I'm in a lot of trouble now. My neighbor's PC was acting really really slow, couldn't open this and that and AV had conflict, etc. So I volunteered myself to be Mr. Fix-it and took the PC home, wiped the drive, and starting to reinstall everything.
After installing a known good version of Win98 SE (for 800MHz machine with 128MB RAM), it has ? with the onboard Ethernet, video and audio, won't find the proper drivers from the Win98 CD, nor the ATI driver CD in the video's case. Now I have no internet connection, graphics run at 16 colors, and no sound. And I have to face my neighbors.
Yes I formated the drive with format c: /s, fdisk-ed it first, no errors.
Thanks for your help. I've already searched through their big box of CDs for drivers, since they don't know what they have, and there is no motherboard driver CD. It's a secondhand Dell box, so they don't even have specs or original Dell CDs.
For a second I considered it might be a hardware thing, but it worked, however slowly it might be, just before I formatted it. So I'm sure it's the drivers.
Then you need to identify precisely what model Dell it is and download device drivers from Dell's website.
That's another dumb thing about the Dell site I don't understand. The box comes with a Service Tag number, and theoretically I punch it in on the site and they should know exactly what I have in the box, assuming it's all still factory. But it only gives me a list of categories, and under each category there are tons of choices of video cards, for example.
Install it on that Dell. Then download and install Everest Home Edition on it and generate a report to identify which of the other device drivers on that download page you need!
Let us know if you have any trouble identifying specific devices from Everest's report.
Either the thread starter or a moderator has marked this thread as solved. You can most likely trust the responses and answers given. There is most likely no reason for any further responses to be posted here. If you have a related question, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
This thread is more than three months old
No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
Previous Thread in Troubleshooting Dead Machines Forum Timeline:N5430 wont boot up
Marked Solved 
Offline 
