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Post by trobin on Apr 23, 2010 16:03:22 GMT -8
I'm following a thread on the Puppy Linux Forums that seems rather strange to me.
The user says that a friend was given a computer with a cracked windows on it. The windows suddenly decided that wasn't authentic and stopped working except the activation part.
They wiped the computer, reformatted the HDD as EXT2 and installed Puppy Linux on it.
They rebooted and the keyboard does not work. Not even to get into BIOS.
He's convinced that windows did something to the BIOS to lock out the keyboard and keep it locked out until he activates the copy of windows he's wiped out.
I've never heard of anything like that.; Is it even possible?
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Post by webpolice on Apr 23, 2010 17:46:28 GMT -8
Sounds like a coincidence to me. If he wiped out the windows that should take care of the activation notice. Maybe he accidentally set up a password for the bios.
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Post by JoeC on Apr 24, 2010 8:33:45 GMT -8
probably has a usb keyboard and legacy usb is not enabled in the bios
He needs to get an older ps2 keyboard, boot with that and make the necessary changes in the bios to support usb
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Post by terry1966 on Apr 24, 2010 9:37:02 GMT -8
yes i'd say it's possible after all you can flash the bios from within windows, and if he was running as admin with windows updates turned on then there's nothing really stopping windows from installing a program to do just that. don't forget you can do anything you like to a pc with root access. but to be honest no i don't think they did any such thing, we'd of heard about other cases before now, and i'm pretty sure they'd be breaking some law or other and have law suits flying everywhere, bit like sony the other year and their drm thing hidden in the cd's. .
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Post by trobin on Apr 24, 2010 13:12:15 GMT -8
He's been told about the keyboards.
He can get to ther CDROM drive so the bios isn't completely blocked, and he can run a livecd, with the keyboard. He cannot boot to the hard drive.
He appears to be convinced that it's all a Microsoft scheme to stop him from using linux.
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Post by webpolice on Apr 24, 2010 16:11:36 GMT -8
It is technologically possible, but MS would get in deep doo doo if they tried something like that. I have had several computers with less than legal Win oses on them and the activation screen popped up when trying to boot, but I had no trouble installing a legal or other oses on them. The trick with a non legal os is to shut of the windows updates before connecting to the internet. As the first file that is downloaded out of Win updates is a Win Validation check called Windows Genuine Advantage. There must be something installed incorrectly in the linux partiton or some user bios change to lock him out. I would try to boot without a hard drive connected and see what happens. It sounds like the boot sector on the hd maybe messed up.
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Post by trobin on Apr 24, 2010 17:04:05 GMT -8
I figure his problems will be over if he repartitions, reformats and reinstalls
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Post by terry1966 on Apr 24, 2010 21:23:50 GMT -8
tell him to zero the drive, but think his problems are a bad drive anyway. ;D
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