written in Visual Fox. It is my goal to convert in the next 5 years to a browser based, os independent system. Good reason to follow the open source, Linux based software systems. I can try a different Linux distro. Its just that I had the ubuntu cds laying withing arms reach. Tom Thomas Rieff GreenCare 1717 3rd Avenue Mankato, MN 56001 (507) 344-8314 Office (507) 344-8316 Fax (507) 381-0660 Cell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason Hsu, embedded engineer, Linux user" To: "TCLUG Mailing List" Cc: "Thomas Rieff" Sent: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 8:57:55 AM GMT -06:00 Guadalajara / Mexico City / Monterrey Subject: Re: [tclug-list] Ubuntu Live CD Fails Do you have at least 512 MB of RAM? Given that the computer came with Windows 2000, I think there's a good chance that it doesn't, in which case it has no business running Ubuntu. In my opinion, Ubuntu is bloatware. It has its merits, but running on very old computers is not one of them. Ubuntu is roughly as resource-hungry as Windows XP. Try a lighter distro for rescuing files, such as Puppy Linux, antiX Linux, or Damn Small Linux. I know for a fact that Puppy Linux can recognize Windows files. If booting from a live CD doesn't work, then try booting from a USB drive instead. On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 08:33:00 -0500 (CDT) Thomas Rieff wrote: > TCLUG, > I have a win 2000 pc in our office that seems to have issues. > So no problem, I will just backup the files and reload with xp. > Well it is currently very flakey with the current os, so I dropped a ubuntu 9.04, 9.1, 10.04 live cds in and thought I would save the files that way. Ubuntu live cd won't load. I have tried many different things, including the video card corrections, but it stops at "checking 'hlt' instruction..." > Maybe the hard drive is bad, but it should load a live cd??? > Maybe the motherboard or cpu is bad, how do I tell or test??? > Any thoughts??? > Tom > > Thomas Rieff > GreenCare > 1717 3rd Avenue > Mankato, MN 56001 > (507) 344-8314 Office > (507) 344-8316 Fax > (507) 381-0660 Cell > > -- Jason Hsu, embedded engineer, Linux user _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tclug-list at mn-linux.org http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100803/f2e8c129/attachment.htm