Dell 4600 No New Hardware Found on bootups

[pilgrim2u]

Friend bought a Dell 4600 off the Net. I plug in a Lexmark USB printer, a USB thumbnail drive and a Ethernet device and XP never finds them. No popup window appears in lower right hand screen.
I reboot, reboot...never finds them

XP Home
msconfig...Startup......nothing listed
No programs listed in Add Remove Programs

This machine was bought off Ebay.

The machine appears to run fine

I have never had a Dell. It came with three disks.
I wonder if the seller cleaned everything off the drive when he sold it and the reinstall was NOT complete.

Any ideas?

thanks

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Have you checked to make sure the USB ports are enabled? I'm not sure if it's possible to disable them in the BIOS, but I would check there and in Windows hardware config.

If there's nothing needed on the machine you may want to try a fresh install of XP.

 

[pilgrim2u]

Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes

If there's nothing needed on the machine you may want to try a fresh install of XP.

I have never done this with a Dell. How long does it take and is everything on one DELL CD?

thanks

 

[CalvinHobbes]

There should be a reinstallation CD for XP. That's all you should need to use. Make sure you have that before starting. It probably takes as long as a normal XP install and you may still need to install the other apps that usually come on another CD.

 

[imported_whatever]

Originally posted by: pilgrim2u

Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes

If there's nothing needed on the machine you may want to try a fresh install of XP.

I have never done this with a Dell. How long does it take and is everything on one DELL CD?

thanks

it most likely is. most OEM machines will come with restore disks that put it back to how it was when purchased.