Hardware Diagnostics

kramer2718 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Mar 2006 Posts: 78

Hi. I have my Gentoo installation up and running quite nicely. My old machine was an Athlon XP 2400+ whose board died. I was dual booting Gentoo and Winblows .. I mean ... Windows. Yes I still need Windows for a few things. Now I can't get Windows to install. It boots from the Windows XP CD and then hangs. The board is brand new and it hangs no matter which Hard drive is attached or which CD drive. I've even tried multiple CDs. The only thing that I haven't swapped is the RAM.

It seems that XP is way more sensitive to very minor hardware errors than Gentoo is. Are there memory tests that I can run under Gentoo that might detect errors that Gentoo can live with but that hang Windows? Are there diagnostic tests for my other hardware (CD drives, hard drives) that might be able to catch other similar errors?
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God save us from His followers.

cyblord · Guru Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 424

you can use the gentoo minimal installation cd and run a memory test from there.

if your linux system's running nicely, why don't you just run windows from linux, as a virtual machine?

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-435223-highlight-vmware.html

kramer2718 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Mar 2006 Posts: 78

How do I run a memory test from my Gentoo minimal install cd?

As to the vmware thing ... sounds interesting ... I may do that.
_________________
God save us from His followers.

cyblord · Guru Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 424

boot up the minimal installation cd with the memtest86 option to test your memory