I got a
compaq presario m2000 laptop for a friend and windows decided to keep blue
screening me, so I added linux via c.d. However as i needed to free up the drive
i tried to put it into my laptop hdd. Now it wont start via either drive. sais init
kill or some thing just cant get it going. And the repair disc keeps finding
errors then fianally doing nothing until asking for login name, aint got a clue
why. its frustrating. there are choices to boot from in puppy via f2 and f3 etc,
and options on the repair disc so maybe im doing the wrong choice. realisticly
id like to take it out and start again.

Hi LeeD.
What other distributions of Linux have you tried? Chances are the laptop has a hardware problem or perhaps puppy is not too friendly? If you are just booting to a live session you shouldn't have to provide user loggin

ah tried to put the files from the disc onto the laptops hard drive.As it only ran from the disc. The programme is Puppy slacko 5.3.1 .without the disc in now, it
loads drivers needed to access drives=done
searching for puppy files=done
loading personal file /slackosave-firstsave.2fs (sda1) =done
(in blue) This save file was last used with version 0.0 of Puppy. Hit the enter key only to upgrade this file,or to not use it and boot up in ram onlytype any other printable character.enter key only to upgrade.
Then when i hit Enter it sais Loading the puppy_slacko_5.3.1.sfs main file =done.
Setting up the layered file system =done.
Performing a switchroot to the layered file system...kernal panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init!!
Pid : 1,comm: switch_root Not tainted 2.6.37.6 #1
Call Trace :
[<12a2988>] ? panic+0x4d/0x130
[<c1029179>] ? do_exit+0.5a/0x59d
[<c1029868>] ?[< do_group_exit+0x0/0x7b
[<c12a48a5>] ? syscall_call+0x7/0xb

It looks as though the install did not complete; one option would be to reboot from the CD and try a reinstall, wiping the hard-disk first, as I assume you don't want Windows at all any more. Puppy is designed primarily as a CD or USB drive boot system, not a desktop hard-drive replacement, so a HDD installation is a bit goofy, just as it is for Knoppix.

If you are not dead set on Puppy, I would try a different distro, Mint eg if you want it real easy. You might have some issues with the hardware given its age, so if you find an older version of Mint or Ubuntu that might have a better chance.

If you do want Puppy, I would suggest you follow the directions for a USB drive install, but use the HDD as your USB drive. I presume you read and followed these instructions: http://puppylinux.org/main/How%20NOT...#FrugalInstall

How much ram is in this

http://www.pcworld.com/product/26742...rio-m2000.html

If stock You are going to have problems installing Slack0 5.3 as you need at least 512MB of ram at the minimum.

If you do have less than 512MB, then forget Puppy. Also, Puppy is intended to run from RAM: if you do a conventional installation, Puppy is not secure which is why they don't recommend it.

I see that it was described as having integrated graphics, which probably means some of the RAM is used for graphics. The processor seems to be a Celeron M360, and I don't think that has PAE. If it doesn't, then you need a special version of Linux.

If all this seems depressing, all is not lost! Get a copy of AntiX — the standard version, not the MX version. That will work on a non-PAE system, as Puppy would have done, but it only wants 128MB of RAM.

the infamous bsod is a symptom of either a software or hardware fault.

Have you considered it being a hardware fault?

Linux can dodge round some faults, e.g. you can define bad memory addresses. But faulty is faulty at the end of the day.

You need to google the BSOD error code to fix it.