Help a novice fix up a Dell Dimension 2400

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carnivaltestin

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Jul 19, 2014
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A friend of mine was clearing out his garage and told me I could have his old PC if I wanted it, I said why not. I took it home to try and uninstall unwanted programs and delete old files to make it new again but it is painfully hard. The screen resolution is locked at 640x480 and it's running Vista when there's a sticker on the side of the PC that says Windows XP with a product key. Not to mention it's painfully slow at doing anything.

Can someone give me instructions on how to reset this thing to factory conditions (as in brand new out of the box) and delete Vista so that I can put XP back on it? It came with some CDs as well. Any help is appreciated!

Didn't know what category to submit this thread under, so please move it if necessary.
 
Solution
clutchc


You can do either. Start fresh or install XP to the largest partition (C: drive).
If it were me, I'd delete all partitions, and let the XP installation pgm make its own.
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clutchc

clutchc

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You shouldn't need to do anything to reset it to factory conditions if you are going to clean install XP from the disks. But, depending on how sophisticated the BIOS is, you should be able to enter BIOS and reset the settings to default... if you feel you need to.
 
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carnivaltestin

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I'm new to this so some tutorial guides would be nice. Do I have the necessary OS disc to delete Vista and install XP?

The disc reads "Operating System - Reinstallation CD Microsoft Windows XP Professional Including SP1, Only use this CD to reinstall the operating system on a Dell computer. This CD is not for reinstallation of programs or drivers."

The rest of the discs seem to be old application/driver software. Could I just avoid messing with the BIOS since I'm a newb and instead just pop the above disc in?

 
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clutchc

clutchc

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It sounds as if that disk is from back when they still actually provided a copy of the operating system instead of just a restore partition on the hard disk. Pop the disk in the DVD drive and re-boot the computer. If it is in fact the complete operating system, it should install a clean copy of XP. But since Microsoft no longer supports XP, you may not get any updates or security fixes.
 
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carnivaltestin

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Hi, clutch, sorry for the late response.

When I restarted the PC with the disc in the CD drive, it would still boot normally to Vista. So I tried to start it while in Vista but I couldn't click the option "Install XP". Here's a screenshot of what I mean:

kFfPIez.png


As you can see the resolution is ridiculously small and I can't figure out how to change it. I've tried to manually update the graphics driver in the Device Manager and scanning Windows Update.

Thanks for any responses.

EDIT: Here's a pic of the disc.
97ufErb.jpg
 
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C12Friedman

C12Friedman

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Sounds like you'll need to get into BIOS and change the boot order so that optical drive is higher priority than the HDD in the boot order - I'll suggest listing optical drive as 1, and HDD as 2. Something of note, you'll be without the 3 service packs that support XP, I might suggest having a local shop assist since they should have access to those service packs (get you as up-to-date as possible on XP). Another option to look into is the installation of a Linux distro which should use less resources than XP
 
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carnivaltestin

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I entered the BIOS, navigated to Boot Sequence, and used this order: 1. IDE CD-ROM Device, 2. Diskette Drive, 3. Hard-Disk Drive C:

It still booted to Vista, so I went back in and disabled the HDD C: option using Space key and when I startup I get this message "strike F1 to retry boot. F2 for setup utility". I assume this means it failed.

Is something wrong with the CD drive?
 
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carnivaltestin

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I had the disc in the CD-ReWritable drive, my bad. Inserted it into the DVD drive and it booted. So now I'm in the middle of setup and I don't know how to partition the Hard Drive or what it even means or which option to select. Can someone walk me through this?

oyBimB6.jpg


Sorry for the quality.

 
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clutchc

clutchc

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You can do either. Start fresh or install XP to the largest partition (C: drive).
If it were me, I'd delete all partitions, and let the XP installation pgm make its own.
 
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