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New Dell 2GHz arriving tomorrow. Questions

R

Rob9874

Diamond Member
I took today off, as it was scheduled to arrive today. No such luck. All that came was my free Epson C40UX printer (any takers?).

I am using some hardware from my current computer, and wanted to know if I should boot up the new one before installing the new stuff, or install them before first boot. I'm taking out the new CD drive, and putting in a DVD drive, CD-RW, and installing a network card and cable modem. I just didn't know if new computers were set up to install certain drivers, beased on what it's built with. Or will it figure out what's in it, and install the correct drivers?

I'm also adding a HD, but I think I'll do that later. It has 98 and 2000 on it, but I don't want it to try to boot off it. Can I set it up as a "non-bootable" drive, so I'm not prompted to dual-boot?
 
Dell will have the operating system on the HDD with all drivers/etc. ready to go. One master is setup and then cloned to all the PCs of that configuration so they're all-set.
 
First off, very nice system...it's a real screamer. I think you could do either just fine. Changing the CD Drives won't affect the OS much as they really don't need drivers, and the network card is a minor hardware addition. It really shouldn't make much difference if you put the stuff in first, or boot it up first, then do the hardware switch. It probably would be a good idea to boot initially just to make sure there are no hardware problems to begin with, but that is probably very unlikely with a Dell PC. I would make one suggestion though. If you can, put some more memory in that thing...especially for Win2K. 128mb is ok for Win9X, but I think at leats 256mb is a good idea for the newer OS's. 🙂
 
I would actually install all your additional hardware first....normally I would say turn on PC first and then set up the basics then install new hardware but with WinXP, you might as well add all your new hardware (since it's a pretty significant amount of hardware, if you boot up and activate your WindowsXP before you add the new hardware, you'll probably have to call MS to get it reactivated after you add all that stuff).

Anyway, try installing before. The reason I say all that again--you're talking of installing a NIC and cable modem--I've heard that's the key hardware component that WindowsXP will check for to see if it needs to turn itself off.
 
Good point about the XP activation. I forgot about that. I think I will install the stuff first.

Yeah, I will get more RAM. I just ordered it with the least amount possible, as Dell charges an arm and a leg for their RAM. I'll be ordering off Mushkin soon. I think 128 will get me by for a few months, since it's PC800 RDRAM. I'll add another 256MB soon.

I spent the whole afternoon backing up my files to CD. I hope I got everything.
 
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