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new os install for laptop - help?

W

Wade

Member
Hi folks...

I just bought a used Compaq Presario 1230 notebook... I'd like to re-install the os and clear things up a bit.

The notebook comes with a compaq restoration cd rather than a real os cd. However, this cd is pretty scratched up and won't launch (other cds work fine, so it's definitely the cd not the drive).

Is there any problem just wiping the harddrive and installing from scratch with my old win98 cd? I guess I may miss out on some of the proprietary compaq stuff on their cd, but I don't really know if that's a big deal or not.

Feedback would be much appreciated please folks.

Thanx,
Wade
 
in my opinion, it'd be fine to blow the drive away & install some other o/s. just back it up first 🙂 besides, compaq should have any proprietary drivers available on their website if you run into any problems
with funky hardware.
 
I'd avoid any Compaq-proprietary software like it was the plague. Except drivers, of course.

Go ahead and load whatever you have.
 
Thanx everyone... good to know... in the meantime, it occurred to me to try this bum cd in my desktop machine's cd... worked fine, so I burned a fresh copy of it, and that copy works just fine in the compaq's cd.

So, I'm trying out a fresh install of compaq's version of w98, but as I have no data on it worth anything, I'll play around a bit and if I don't like it, I'll just slap on the old vanilla W98.

I suppose I could put W2K on board too, as I'll be upgrading the 32 megs stock to 96 megs in a few days, but I think the Cyrix 233 processor might be a bit too slow for W2K... 96 megs may be a bit painful too now that I think of it.... my desktop uses 256 megs.

 
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be aware, it is very difficult to find drivers for Compaq Presario. They are NOT on the website. These are built for novices that don't do this sort of thing. Theoretically it can be done but it is hard. Make sure you get copies of all drivers before trying this. And figure out how to make that Compaq disc work as a backup because installing Windows alone may not work.

Try this for drivers, I found some of the Compaq drivers I needed here:Driver Guide

It even took me days of research to figure out what vid card and sound card Compaq was using. Had to go into their white papers if memory serves me. They just won't give any info out on their consumer models.
 
Hi again...

Well, I decided to use the backed up cd of the original (trashed) installation/restore cd... it worked just fine, and I had to do surprisingly little to clean it up to my tastes.

I figured that with this older machine (Cyrix 233, 32 megs ram soon to be 96 megs, only 1 meg video) I'm only going to be using it for internet access & office 97 work, so there's really not much sense mussing about with a lot of OS tweaks.

The hardest things was getting my W2K desktop to share with the W98 laptop, but once I realized that I needed NetBeui back on board both machines it all snapped together like lego.

Thank you very much everyone for your input.

 
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