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How do I install any kind of Operating System on a laptop with broken video card? I want it to run like a server. I could control it from another laptop. Is there a way to do so?

My laptop's video card is broken again and I need to re-purpose it. I'm not willing to pay again, because I have another laptop, but it would be nice to have extra laptop running to host some services.

Any other ideas?

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I think the easiest way is to take the ard disk out of you lap top, install it on an other PC (or external hard disk case), then install linux on it an reput it into your laptop. Then you may access it with ssh.

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  • I already had Ubuntu 10.10 installed before my video card got broken. Multi-boot with Windows. I can't see BIOS menu nor GRUB menu The screen is grey all the time with some color vertical lines. Default boot option in grub is Windows. But I've tried to load Ubuntu blindly... The first (default) Ubuntu option fails (restarts after a while). The second Ubuntu option seems to boot normally because it responds to my pingings from other computer, but when I'm trying to SSH that IP, I'm getting error, that connection was refused. It's the same when SSH server was not installed.Maybe it's not loaded? – ViliusK Jan 16 '11 at 16:15
  • But yes... I do still need to reinstall it or configure my current Ubuntu, that it would allow me to access it over SSH. – ViliusK Jan 16 '11 at 16:18
  • I guess in current situation it would be better reconfigure. Thank's guys for advices. I'm already trying to fix it. Already took my disk out from that laptop and dissasembled my WD Passport external disk and put laptop's disk inside... backing up data and looking for info how to access ext4 disk from windows. – ViliusK Jan 16 '11 at 16:22
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Take the hard drive out, attach it to another machine (probably via a USB adapter) and install the operating system you want on it. Make sure you have network stuff set-up to work properly by default. Put it back in the original machine. Connect to it using the network.

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Are you sure the problem is the video card?

  • You may try to plug it to an external monitor.

  • Faulty memory chips (RAM) are known to cause this kind of problem. Have you tried replacing them or cleaning the memory slots?

If the problem is the video card, you could just use a Linux Live CD, or a Live USB thumbdrive to boot up the system. I believe Backtrack comes with ssh/sshd already installed.

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  • Plug it in and reboot, since you won't be able to see the control panel to turn it on. Most systems will detect an external monitor and enable on boot. – jmort253 Jan 15 '11 at 20:37

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