Tips to upgrade from XP to Win2000

[amt7565]

I have received a Dell desktop that needs to be scratched from XP and then upgraded with Win2000. There is no CD for XP available, however the win2000 is available.

Any advise on this is really appreciated.
Many Thanks.
AMT

 

[bf0x]

From What I am understanding is that you have no drivers for the hardware in the PC. And you want to format the hard drive and install windows 2000.

If I am correct. The easiest way if windows 2000 does not detect your hardware is to get the part number for said device and look it up on the web before deleting windows XP and getting the driver for that piece. Also windows xp will help in telling you what the name of the device is. Other than that it should be un-eventful for your install. I wouldnt call it an upgrade due to it actually being a downgrade in OS. Hope this helped.

 

[amt7565]

Thanks bf0x-
The PC with XP is in running condition, but extremely slow. This is the reason I want to scratch install it. Seems like it has been corrupted with stuff from the intenet. So, should I still need drivers?

If was thinking of a simple Format of c: drive and then load it with the Win2000 CD to upgrade it. Win2000 is the only CD I have.

Thanks.

 

[wolluf]

Just boot from the 2k install CD - use its partitioning tools to remove XP partition and create a new one for 2k. 2k will almost certainly have enough drivers to get it up and running (may have them all) - and you can use something like

http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=1

to identify any hardware which needs drivers (usually gives website to download from too - though if its a Dell, you may just be able to get them all from their website).

PS. You may end up with a dual boot menu as 2k has annoying habit of 'saving' the current boot.ini file before you wipe the partition - just edit boot.ini to remove the XP entry if this happens.

 

[paparazi]

amt7565
If the only reason for the "down grade" is because XP is messed up a bit, have you considered using "system Restore" and take the XP installation to an early good restore point before problems occured.

Start/programmes/accessories/system tools/system restore then sellect restore to an earlier time, use the calender to sellect a know earlier highlighted date, resytore.

Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[paulrw1]

You also considered completing the following:

1) From the command prompt: (start->run-> type: cmd and press the enter key) CHKDSK c: /f You will get a message saying something to the effect that the system can not lock your hd, do you want to run CHKDSK the next time you reboot. Press Y Then reboot. This command will check your drives for problems/errors and attempt to fix them.

2) Once #1 is complete and your pc has reboot, download a program called System mechanic. It's fully functional for 30 days. Install and run it. Here you can do a number of things. Such as: clean out un-needed files like .tmp, .bak, .log files. It will also clean your system registry. You can even delete cookies and clear IE's history and offline files.

3) After you complete #2, download and install a spy-ware remover, such as Ad-aware. Install and run it.

4) Delete any programs, text files, data you don't use or need. IF you have a cd burner, burn these files to a blank cd for future reference.

5) Defrag your HD. If you've never done it before, it may run awhile, depending on the size of your HD, CPU speed and the amount of fragmentation.

6) Finally download and install (or buy) a good anti-virus program. Norton has a good one, along with MCAfee. There are otheres.

You should perform steps 1-6 (defrag, delete spy ware, do a virus check and update your virus definition files, delete un-needed files, etc) on a regular basis. Depending on how much use your pc gets, perform maint. at least once a month. If you use your pc a lot you may want to do maint. on a weekly basis.

This SHOULD help get your pc performance back to where you think it should be. Installing another OS won't solve your problems as each Windows OS needs regular maint. Also be sure to download and install any and all patches and upgrades while you are at it.

 

[bjdobs]

I just went through this process ... Dell ships a driver disk with the PC ... if you don't have that then you will have to go to dell.com support and enter the model to get the latest drivers ... in my case after installing W2K the onboard NIC, Video Card and Keyboard were not recognized properly so I couldn't go onto the internet get beyond a VGA screen or type anything (not sure why Dell isn't including these on their OEM OS disks?) ... luckily I was able to get into safe mode and use the mouse to load the appropriate drivers from the Dell driver disk. Then went to the Dell site to get the latest drivers and firmware. As for your XP issues Dell does have firmware updates to correct some issues ... it all depends on how old your machine is and if it was delivered with XP.

 

[amt7565]

Foolks many thanks for all your advise.
I have not acratched the XP OS yet, instead I am taking paprazis and Pauls advise.

I complete the 'system restore" and it did help. However the PC is still too slow to be usable.
I have followed Pauls advise-step-1. However that did not make a difference.
I have downloaded the 'system mechanic" and "adaware" on my personal PC and trying to transfer it on a CD, but now seems like the XC PC is not reading the CD drive. Now I need to figure out how to get the CD drive to work before proceeding further.

Thanks again.

 

[wolluf]

amt - one thing you haven't mentioned - the machine's spec. Is it up to running XP? (you mentioned 'Seems like it has been corrupted with stuff from the intenet' - does that mean it used to run at a reasonable speed)?

Also - if you have a licence for XP (which presumably you have), why not get replacement install CD from Microsoft, and reinstall XP? (or is it a recovery disk only job?)

 

[amt7565]

Wolluf-
This computer belongs to a poor inncer city kid. She's had it for about 1 year which was bought by her parents new. Apparently her mother has thrown away the CDs. And yes it is capable of running XP.

XP version-2002
Service pack-1
Pentium-4 CPU
128M RAM
HardDrive: Maxtor-6E040l0

Thanks.

 

[amt7565]

After following the many advises you have all written, the PC is running much faster. However, something still wrong with internet explorer. If I open it, I am unable to close it and I have to open taks manager to close it. Also it does not connect to the internet.

I have cable modem from Comcast at home. This PC detects LAN connections, but unable to connect to the internet.
Anyone here familiar with XP can give me a few tips on how to connect to Highspeed?

Thanks

 

[paulrw1]

Have you tried unpluging the modem for a couple of minutes. After you plug it in, reboot the pc. Opena command prompt. Type: ipconfig /all This will show you the IP address, the subnet mask and default gateway that you are connected to. IF the command doesn't show anything,
type: ipconfig /release and press enter.
Then type: ipconfig /renew.


As far as IE goes, go to microsoft's website and download IE 6.0. If you can't find it there, you may have to do some searching. After you obtain it, re-install it to see if that fixes the problem.

 

[amt7565]

OK- I have tried the following:
I did unplug the cable modem for about 5 mts and then connected it back into the PC and rebooted.

Ipconfig /all: does not show a default Gateway address.

Ipconfig /renew: gives the following error "error occured renwing Local area connection. Unable to find your DHCP server. Requester timed out", I did this after Ipconfig /release.

I also ran network diagnostics from XP and it identified the DHCP as failed.

XP diagnostics asked me to rename the winsock.dll file if more than one was found. I did that as well.

When I try to connect to the internet, for some reason it always invokes dialup networking. I am not sure how to stop it from using dial up and instead use LAN.

Thanks.