Since the last post about the V2000 coming back to life, but only to frustrate me even move, it would seem the common denominator is the battery. First of all their is no problem running on A/C power regarless which drive is in. The caviot here is the battery cannot be in the laptop. With the battery in funky things happen, as mentioned earlier. So what remains to be seen is it the physical battery or some part of the motherboard which is used for charging/discharging.

A test with another machine which takes the same battery will answer the question. As for someone local not that I’m aware of but my mom has a Compaq that would take my 12 cell. May just need to wait till we see them again. If I need to roam the i200 is running well on Debian, even at six plus years old.