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dandy72 wrote: When do you cut your losses?
1992. That's when I moved across the country and I have had no such requests since.
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That'll cut down on the requests from friends and family, but after nearly 30 years, haven't you made new acquaintances who now know you're a "computer guy"?
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dandy72 wrote: I last used it to test various Linux distributions
So why not go with an easy to use Linux distro. I wouldn't have thought a 3-year old is going to mind. 
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See one of my replies above. I think her expectation was that she'd be able to install some simple games to keep the kid busy, nothing more sophisticated than that. She won't figure out Linux. And I don't want to be a Linux support guy.
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Linux low hardware requirement is a lie. Have you ever tried to install a current distro to an old computer?
I was not able to install Linux Mint second newest to a 10 years old CPU/integrated GPU/RAM/Motherboard that ran Windows 10 before... I had to go back to the oldest supported Mint distro.
Don't forget: Linus said binary compatibility is for userland software, not for drivers!
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Peter Adam wrote: Linux low hardware requirement is a lie. Have you ever tried to install a current distro to an old computer?
Yep, most of the current, popular, distros assume you are installing on modern hardware - and won't do that well on an old PC. But there are still plenty of lightweight Linux distros, which will.
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Linux Mint, as a lightweight distro with the simplest window manager did not on my MB. I could make it work, if I would update a magnitude of things from the kernel till the C compiler through the libc, and who knows where the ball would have been stopped.
Face it, the os world assumes you are on the bleeding edge, and turns together with the bunch wherever the Good Guys lead them. May the const correctness be with you!
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"Someone" asked you to do this... I'm guessing it's not someone especially close to you or you'd have said "my partner" etc. You've spent hours on this now. Assuming your professional rate is ~ $100/hour you could have gone out and bought a brand new 7" tablet for the cost your "someone" is asking you to stump up. I think an approach (now long past the point of no return) would have been to spend one hour, if all was well then OK, otherwise hand it back with the offer of continuing to try but at (say) half your professional rate. That would be a very fair offer.
Personally, I would have declined at the outset, on principle, to provide a 3-year old with a laptop. It's likely to get broken / dropped / sicked on / thrown at the cat in less time than you've spent on it. A 3-year old should be playing with Lego, jumping in puddles, cutting up Dad's suit and scribbling on the wallpaper. When it needs a story it's parents should read to it or make one up. YMMV, IANACP etc (I am not a child psychologist - though I did get a distinction on a uni course on child development.  )
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Agree. 3 year olds (or less then 10 for that matter) should not be on computers/laptops/tablets more than is needed for education. I have seen kids so dependent on video satisfaction they are like little crack-addicts. I fear for their mental development. Someday they'll have to Google how to make toast.
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I haven’t seen $100/hr since Bush/Obama flooded us with H1-B’s
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Hi,
Before you scrap the machine try deleting this registry key and see if your problem goes away.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RebootPending
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It sure would be nice to try, if I could even reach a state where I could do anything with the registry. Right now I can't get that far.
I realize you can load and edit the registry from a command prompt (which I should be able to reach), but I'm past the point where I can be convinced to bother to try.
And I'm curious: what does a "reboot pending" flag have to do with running the system repair tool?
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I have had problems when installing Windows 7 last times too due to the high number of updates too. In my case it was due to a problem with the updater itself.
It got solved downloading the KB3138612 and installing it manually.
Clean install finish offline, get online, windows updater updates itself, install the local KB3138612, ask for updates, get a list of over 150, click ok, leave it over night...
Next day, only one update had failed. Try again, got through
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I installed Win7 x64 (with SP1 slipstreamed in it) from a CD that had been created from an ISO file. I have that file in a folder, with two subfolders, one containing KB3138612, and the other KB3145739. According to the readme I had left in the folder, the two patches help to avoid extra-long patch update times. So I installed the OS (including SP1), then the KB file you're referring to, then the other, then I let it go online and download/install everything. Pretty close to what you're describing.
At this point, the laptop is stuck in a System Repair (no error found) / Reboot loop.
As others have said, I've already spent way more time on this than any of it is worth.
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I've seen several laptop hard drives do a slow fail. Years ago, my oldest daughter's laptop would sometimes not boot. I suspected marginal drive sectors were causing the problem, but getting around that was problematic. I finally ran Seagate's SeaTools and it solved the problem for a few months (long enough to save her pictures which, to my knowledge, she has yet to get from my Google drive.)
One clue that SeaTools was working is that about two hours in, it spent several hours analyzing a few dozen sectors. I concluded that the problem is over aggresive firmware which "refuses" to retire marginal sectors. SSDs are simply mandatory on laptops.
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Throw a Linux on it; say Ubuntu or a variant. Lubuntu is said to be fast.
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It sounds like you ruled out Windows 10 without actually checking if it's compatible.
I'd just try to install it and see what happens. IMO good chance it will just work.
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I'd second this. I've got an ancient Core 1 duo laptop (originally Vista) upgraded all the way to W10. Vista-7 was a painful driver hunt; and I never did get the SD card slot working. W7-W10 just worked (tm). The laptop itself is available as an emergency loaner for close friends/family. Too old/slow to be a daily driver IMO; even ignoring the completely dead battery and loose charging port (which would probably kill it in short order due to lack of care by end users).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Win7 is already slow as molasses left outdoors overnight in February on this machine. 10 won't miraculously be any faster, and I've seen plenty of failed experiments to demonstrate it. And getting a license for Win10 on a system that old isn't worth it.
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I've an aunt that insists on opening every virus infested virtual 'christmas card' that she receives. After the 3rd time I rebuilt her computer I just gave her a name of a local computer repair shop - I got tired wasting weekends fixing something that was going to be toast in 3 months.
Maybe if it cost $100 every time these people opened an attachment they'd stop opening them.
Get the kid an iPad.
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MadGerbil wrote: After the 3rd time I rebuilt her computer
Imaging
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Exactly.
I imagined someone else doing the work.
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when you are on the egde computing ...and then you jump into the fog computing....after all the cloud computing...and then into quantum computing....
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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