Member Avatar for nizzy1115

I have bought a copy of windows xp home upgrade from best buy for a friends old 333 mhz, 128 ram machine. She had 95 origionally and upgraded it to win 98 and after many problems she wants to go to windows xp like the rest of her computers. Her computer would not boot up to windows so i got her important documents by making it a slave drive on another machine and copying them over.

I went to put the xp disk in to upgrade it and it went through several steps and told me that it could not find an os to upgrade. I then went and decided that since it was origionally a windows 95 that it could not upgrade from that because the windows 98 upgrade would not count.

So i used fdisk and reformated her drive with a dos partition and went to install a full version disk of windows 98 i had temporaly and then upgrade it to xp home. It got all the way through and after its second reboot in the installation process it said "You started your computer with a version of MS-DOS inompatible with this version of Windows. Insert a Startup diskette matching this version of windows and then restart. The system has been halted. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart your computer" and that is all it does...i need to finish up this job in a few hours, can anybody tell me what happened or how i could get xp home on her machine?

Chris

  • 2 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 235 Views
  • 15 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

Dani AI

Generated

Summary of the situation reported by : Windows XP was installed successfully on a 333 MHz / 128 MB machine but the USB mouse and a 4‑port USB hub are shown as "Unknown" in Device Manager. correctly suggested obtaining drivers; below are concrete, XP‑era troubleshooting steps and checks that are commonly required on older hardware.

First priority: chipset / host‑controller drivers and Device Manager cleanup. Install the motherboard chipset and USB host‑controller drivers from the board vendor (Intel, VIA, SiS, NEC, etc.). If the vendor is unknown, check the motherboard silk‑screen or the Device Manager hardware IDs (Details tab). If Device Manager shows yellow exclamation marks under "Universal Serial Bus controllers", uninstall each "USB Host Controller" and "USB Root Hub" entry, remove the hub/mouse, then reboot so Windows redetects and installs drivers. To expose nonpresent devices for cleanup, run these commands from a command prompt before opening Device Manager:

set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
start devmgmt.msc

Remove any ghost USB device entries, then reboot.

BIOS and power considerations. Ensure "USB Legacy Support" (or similarly named) is enabled in the BIOS so the mouse is usable during POST and setup. Old motherboards often provide only USB 1.1 power/current; an unpowered 4‑port hub may overload the ports. Try a self‑powered hub or connect the mouse directly to the PC while troubleshooting. If a PS/2 mouse is available, it can be used temporarily while installing drivers.

Practical notes and performance: with 128 MB RAM XP will be slow—minimize visual effects and background services after USB works, and keep copies of working drivers on CD/USB. If drivers are unavailable for the exact chipset, consider sticking with a lighter OS or Windows 98 SE on this vintage hardware. These steps fill the gap between 's driver advice and the symptom report from .

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for caperjack

format again and just use the xp disk to install ,if its an up grade it will still do a full install just have to have the win98 disk to but in to show proof of ownersihp of a previisous version of windows when it asks for it .

Member Avatar for nizzy1115

ok thanks for the help i got it working with xp...everything except her usb ports...they are recognized fine it just says that her usb mouse is unknown and so is her 4 port usb hub...ill post again in the proper spot unless anyone has an idea

Member Avatar for caperjack

optain the drivers for the devices install them ,then plug them in .
what the name and model #s' of the two devices,try searching www.google.com

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.