- Mar 26, 2005
- 4,094
- 123
- 106
Ok.. A friend of my mom's gave me her old computer to fix(says she got viruses and PC is acting up), but I'm having some issues...
So far I know that it's a Celeron 900MHz, 320mb RAM, and it has a 20Gb HD, some crappy old ATI video card, and integrated sound.
When I first turned it on, it wouldn't even recognize the keyboard, but I fixed that by taking out the mobo battery and putting it in again.
Apparently the user tried to install a new XP over the old one, and now, when I boot, I'm presented with 2 options:
1)Old XP install
2)New unfinished XP install
Can you guys please tell me how I can delete the 2nd unfinished XP install and just leave the existing one?
If worse comes to worse, I can format the HD and install a fresh copy of Windows, but I don't want to do that unless absolutely necessary.
Before I format, I'd like to make sure I have all the necessary drivers to get the PC up and running after the format.
How can I find out exactly what motherboard, sound card, and video card is inside this PC without opening it again? The 1st time I opened it I didn't see a model number on the mobo. All I noticed is that it's an ASUS.
Asking the owner for drivers is pointless because she is clueless as to what drivers are and she doesn't know if she ever had them to begin with. All she has is her Win XP disk.
I tried booting from the XP disk, but the PC ignores the CD drive and goes straight into the screen where it asks me what Windows install I'd like to log on to. I went into BIOS, but there's no option to select the CD as 1st boot device.
I ran windows install from within windows but the install cannot recognize the system hardware and asks me to provide the system floppy disk(which off course I don't have and neither does the user).
Any ideas?
So far I know that it's a Celeron 900MHz, 320mb RAM, and it has a 20Gb HD, some crappy old ATI video card, and integrated sound.
When I first turned it on, it wouldn't even recognize the keyboard, but I fixed that by taking out the mobo battery and putting it in again.
Apparently the user tried to install a new XP over the old one, and now, when I boot, I'm presented with 2 options:
1)Old XP install
2)New unfinished XP install
Can you guys please tell me how I can delete the 2nd unfinished XP install and just leave the existing one?
If worse comes to worse, I can format the HD and install a fresh copy of Windows, but I don't want to do that unless absolutely necessary.
Before I format, I'd like to make sure I have all the necessary drivers to get the PC up and running after the format.
How can I find out exactly what motherboard, sound card, and video card is inside this PC without opening it again? The 1st time I opened it I didn't see a model number on the mobo. All I noticed is that it's an ASUS.
Asking the owner for drivers is pointless because she is clueless as to what drivers are and she doesn't know if she ever had them to begin with. All she has is her Win XP disk.
I tried booting from the XP disk, but the PC ignores the CD drive and goes straight into the screen where it asks me what Windows install I'd like to log on to. I went into BIOS, but there's no option to select the CD as 1st boot device.
I ran windows install from within windows but the install cannot recognize the system hardware and asks me to provide the system floppy disk(which off course I don't have and neither does the user).
Any ideas?
Facebook
Twitter