Posted by EastCoastStar
okay, my dads friend had a computer, and it messed up... took it to a computer store, and the store said all that was wrong was it had a bad hard drive... they are buying a new computer, so i got to keep the old one. I actually have a few spare hard drives laying around... so can i just plug a new hard drive in and make it work?!? i doubt it lol, but how could i get it to work?
thanks!
Posted by govigov
That will only take 30 seconds. And is dead easy.
Posted by rrojas260
Actually its very easy to do it, just plug the hard drive and install any OS and thats it. Anyone can do it.
Posted by EastCoastStar
for real?? so i dont need any special crap to install the hard drive?
Posted by GOwin
DIY: Installing a primary hdd
Posted by EastCoastStar
thanks for that @GOwin, itll help me alot!
_________________
check out the site guys. www.editionfws.com
its empty, so i need your help on what to add!
[ This Message was edited by: GOwin on 2005-05-17 02:12 ]
Posted by GOwin
You can't ask that here in ESATO.
Posted by EastCoastStar
will i have to find a way to reinstall the cd-rw??
Posted by GOwin
your OS should be able to take care of that.
Posted by govigov
the keyword is "Nero"
Posted by EastCoastStar
kk, thats all i need:-)
thanks for the help all!
Posted by nickorooster
Haha I HATE bad hard drives. But before you throw it out, stick it in a zip-lock bag, try and get all the air out of it, then put it in the freezer (sealed) for about an hour, and then try it again! It may be only temporary (my 80gb worked for about a week after freezing) but at least its something!
Nick
Posted by Cycovision
Just when you thought it was safe to install a new hard drive, here comes cyco, sticking his oar in again
One little issue where a lot of people come unstuck is drivers. Unless you're lucky and the OS finds all of your hardware natively, or you have the disk(s) for all of your hardware, you're going to need to get them all off the net. Which OS are you going to put on it, by the way?
Only reason I mention it is that, if the PC boots at all at the moment, i.e. into safe mode, it's a good idea to go into device manager and make a note of the following hardware: Display adapter, modem, network adapter and sound, gaming and multimedia devices before you start ripping hard drives out. Something I often forget to do
Unless of course it's a 'brand name' PC in which case you can get everything except any PCI cards that were added later from the manufacturers' website.
Posted by EastCoastStar
@nickorooster, im gonna try that! haha
@cyco, im not sure what OS i am going to install. im thinking just windows 98 or something. will 98 be able to do it all itsself without me havingt to install them?
Posted by DJcreamz
i dont belive so, the best bet would be xp.
Posted by EastCoastStar
but xp has alot of errors, 98 doesnt have as many
Posted by DJcreamz
spose it depends on the age of the system, but xp will have the best support for native drivers... i guess
Posted by EastCoastStar
thats true... i definatley agree with u on that.
i wonder when a new windows will come out... mac just had Tiger... now time for windows to make sumthn new!
Posted by nickorooster
I have only ever had 2 errors on my XP machine! EVER!
One when I tried to run a DOS game (DOTT) and the other when I had installed Nvidia drivers
(I have an ATI card). Oh and don't think im a noob because of it. There are quite specific circumstances that led to that mistake.
Nick
Posted by Cycovision
yeah, it would have to be a really old pc for 98 to find everything on it's own
Posted by EastCoastStar
hahahaha @nicko
why did u even try?!?
i get weird errors on my xp system now... but my comp has also gone to crap.
and yea... 98 probobly is too old... so, the question is XP or ME?? i have never worked with ME before.
Posted by nickorooster
ME is a piece of crap. DON'T USE IT. Seriously, DON'T.
XP would be a hundred times better even if it crashed twice a day.
Nick
Posted by Cycovision
ME is just Windows 98 with a few pretty bits. It was rushed out for the year 2000 and as such, it is very much 'unfinished'. Lots of errors and compatibility issues.
What you could do is stick XP on it first just to find out what drivers you need. If you use SP2 and the machine is more than about 4 years old, the chances are that XP will pick up most if not all of the hardware.
If it runs too slowly, or you really don't like XP, you can just reinstall it with 98, knowing what drivers you need
Posted by EastCoastStar
so ME is out of the question.
ill stick with XP, im so used to it.
so hopefully it will load everything good!
Posted by Rocky B.
Personally i have this wierd realtionship with XP. I hate it. It hates me. I would rather use BeOS or flipping OS2 than windows XP. And funnily enough its just XP, I've never had any problems with 2000.
As for the new version of windows, just wait for longhorn
Posted by EastCoastStar
hmm longhorn?!?!?
and how was ME? i have never ever used it lol
Posted by govigov
98SE best M$$ product ever.
ME worst M$$ product ever.
Xp good. easy for a non power user.
Long Horn
64 bit rocket.....
Posted by GOwin
windows 98? Forget it.
Get Linux (or XP, if you prefer microsoft). But I think you should give yourself a chance to grow into Linux, especially with friendlier distros like Ubuntu.
It's stable, secure and detects most new hardware automatically (as long as they're not too esoteric.) Oh, and it's free so you don't have to ask for serial numbers and that stuff.
Posted by Gigs
Omg 98? best? ROFL!
What was good abotu an OS that routinely needed reinstalling because tis TCP stack fell over, or reinstalling because it had more than 1 entry in the registry and slowed down to a crawl.
2000 was the first best one from MS, then Xp just expanded upon that. Professional.. Not home. Home is a travesty.
My favourite OS is still AmigaDOS though
Posted by EastCoastStar
hmm i would LOVE to partition my hard drive and have an MS OS, and linux! i really want to give linux a go!
Posted by govigov
come on... 98SE was good... agreed it crashed on the very first presentation day, but come on.... that is the most common OS ever....
Posted by Johnex
Govi is right. Win 98SE is probably on of the most stable windows versions, maybe better than xp (maybe, and not regular 98, 98SE (second edition))
Posted by EastCoastStar
yea, regular windows sucked, but 98SE worked alot better...
anyway...
**news!**
i installed the hard drive i had laying around, the person i got it from said they used ME on it, but for some reason 98 loaded...
and my only problem... its a fairly new monitor, but when i try to change the resolution, it wont let me. and it will only let me use 16 colors... any suggestions?? update the drivers?
Posted by EastCoastStar
someone told me it was the graphics card... but it has what normally comes with the computer, nothing special...
Posted by GOwin
w98 being "common" doesn't qualify it as "best M$$ product ever".
Partitioning makes sense, especially when you're starting on a fresh computer. (Of course, backing up isn't really hard to do.)
If this is not your only computer, you can play with Linux and not worry about losing data.
Update your driver for your graphics card.
Posted by DJcreamz
Partitiot, partition, if u didnt live in the US of A id send u copy of linux
Deffinatly partition in honesty i dont really use linux much at all if ever but its nice to have it on there to play with unless of course u have anything less than 20gig in which case dont lol
Posted by Cycovision
@EastCoastStar
Yup, you need the graphics driver. Take the side off and have a look at the motherboard.
If the graphics card is in a PCI or AGP slot, turn off the pc, take it out and have a look. You should be able to see clearly what type of card it is.
If it's on-board graphics, have at look at the motherboard and see if there's a make and / or model number. If there is, just type it into google and you should be able to identify the board and get the drivers from the manufacturers' site.
Same applies if the PC is 'branded', e.g. dell, tiny, time etc. Just look for the model number, tag number or serial number and you should be able to get the right drivers from the manufacturers' site
Posted by nickorooster
God I can't wait for longhorn... Im gunna Buy myself a 64bit machine as soon as that OS comes out... mmm Speed
.
Nick
Posted by DJcreamz
lol as the flow of my posts seem to be advertising overclockers.co.uk ill add they have a socket 939 athlon 64 3000+ for just £94.99
Posted by EastCoastStar
well i have another problem... it wont detect my modem. I have tried 2 seperate modems, and it wont detect eather of them, and i go to select one from the list, and it has the brand, but not the model, and the otherone it doesnt day the model (on the modem). and i dont have the disk... any ideas?
Posted by rrojas260
Thats the reason cause i love XP
Posted by govigov
doownload driver from the site and use the "Have disk" option.
@GOwin, so what is the best M$$ product?
Posted by Cycovision
If your having trouble identifying the modem, take it out and and have a look at the biggest chip on the board. It'll have 1 or more code numbers on it and if you're lucky, it'll have the chipset manufacturer as well (very often connexant).
Go to www.driverguide.com, sign-up and then use the 'simple search' option. leave the 'device type' and 'operating systems' drop down boxes on 'any' and type in the manufacturer and / or one of the numbers that you got from the modem. Hopefully, you'll get a few results.
If you get no results, try putting in absolutely ANYTHING you can see on the modem in to the search!
Posted by EastCoastStar
but see... i dont have a CD burner... thats the problem, so i cant copy the drivers to a CD, unless the will fit on a 3.5...
i will try that when i get home
thanks all
Posted by govigov
a driver will fit into a floppy for sure... all you need is the .inf file (may be .sys too
)
Posted by GOwin
If you're referring to microsoft operating systems, they've made a lot of progress since win95, and therefore XP would be their "best" OS for now.
However, microsoft offers a lot of other products as well. Word processors, office suites, compilers, web services, etc.
So, what's their best product now?
I don't really care if the "best" product comes from microsoft or not, my only concern is if the product works for me.
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[ This Message was edited by: GOwin on 2005-05-19 01:00 ]
Posted by EastCoastStar
they have made alot of progress since 95, but IMO, 95 was their most stable system...
anyway, i will check out the drivers and all and let you guys know how it goes.
Posted by EastCoastStar
are there any free partitions, or do they all cost money?
Posted by ocarina7
Hey EastCoastStar? I need to talk to u on private message.
Posted by GOwin
Partitioning software?
Windows CDs has them (it's called fdisk), Linux has them too, and they're free.