Reviving an old friend

[JimRune]

Well, my first ever computer of my own was a Gateway laptop that my parents bought me for my Bar Mitzvah back in 2001. I was so happy to have a laptop. I mean ecstatic. I used this thing nonstop. I took it with me everywhere. I loved it like a friend.

Then it slowly began to die off. In only a year, the CD drive died and could not be replaced since the type of drive was obsolete. It was basically useless after that, since I couldn't play any games at all, but I still used it 'cause it was my baby.

Then, I left on vacation for two weeks to a friends. I decided not to bring my laptop that one time and when I returned home, I quickly got back to my laptop, turned it on and 'lo and behold, an error message came up.

The error was in a white box with a gray "OK" button. It said something along the lines of, "Could not find EXPLORER.EXE. Please reinstall Windows."

Then shortly after, another error message comes up saying that it could not find the DLL file SHLWAPI.DLL. After a short while, the computer then locks up.

Seeing as my CD drive is dead, I cannot possibly reinstall Windows, but I do NOT want to throw my laptop away. It really interests me as to see what kind of files I still have on my computer from back when I 13-14.

I'd really like some help on what I can do to possibly fix my laptop. Things seem really bleak right now and I really can't bear with throwing her away.

[EpyonMelee]

does it have a floppy drive?

what bout USB drives?

[JimRune]

It does have a floppy drive that we have lying around somewhere.

It does have a USB port, on the back.

[EpyonMelee]

do you have a jumpdrive?

[JimRune]

What's a JumpDrive?

[EpyonMelee]

this: http://www.lexar.com/jumpdrive/

i was thinking of you putting Knoppx or some other linux live distro, so that you could see the Windows files from knoppix.

[JimRune]

Oohhh, a Flash drive. Yes I bought a ThinkGeek one a few weeks ago, actually.

You mean I can install Linux onto my comp? That would be neat. Although, would that fix the error message?

[EpyonMelee]

not install linux, a live-disc version of it.

you could copy a good Explorer.exe from a good Windows machine. then copy that onto the jumpdrive, with linux. then copy that explorer.exe over the bad one. how big is your thumbdrive.

[JimRune]

My Flash drive is 250MB.

[EpyonMelee]

yea, i doubt that would be enough space for it.