[ILUG] 3 small problems from a clueless newbie

[Nathaniel Smith]

I have an Hewlett Packard 8390, hda 10.2gb Quantum IDE, hdb 12.4 WD IDE,
LS 120 IDE, ZIP SCSI, 3 1/2 floppy IDE, 384 ram, 100 mhz board, 450 mhz
Pent II.

Hi all
I have been in your archives all afternoon looking for a solution to my
small problems and have two fire extinguishers and a flame retardant
suite on just in case. First, my printer daemon wont start (Caldera
2.2), I went to Coas and hit the Lpring, but nothing happened, my
printer (hewlett Packard 895 CSE) starts up and the paper goes up, then
the red light comes on and blinks, I am now using the 500 HP ink jet
driver but have tried them all including rawwrite.
   Second small problem, my computer crashed while my grand daughter was
doing her school work in windows and have lost system Commander and it
wont start up anymore, had to install Caldera again, I reinstalled
windows but it cant find the operating system now.
Third small problem is I received an HP 8200 CD writer IDE and no more
IDE connections (when it rains, it pours), if their are one or two out
their who likes a challenge, believe me, you could not find a better
one. I am 78 and have 6 months and 9 days computer experience, all
crashing in windows.
   If I have made many mistakes, please forgive, for I don't want to be
rude or ask too much but my granddaughter needs this computer to do her
work on, neither me, nor her, knows anything about linux (except that we
want to learn it) but we had hoped to learn it from the different sites
and not by bothering you fine people. I live in the middle of nowhere
and it will be 11 days before I can get a repair man on it.
thank you so much
Nathaniel