Okay...need some computer help

[Superman]

First up, the not-so-important question: is there a cable that can connect a computer monitor to a PS2?

Secondly, and most importantly: my beloved laptop Krypto (yeah, I named it Krypto...I don't have a real dog) was infected by Trojans and was beyond the point of no return. I decided to do a system recovery, and used the disks that came with the laptop.

HOWEVER, I was asked if I wanted to overwrite a "system partition" or some such and I did. Since then, the background has been smaller and it seems various drivers are not installed.

What should I do to restore my laptop?

\S/

 

[farmkid]

What do you mean by "the background has been smaller"?

The system partition is most likely a partition on the hard drive that the manufacturer installed with all the system recovery files in it. Many computer builders are now using that alone instead of including separate recovery discs. If the drivers are not being installed then it may be that the recovery discs only have the OS on them and the drivers are kept on the system partition. If that's the case, then you will need to go to the company's website and download the drivers and install them separately. That may be a good idea anyway because whatever you download now will be the most up-to-date drivers available and will probably be a later revision than what shipped with the computer.

Good luck with that. And to avoid such problems in the future, install some antivirus software. Avira, Avast, and AVG free are all free, have a small footprint, and work well.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

farmkid's advice is spot-on. If you tell us what kind of computer you have (brand and model), we could point you to a website for drivers. Your video won't look right until you've installed the proper drivers, after all. If it's something mainstream, like a Dell or HP, drivers will be easy to come by, so long as it's not a really old laptop.

 

[Superman]

Hey thanks, guys. The model is an old Dell Inspiron 1300. Yeah, she's an oldy, but she serves me well.

And how about that cable question?

Thanks, \S/

 

[farmkid]

Here ya go

And I've never used a PS2, so I don't know what connectors are available. I imagine it only has composite and S-video out. If so, you might be able to find some composite or S-video to VGA converter, but it probably won't be cheap. A simpler way is to get a video capture card for the computer. For a PS2, though, you don't want one that has hardware Mpeg2 encoding because that introduces a lag that would make games unplayable.

 

[Superman]

Thanks, farmkid!

\S/

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Here is the driver page for your particular model. Everything should be in there, unless you have additional, third party hardware.

I am of the understanding that there is no graphics boost to be had by plugging a PS2 into a monitor. Some systems can upscale their graphics when connected to a higher-resolution device, but evidently the PS2 is limited to TV resolution. Just throwing that out there, in case that's what you wanted to achieve by hooking it up to a monitor.