Hey all, thanks for checking this thread out.

I have an old Compaq laptop...and the HD just died on me yesterday afternoon. On startup, it recognizes the hard drive is corrupted (and a BIOS test confirms this) and nothing happens.

Right now I'm strapped for cash, so I can't go out and buy a new laptop/netbook...I just want to be able to get online and surf the web.

I have a Live CD of the Puppy Linux distro from a while back and I was able to boot from CD and get into it that way.

Basically I'm wondering if there is anyway way I can use this live CD and perhaps an external hard drive or USB key to run a basic setup on my laptop that will allow me to connect to the web and perform basic computer functions.

I'm open to any recommendations, ideas, and of course different distro's. Perhaps there is one out there that comes preloaded with all the plugins i might need for wifi access, internet, that sort of thing?

Thanks again!

OK, yes that's very do-able
what are the specs/ram of the lappy?

I run one of my pc's, a old dell 433mhz, 128mb ram off a 4gb ext3 usb
the pc has no harddrive and I use the usb as harddrive (hd0,0)
it's easy and I'll tell you how.

If you have fat32 usb it will work too and we can hook it up dude

Now, my vote is for low-ram, awesome performance tinycore 2.1
here's mine off 4gb ext3 grub usb with different themes
( http://multidistro.com/tinycore-shots/tc-scrnshots.html )

the above tinycore2.1 is about 60mb with opera, flash10, gimp2, xfe, plus more
it also is light-weight and because you only backup at reboot/shutdown
and it runs in ram so less read/writes to usb

my usb is 4gb kingston ext3 with grub, about $15
cheap harddrive huh?
you want help I'm here

ha, now THAT'S what I'm talking about linus!

I'm at work now unfortunately so I'm completely at a loss for the spec's but I'd imagine they are in that range.

When I get home tonight I'll take a look and get that up here for some more help.

Thanks a ton in advance.

No doubt dude:0
I'm trying to learn myself.

If you really wanna get at hacking linux and messing with stuff here's my
tips

1) buy used computers, that are cheap, that are both older and newer
I got 3 PC's, a hp a810n amd athlon64 3300+ with 1gb ram, 160gb hd with 9 partitions
, a Emachines 768mb ram, 2 partition athlon XP 2200+, and the 128mb dell I mentioned above
Plus got a toshiba 7000CT 160mb ram, 4gb hd(?!)

all together I spent about $100 for all of them, 2 from ebay, and 2 were "free" in a local paper.
See, if you have "test bed" machines that are expendable, you can mess stuff up, make all kinds of partitions without fear cause, hey it cost $20
My main, real PC is newer HP and boots ArtistX and also now Ultimate Edition 2.2

2) buy a few usb's and format one ext3, fat32, etc
get comfortable with isolinux, syslinux and grub too.

3)download different distro's and start trying to hack'em

4) Big tip, I've found that about 85% of linux working good is editing a configuration file somewhere
isolinux.cfg, lilo.cfg, menu.lst, syslinux,cfg, xorg,cfg, etc

5) Using a ext3 grub usb, it will boot on most PC's that won't boot from usb using Plop bootmanager, cause it thinks the ext3 usb is 1st harddrive, tricking grub

Need some scripts to create iso's or a custom spin of something
holler
usb's are easy too.

Oh, alos, dude, I can upload the tinycore2.1 from those screen shots with all the different colors and whatnot

I made it so you can put it on fat32 usb, ext3 usb, as a isolinux iso, as a grub iso
and for hardrive with all menu's for grub, isolinux, syslinux plus plop bootmanager
and more too.

download might be maybe 70-100MB cause it's got opera(lighter than firefox), flash10, gimp2, and more.

I'll upload it in about an hour
it comes with scripts to make iso's and it goes on usb automatic, just put it on usb and go(after installing grub, syslinux, etc)