Trying to get anything onto a old computer

[Primoz]

I don't know if this is a place for this, but I hope it is. If not mods are free to move it to forum that you thing is more relevant.
This is more of an logical puzzle or something like that, so if you like solving puzzles this topic is for you!
I had an "old" computer:
Gigabyte 7VAXP mainboard
ATI 8500 AllInWonder
756 MB RAM
4GB Maxtor disk
Whatever I throw at it, it hangs, stops somewhere during installation process or it refuses to boot it once I finish with an install.
So this are the systems that I wanted to install:
Ubuntu 7.10, DSL and PC-BSD don't even boot.
OpenSolaris: It demands a password after bootloading, it shouldn't. I think it's a problem that it can't access the disk / RAM to load the kernel on it.
Windows: It gets to the start of setup (after all the modules were loaded) and then it goes BSOD:

....Check for virus, if your Hard Drive is installed correctly...
STOP: 0x0000007B
(0XF797A524, 0XC0000034, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)

It might be an Hard drive problem, but I (well technically it was my father) did put the previous disk in it and the same problems occurred.
Arch did load, but I was to lazy to go through the whole installation process...
PCLinuxOS: loaded, booted, installed, restarted, booted again died when X should have start (totally I tried ctrl-altF1 and ctrl-alt-backspace)
So Any ideas?
Any other system that I should try??
And please don't say Kubuntu (it probably wouldn't but just like Ubuntu) but this PC would be mostly used by my father who would use it to play CDs on it, and the KDE4 doesn't ask you what to it just mounts them...

[Snowhog]

Re: Trying to get anything onto a old computer

Assume all else to be 'okay' and the HD is the suspect. If you are getting BSOD from Windows, then there is something amiss with the drive itself. Do you have a Gparted LiveCD? Boot from it and see what it reports. Assuming Gparted sees the drive, and if you 'don't care,' tell Gparted to remove any/all partitions and then create/format partitions as you need for the installation you are pursuing and then proceed with the OS installation.

[dibl]

Re: Trying to get anything onto a old computer

I agree with Snowhog -- probably it's a hdd problem -- it may be toast (and old toast, at that!).

If you're looking for a pretty good alternative to Kubuntu, I've found sidux to be remarkably capable of handling all the hardware I can throw at it. You might want to make a Live CD and give it a try that way on the old PC. 4X speed and DAO mode to burn it.

http://sidux.com/Article470.html

And don't try any newbie questions on their forum -- they'll hand you your head.

[Primoz]

Re: Trying to get anything onto a old computer

Thanks to both for the response!
I did put the Gparted LiveCD in and It worked, so I formatted the drive to unformatted.
After that my GPareted didn't work no more.
Even before I had to restart the X to get it to work.
I'll try GParted again.
And thanks dibl for recommending Sidux, as I hear it should be similar to Arch.
I just might try it.