Drive issues and Drivers missing for Ancient Laptop

Kazeko · Jul 17, 2009, 05:11 AM

Hi all,

I just recently resurrected an ancient laptop I dug up at my buddy's place before he moved.

Dell Inspiron 8000 (800mhz P3, 512mb RAM, 20gb HDD) and I've mostly gotten things fixed, repaired the touch pad, keyboard, reseated the heatsink on the CPU, etc but...

The HDD has some bad sectors on it, anyone know of a freeware utility I can dig up that may help repair the bad sectors?

Also, I'm trying to find graphics drivers for this thing, but it seems that ATi not only doesn't support the ATi Mobility M4 AGP 4X (64mb) gpu anymore, but even Omega doesn't support it anymore. I haven't been able to turn up a driver with any luck...

Oh, I should mention it's currently on Fedora, which kind of throws a crimp into the plans. - Unless I'm a moron and it doesn't need drivers.

I'm hoping I can make this a free laptop for class next semester, but unless I can get the drive semi-repaired and the machine running a bit quicker, I may as well just buy a new laptop as it would probably be cheaper than replacing the parts on this thing.

Any suggestions or thoughts would help!

Jul 17, 2009, 05:11 AM	#1
Kazeko DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 174 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Drive issues and Drivers missing for Ancient Laptop Hi all, I just recently resurrected an ancient laptop I dug up at my buddy's place before he moved. Dell Inspiron 8000 (800mhz P3, 512mb RAM, 20gb HDD) and I've mostly gotten things fixed, repaired the touch pad, keyboard, reseated the heatsink on the CPU, etc but... The HDD has some bad sectors on it, anyone know of a freeware utility I can dig up that may help repair the bad sectors? Also, I'm trying to find graphics drivers for this thing, but it seems that ATi not only doesn't support the ATi Mobility M4 AGP 4X (64mb) gpu anymore, but even Omega doesn't support it anymore. I haven't been able to turn up a driver with any luck... Oh, I should mention it's currently on Fedora, which kind of throws a crimp into the plans. - Unless I'm a moron and it doesn't need drivers. I'm hoping I can make this a free laptop for class next semester, but unless I can get the drive semi-repaired and the machine running a bit quicker, I may as well just buy a new laptop as it would probably be cheaper than replacing the parts on this thing. Any suggestions or thoughts would help!