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View Full Version : What to do?


ZhengHe
02-20-05, 02:34 PM
Alright, I'm running Windows XP Home Edition on a Dell (no underhanded comments, yes I know the setup sucks).

Anyway, over the years I've fooled with some default setting, which have both helped me and hurt me, causing many programs to stop functioning. I think that if I were to uninstall everything and then reinstall basic programs, drivers, ect... that it could solve some of those problems, but I'm not sure if that would be the right course of action, nor do I know how to go about that, so I'm looking for some help.

A.) What do you suggest I do, first of all.

B.) What would I need to do this, yes I'm willing to pay some money to buy some software ect....

C.) I'd like to save some of my files from my computer to put back on afterword: word documents, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, songs things of that sort, which comes out to a hefty amount of memory, something in the realm of 60-80 MB made up of various file types, so if I were to basically uninstall everything off this computer how would I save those so I could put them back on later (no I do not have a CD burner installed, yes I may be able to find someone that has a wireless one that I could borrow, but not positive, so don't assume that option.

D.) What are/ would be the steps in detail of going about this process. Please be as specific as possible and cut it on the rhetoric and please don't assume I know what you mean in any circumstance, even the most obvious one. Assume that 80% of everything the normal population cannot do, neither can I, better to overexplain on this then underexplain.

E.) As an added bonus, if there were a way after this process that I could install another OS besides XP, along with XP (along, since I still need an OS I know how to use to do basic stuff while learning the second one) how would I go about doing that. You could suggest some OS's here too, just keep in mind who exactly I am and what I can handle IOW, I know very little, when it comes to this and most other things.

F.) If someone could tell me how to install my CD burner that would be an added bonus too. Its a Lite-On with Nero and the computer information in my signature should be enough information to start on. If its not, just ask, and I'll give you more info.

G.) Any other information that would be helpful to this process would be good too, like if you can slip in how to update my device drivers, somthing else I don't know how to do.

If in any of these circumstances you need more information about my computer, software, ect....to be able to more affectively write instructions, mention it in the post, and I'll give more info. If you need me to be more specific, I'll respond to that too. Thanks for anyone who attempts this :).

-and if for whatever reason you want to contact me some other way to help me, besides via posting, you can email me too. I usually check it at least once a day.

tenchi86
02-20-05, 03:17 PM
Ok I have a massive headach and abot to log but will come back to clear up what I am saying. First off to insatll a cd burner if its normal just open your case up and look at the IDE (long grey ribbon) wires going to your current drives. Just pop replace the top one if you have two with cd burner or if you have one just replace that one. If you have two you will need to set master and slave settings the cd drive should come defualt on master so try to put it in up top. Then if it not auto dected you may need some drivers. get model number and google drivers. Ok If you dont have a cd burner THen that was all just a waist. Ok if you dont have a cb burner and down have two HDD open a gmail account and send attach the files and send them your yourself. Thats only other way I can think of. As for fixing files I cannot say for I have no idea whats going on. As for having two OSs if you have xp insatll cd you can make two partition using it. Its pretty straigh forward. If not you would have to put fdisk on a floppy and use it. If you are doing it that way post back for better directions(though I am not positive fdisk can handle hdds over 4gb I think it can). As for installing your OS do you have a repair CD? Or actaul windows install cd?



As said before i will be back in like 1 hour or when ever my headach goes away and use better detail on what I said.

Ebola
02-20-05, 05:20 PM
I appologize for pretty much ignoring tenchis post but I'll start off with what I would do.

1. Lets start with the cd burner. Most are set to cable select now-a-days so you don't need to know about master/slave. I would attach it to the ribbon cable that is attached to your other cd drive. I've done this with liteon drives on a couple of dell optiplex 270's. EASY. Plug in a molex power connector and your good to go. If you want headphone audio you need to do one more step but you can ask later since its not the issue. Boot up windows and it will probably find your drive and install it. If not you the setup drivers that came with it. You probably got nero express or something like that. It might be the exact same oem package I got from newegg. lol. If it is it can be a bit tricky wen installing. It might hang so you might need to install portions at a time rather than the whole package at once. You won't be able to burn digital audio off the bat. you need the aspi layer but ask about it after we get things taken care of.

2. Back up everything to cd and test to make sure your burns were successful. :) I would slipstream sp2 onto your windows cd at this point using a tool called nlite. just do a google search for it. its really easy to do.

3. Download a windows 98 boot disk from bootdisk.com so you can fdisk your computer and start from scratch. make the bootdisk. restart you pc and go to the bios and make sure floppy is set first for boot order, cd second, hd 3rd. usually f2 on dells.

4. fdisk will esentially erase everything so make sure your absolutely ready to do this. when you boot it will bring up the windows 98 install screen where you hit shift +f5 to bring up a command prompt. type "fdisk /mbr" without the quotes to erase the master boot record. then type fdisk to bring up the fdisk menu. I think its option 3 or 4 that lets you delete a non dos partition. select this and well its easy to do. You'll get it.

5. Now that your windows free lets put windows back on. you should have two cds from dell. a windows oem cd (or the slipstreamed vs) and a drivers cd. stick your windows cd in your pc and boot up. Windows will walk you through the installation. Easy as pie.

6. I prefer to use virtual PC from MS to run other OS's. I hate rebooting to run another os. Basically to run multiple os's from boot you should partition the drive durring install and then install each os in order. If you want an older MS os you should have installed it prior to XP otherwise it might not work.


Good luck

tenchi86
02-20-05, 08:47 PM
Ok I am not going to read that due to yours plus typing mine is like a freaking novel. Just wanted to let you know I was back. So if you have read mine or Ebolas post yet and still have questions just ask.

tenchi86
02-23-05, 08:32 PM
Did you ever figure it out?