I am preparing to wipe clean a machine running Windows 2000 and install XP..... and I am in way over my head here
The machine is a DELL several years old with a Pentium 4 and 512 Mb of RAM. I doubt I could find any original disks of anything. I ran Belarc to see what's in it. Now I guess I am supposed to find drivers for everything somewhere = endless internet searching ? for how many drivers ?? -motherboard ?, NVIDIA dualview / NVIDIA Quadro NVS with AGP8X graphics card, Sony CD-RW CRX216E, Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R5112, 3.5" floppy... how deep does the list go ? Hard disk controllers ? mouse drivers ? USB drivers ? Ethernet ? does anything come with XP ?.
I haven't done anyhting yet, but I guess the process is to reformat the hard drive, install XP, boot from the disk and then somehow psyche out how to install drivers.
I was trying to give this computer to my dad for Christmas.... (he's running WIndows 98 w/ 256 Mb of RAM)
So...should I run in the other direction, send this machine to the landfill and buy another for $400 ? or is this soemthing a rookie with half a brain could take on ?
The machine is a DELL several years old with a Pentium 4 and 512 Mb of RAM. I doubt I could find any original disks of anything. I ran Belarc to see what's in it. Now I guess I am supposed to find drivers for everything somewhere = endless internet searching ? for how many drivers ?? -motherboard ?, NVIDIA dualview / NVIDIA Quadro NVS with AGP8X graphics card, Sony CD-RW CRX216E, Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R5112, 3.5" floppy... how deep does the list go ? Hard disk controllers ? mouse drivers ? USB drivers ? Ethernet ? does anything come with XP ?.
I haven't done anyhting yet, but I guess the process is to reformat the hard drive, install XP, boot from the disk and then somehow psyche out how to install drivers.
I was trying to give this computer to my dad for Christmas.... (he's running WIndows 98 w/ 256 Mb of RAM)
So...should I run in the other direction, send this machine to the landfill and buy another for $400 ? or is this soemthing a rookie with half a brain could take on ?