XP reinstall

iano · 08-20-2007, 10:48 AM

Hallo again.

My girlfriends 4 year old Dell laptop, Penthium 4, 1.66 Ghz (if I recall correctly). Its running fairly sluggishly on XP. She was running 256mb ram so I added another 512 but it hasn't made a whole lot of difference.

I tried a registry cleaner which improved things a little (using ccleaner - although I see a sticky up top which says registry cleaners aren't recommended :( ), a HD defrag, switching off Norton just to see.., turning off unnecessary start-up stuff. To little to no avail.

I was thinking reinstalling XP might be the best thing to do next. There are no Dell discs with the laptop but I know someone who works at Microsoft so can get a new copy of XP for peanuts.

Is it possible to reinstall using a non-Dell XP disc? Is it fairly straightforward for someone who is a little PC savvy? There isn't lots of stuff to save on the HD so a complete fresh start might be just the ticket. I have discs printer/camera/ Norton/Office which I understand would need reinstalling too.

Is there anything else I should do in addition to the reinstall?

Thanks in advance

Ian

troy91 · 08-20-2007, 07:29 PM

Yes it's possible to reinstall using a non-Dell XP disc. Just reformat the drive and install using the disc you want to use. It's pretty straightforward and shouldn't be any trouble to you.
Also remember to back everything up. If you don't back up all your data onto a separate HDD or something, you will lose it and won't be able to get it back. Also you might want to get drivers after you've reinstalled, it might automatically recognize them but you might want to visit support.dell.com and choose the model of the laptop and download the drivers.

iano · 08-21-2007, 03:46 AM

Thanks Troy.

Just to clarify. When you say "format the drive" I take it you mean the C: drive. I can remember doing such things in the days of DOS but how do you do that nowadays?

Having done that I take it that all Dell drivers: for video, sound, usb ports ....and cd-rom will be wiped. How does the PC 'know' to read the XP disc when its had a frontal lobotomy? Is there some base level operating system that is sufficient to load XP that doesn't get wiped by a reformat?

I understand the drivers can be loaded again later. I'll just check on the Dell site that her notebook is listed,

Thanks btw. This should be a bit of fun.

08-20-2007, 10:48 AM	#1 (permalink)
iano Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Ireland Posts: 38 OS: xp sp3	XP reinstall Hallo again. My girlfriends 4 year old Dell laptop, Penthium 4, 1.66 Ghz (if I recall correctly). Its running fairly sluggishly on XP. She was running 256mb ram so I added another 512 but it hasn't made a whole lot of difference. I tried a registry cleaner which improved things a little (using ccleaner - although I see a sticky up top which says registry cleaners aren't recommended :( ), a HD defrag, switching off Norton just to see.., turning off unnecessary start-up stuff. To little to no avail. I was thinking reinstalling XP might be the best thing to do next. There are no Dell discs with the laptop but I know someone who works at Microsoft so can get a new copy of XP for peanuts. Is it possible to reinstall using a non-Dell XP disc? Is it fairly straightforward for someone who is a little PC savvy? There isn't lots of stuff to save on the HD so a complete fresh start might be just the ticket. I have discs printer/camera/ Norton/Office which I understand would need reinstalling too. Is there anything else I should do in addition to the reinstall? Thanks in advance Ian

08-20-2007, 07:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
troy91 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 29 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium My System	Re: XP reinstall Yes it's possible to reinstall using a non-Dell XP disc. Just reformat the drive and install using the disc you want to use. It's pretty straightforward and shouldn't be any trouble to you. Also remember to back everything up. If you don't back up all your data onto a separate HDD or something, you will lose it and won't be able to get it back. Also you might want to get drivers after you've reinstalled, it might automatically recognize them but you might want to visit support.dell.com and choose the model of the laptop and download the drivers.

08-21-2007, 03:46 AM	#3 (permalink)
iano Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Ireland Posts: 38 OS: xp sp3	Re: XP reinstall Thanks Troy. Just to clarify. When you say "format the drive" I take it you mean the C: drive. I can remember doing such things in the days of DOS but how do you do that nowadays? Having done that I take it that all Dell drivers: for video, sound, usb ports ....and cd-rom will be wiped. How does the PC 'know' to read the XP disc when its had a frontal lobotomy? Is there some base level operating system that is sufficient to load XP that doesn't get wiped by a reformat? I understand the drivers can be loaded again later. I'll just check on the Dell site that her notebook is listed, Thanks btw. This should be a bit of fun.