I have an old laptop which cannot recognize the hard drive (hardware problem) but is perfect otherwise. I dont want to throw it away but can't think of a thing to use it for other than knoppix or other linux ware but I want to use it to blackhat. Any ideas of how to utilize this machine?

Slave pc.
Extra screen.
Sell it to someone gullible.

Depending on make and model, you may find that there is a market for the pc as spares...even down to flogging the keys!!

Can't think of any productive use without a hard drive to be honest...will an external drive work instead?

Can it recognise flash or pen drives? or even an external usb hard drive?

well: you could buy a hard drive, and put it in there (wouldn't cost much)
or, you could use a live cd. there are windows 7 live cds, there's basically live cds for every os, just need to find it.

thing is, you can't save anything

bios won't recognize a usb boot

Originally Posted by clopper

bios won't recognize a usb boot

don't need usb
use a cd

Originally Posted by markyr17

don't need usb
use a cd

gonna try bart pe from google search, thanx

Well that just leaves

or

Then write an ebook on 101 uses for a dead laptop and
make enough money to buy a new one.

oxon, its emarrassing but when I was 16 I had like 5 486 dx2 66mhz comps with 32megs of ram and 540meg hd's as fileservers. Almost 2 gig or about 1/16th the size of my current usb pendrive. I might bust them out for stools because of that pic.

a door stop, a paper weight, parts

Originally Posted by clopper

oxon, its emarrassing but when I was 16 I had like 5 486 dx2 66mhz comps with 32megs of ram and 540meg hd's as fileservers. Almost 2 gig or about 1/16th the size of my current usb pendrive. I might bust them out for stools because of that pic.

My first proper pc was a 386sx when I upgraded to a 486dx the guy told me
this was the fastest computers would ever get and I'd never need to buy another one again.

Originally Posted by oxonbeef

My first proper pc was a 386sx when I upgraded to a 486dx the guy told me
this was the fastest computers would ever get and I'd never need to buy another one again.

If I was an old lady and only wanted internet service for email or browsing news sites text only I would still be using that computer today.

use it as an extra screen or even just as a workstation. Workstation don't need to have a hard disk as they run directly from server. So you can have another of your computer work as a server and your laptop as workstation.

Originally Posted by clopper

If I was an old lady and only wanted internet service for email or browsing news sites text only I would still be using that computer today.

Windows 5.1 FTW! it all started to go wrong after windows for workgroups.

I sold it on ebay, the f*cker returned it saying the as is auction was too hard to read when it said hard drive unresponsive. Now I just want to keep it and bh with it if possible.

you should still be able to netboot it

http://netboot.sourceforge.net/english/index.shtml

sell on ebay

i've sold 5 broken laptops on ebay

if the screen works, lots of guys buy them and fix them

just describe its broken state adequately

boot it with ubuntulite livecd if you have a cd drive

just sell it and then buy a new laptop by adding some money to to the money you have got.

Run a live cd system in it and use a usb disk as your hard drive.

If you can access the BIOS, change boot settings to boot from USB/CD, then stick a portable OS onto USB/CD and you've got a working system, you can do this with windows/linux.

Use those OS which don't require HD...like Ubuntu,Backtrack 3 and many more!!!

just buy a used harddrive for a few bucks and use it for running some pr storm and things that need proxys on it.

i`ve got a pentium 4 laptop sitting here and i use it just for running some tools trough proxys.

this way i don`t have to run 3 tools at the same time on my main system if i i need to. saves a lot of system recourses on your main system.

i hate it when it takes more then half a seccond to open a window on my pc.. for some reason i`m really anoyed by a computer that doesn`t respond instantly to my commands . and since i spend a lot of time behind my pc it must run like a dream every time and always.

Originally Posted by DutchRebel

just buy a used harddrive for a few bucks and use it for running some pr storm and things that need proxys on it.

That's his problem it doesn't recognise a harddrive buying another one would
just be a waste of money.

Just toss it, lets face it, the price of laptops today make them almost disposable for the # of years you get out of them. I bought 2 for my kids for Christmas this year and they are faster and have more storage than the desktop I bought my wife a year or so ago!

I was tempted to buy that $198 laptop at best buy but being the kind of guy that I am I love not having to throw good things worth cash away. So I took some advice and bought a 8gb flash drive, trying the hp utility to make it bootable, found out how to change the bios on the machine to recognize the drive as a hard disk so I might be in business tonight. I kind of like the thought of going through airport security with a laptop that has no hard drive in it.

This is so strange because the same thing happened to my HP last week! Except I put the HD in another laptop and it works fine, put a new drive in the HP and it just dont recognize it. The HD controller must have went bad. I've been wondering what to do with mine as well cuz its still a dam good computer (only about a year old and I paid like $900 for it). Anyway, I just put windows 7 on an external USB drive and it works great. Its a little slower but will work fine to run some of my BH tools on it that just sit there and run all night long... Go get you some proxies and some account creator tools and let her hum along for ya over in the corner someplace doing some dirty work.