Oh how my computer loves to mind fuck me.

[InfinantSilence]

Be warned, this is fairly LONG. Ok with that out of the way, I loaded the windows 8 consumer preview on my Acer Aspire one, back in march. And i guess the platform was to unstable to be a full opperating system, because it crashed my hard drive about three days after i loaded Win.8. And in the process my ram got fried. So it was dead, but i gave it to a friend who knows a fuck ton about computers, and he claimed to have fixed it. But i have it now and it refuses to load anywhere past the boot screen. All it does when you turn it on, is realize that something is wrong and it keeps trying to fix drive c. I got nosey last night and went into the bios, and it said i only had 512 megs of ram. So what is going on?!? I know windows 7 can only run on a gig of ram. So I'm kind of wondering if that is my problem. Could i get a flashdrive of windows 7 or 8 and load it from there?

[Silicate Wielder]

while it is possible to do that you would need to use a computer to get it on the flashdrive in the first place, you thave to options, either buy a new Windows CD or take the cheaper way out and buy an Ubuntu CD
If you don't like ubuntu for it's looks, try this (links in description

I'm sure your friend can help you figure this out if you take the cheaper option

Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com

Macbuntu conversion pack: http://sourceforge.net/projects/macbuntu/

there is also different variants of lnux such as OpenSUSE or Fedora all of which can be installed by flashdrive. and ubuntu can run on low amounts of memory too. (try the macbuntu theme if you want but it is memory eating. Ask your friend about what you should do and explain to him the new issue that is occuring. since windows dosn't like installing onto a Computer that had linux on it.

[InfinantSilence]

Ok. I never thought of ubuntu. I will see what I can do with that.

[Axw_JD]

If there is something wrong with the hardware, first of all, it more than likely had nothing to do with Windows.

Second of all, the chances of the computer just not working properly when a hardware failure happens are just too high. Getting Ubuntu is not gonna help you at all since you haven't found out what happened.

There are currently 2 free versions of Windows 8 that are more stable,and have more hardware support, than the Consumer Preview: The Release Preview, and the RTM Enterprise trial. Of the two, the trial is the most stable one but it can only be used for 90 days. Windows 8 will be available for the general public in under 2 months anyway so that shouldn't be an issue.