Hi everyone,

I have a windows xp laptop that was accidentally started up with a linux (power cinema) cd in it. The computer asked if I wanted to run set up and I hit no, it then said 'hit return to activate this console', which I did. I now appear to be in a Unix cmd prompt. typing 'help' showed me some command options (break, cd .. return .. unset. etc). I've never worked in unix before and i can't get the computer out of it. I've tried typing exit, but it has no effect. The cd wont eject either (i've tried 'eject', 'eject cd' some similar combinations, and manual ejection). If I turn the computer off and then back on, the screen is exactly where I left off. I know windows is an inferior system and all but its not my computer and someone needs to be working on it.
I'm really in a tight spot and any help/advice anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated.

-thanks in advance

-ddajango

If the screen is at the same spot after you turn off and then on again, that's a hint that your computer is not actually turning off at all. It might go to standby instead.

Try typing "shutdown -r now" (without the quotes) and press enter. This should restart the computer. Be sure to remove the cd from the cdrom drive (if you haven't already done so) before your computer boots again.

It sounds like this is a live distro that is running from the CD. That means that since you haven't installed anything, you can simply turn off the computer. Or just in case, use the command '/sbin/shutdown -h now'.
If this command shuts down the computer, eject the disk just after powering it back up, so that it doesn't boot up to CD again.
Another way to reboot is to hit the "ctrl-alt-delete" keys at the same time.

The command to eject a cd, depends on what the device is or where it is mounted. Most likely, it is the second ide device and the command 'eject /dev/hdd' would work.

Hopefully, one of these will work for you.

Thanks very much to both of you. I tried all of the commands but none of them worked. I finally removed the battery and power source to shut the computer down for real. I was then able to eject the CD as the computer was rebooting. It started up normally in XP after that.

much appreciated init100 and jschiwal!