[CrankyCheryl]

I have been trying to get my sound card working and have tried just about everything, updating the driver, checking everything in my BIOS, Dell Support Center, Microsoft Support (and another forum here at Geeks to Go) I have read through my help/troubleshooting files and still can't get it to work. It says it is not plug and play compatible and that it has not been "started", I want to wipe my computer clean and reinstall my WinXP, but I am not familiar with it and don't want to trash my pc. My old Compaq had a Factory Restore CD that pretty much did everything for you.
This Dell is refurbished and WinXP seems to be the only os because it is not in my Add/Remove list.
Do I have to formatt or something before I use the WinXP CD?

Edited by CrankyCheryl, 19 July 2007 - 09:28 AM.

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you can format the drive with the XP disk....

is the XP disk you have the one that came with the Dell? if not is it at least what was installed on it when you got it?

[dsenette]

you can format the drive with the XP disk....

is the XP disk you have the one that came with the Dell? if not is it at least what was installed on it when you got it?

[CrankyCheryl]

I don't think this Dell came with XP, (my best friend gave it to me when she got a new PC) my friend had memory added and it used to have WinME, but I can't find anything about WinME on here. My friend gave me the back up CD of WinXP with the Dell (the original was damaged, she said it wouldn't matter because it's the same CD and product key). It's Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2.
I'm not sure what the guy did that added the memory and the new XP because I have a D: drive that is not accessable.
But, yes, I have the CD and product key and can't find any evidence of the previous version of WinME

[dsenette]

ok so it's a copy of an XP disk? not a system recovery disk correct?

what size is the D: partition by chance?

[CrankyCheryl]

It is just a copy of WinXp, not a recovery.
I'm not sure why it even says there is a D: drive, when I checked the properties it says:
Type: Local Disk
File System: RAW
Used Space: 0 bytes
Free Space: 0 bytes
Capacity: 0 bytes
???? Don't know what that means????

[dsenette]

it may be the dell recovery partition or whoever set the thing up may just be an idiot?

to do a full format reinstall on the system you would just put the XP cd in the machine and boot to it (change your boot order in BIOS to CDROM first...get to bios by pressing f2 or del during bootup) then follow the prompts....

basically you would accept the license agreement then press enter to setup XP then select the current partitions (one at a time) and press D to delete them (then i believe enter and L? it tells you what to press)...then you would press enter to setup XP on the unpartitioned space...it will format the partition then install XP

obviously if you've got any important data or anything like that on teh PC you'll need to back that up before doing this stuff..

once XP is installed you'll need to download all the drivers for your computer (should be able to get them from dell) on another computer and install them on the one you just installed XP on

[CrankyCheryl]

Thanx so much for your speedy responces, you've made it sound so easy it's almost encouraging!
I have already made copies of all my personal files and programs and stored them on flash drives and luckily my old Compaq still works and has a modem to get any missing drivers (it's just really old and slow working on Win98 First Edition).
Thanx again!

[koutsounis]

where can i find drivers for xp? (Dell Optiplex GX1 of course)

on dell.com i can find drivers for a lot of operating systems, but not xp

thanks

Edited by koutsounis, 07 February 2008 - 09:08 PM.