e machines laptop help

[JIMMYG]

My father in law gave me his old laptop and i had to get a new hard drive. it is installed but have tried everything to get it going but even after buying a new boot disk from e machines i cant get it to run. A friend has me trying Ubutu and i can get it to load either. epic falure and a screen that says getpwuid_r() error. Help please!?!

[Jelly Bean]

Hello Jimmy.

 

I maybe wrong on this one and I am sure the boys will correct me if I am wrong.

 

This appears to possibly be a CD drive error.

 

Does the machine support booting from USB?

 

If yes then try this for installing windows:

 

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/hard-drives-pen-flash-and-usb/10305-install-windows-using-usb-pen-drive-and-wintoflash.html

 

 

It will take some time to install windows but it does work,I have used this myself.

[JIMMYG]

the cd drive loads first page and then after about 2 min it stops and shows the error.

In fact i can get a load screen with four options but all options end in the same error after time. I think it is a password error but i don't receive an option to input the password.

[Jelly Bean]

Jimmy are you able to enter BIOS?

 

 

Is the BIOS passworded?

[JIMMYG]

the bios is not pass worded

[Synapse]

If Ubuntu won't install then its certainly not a standard problem you have.

 

The error code may not mean a thing, only that install has got so far and has hiccupped.

 

It could be a memory fault, they do show up on install quite often. Use Memtest to check it.

 

If that shows ok, I'd go with JB's thoughts, on and older machine a CD drive error could cause it, able to read data in certain parts of your install CD, but not in others.

 

The USB install is a nice way around it. In all honestly, short of changing your CD drive, which I wouldn't recommend at this point, I don't see you having many other options.