Linux on HP Compaq nx9010 hardware question
 

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and fairly new to linux. I have an HP notebook that came to me with totally messed up XP and no reload disk. I'm willing to forego XP and want to load Ubuntu. I am wondering if the non dos partition that exisited with the original setup would be necessary to operate this particular laptop and still have battery functionality etc. Or can I completely wipe the disk and go from there?

This is a 2.4 GHz P4 with 512 mb ram and 40gb hard drive. Any experience with the nx9000 series would be helpful.

Thanks,
John

Not familiar with that particular machine but in general the first partition on a lot of PCs/Laptop is there for "diagnostic/control" types of software specific to your unit. You should be able to install and exclude that small partition. You should also be able to blow it away and install using its space as well as the rest of the drive.

The important stuff is in the BIOS/firmware and not on the drive as drives are mechanical and do fail.

Thanks for the response, I was sort of suspecting that to be the case. I did something stupid and made two changes at once. Blew away the partition and upgraded the bios without testing between. I know better! Now the machine won't run on battery but will do everything else. Must be a bad flash.

I still hope to hear from someone about this particular machine.