need help with Re-setup

Okay so here is situation. I find myself in a position where I need to re-set up my computer from scratch by installing a new Operating system. Unfortunately I have never done so before and would like to not screw up my computer.

I am looking for someone to tell me the steps to installing my Windows XP Media Center edition and all the drivers. Where do I start? (the company I got my computer from didn't give me a recovery tool/disc)

So I've got the Windows XP discs, a disc that says Driver Solution Ver.7 and a disc that says it is for the mother board of my computer (P5NSLI/ P5ND2 series Nvidia c19 chipset support CD rev.164.04) as well as a disc for the Nvidia card XFX driver CD version 96.89A.

Thank you for any help you guys can give.

 

It would be easier to just install Windows 7, then stick with XP.

 

I do not have Windows 7. I have discs for Windows XP Media center edition. So I am asking for some help with which order to use the discs I have in.

 

Insert the Xp disc, follow the install instructions. Problem with those systems hat also had Win Media Ctr, it had to be installed after the regular OS install, others the Media ctr was a full fledged XP install, but the keys would be different.

As for 7, you can get the Oem Win7 pro for $99, these days, it comes with WMC with it.

 

So I'll have to start with installing the OS, then move on to the other discs I have? Is there an order I should put those in or does it not matter?

 

Again, it depends on if the Media center is a full install. Only way is by sticking it in and seeing what happens.

 

Firstly, Thank you for helping me through this annoying time. Secondly, if it is a full install what order would you suggest me to use the other discs? if it isn't, I'm guessing I'll have to find a way to buy a new full OS.

 

It really does not matter. If you are truly going to use Windows Media Center, install it. If not, do not. Personally I would move up to Win7, since the price is right, and is faster all around, compared to XP.

 

The basic order is to install your XP. (You won't have internet or graphics drivers.)

Then you would use your motherboard driver disc to install the chipset driver which will give you internet. So now you can get drivers off the net.

Your XFX driver disc will be outdated so you will want the chipset model of your graphics card to get the driver directly from Nvidia. If your XP is still running that should be available in Device Manager under Display Adapters. If it isn't running it should show up on the card itself. Something like Nvidia 560.

A couple of things to consider are:

Is this XP still running where you could download the appropriate drivers ahead of time and store them on a USB flash drive for easy installation later?

Do you have another PC available to get on the net if something goes wrong? The main thing I am worried about is that XP does not include SATA drivers for installation. So it is possible the XP disc will ask for SATA drivers. If that happens I'm not sure if it can read them off the motherboard disc or if ti wants a floppy disk. It seems crazy but I believe that was a limitation where it would only accept a floppy disk. So many people would have to slipstream the drivers into a new installation disc to get XP installed. I think the workaround is to change the SATA operation in BIOS to IDE mode for the install and then change it back after install. I hope brownizs or someone else can comment on that.

 

Thank you to both of you for your help here. I think I'm going to wait to do this. The computer is still functioning relatively well, but I was told that the one hiccup I am having would be fixed by a reinstall of the OS. It is currently running XP home basic, but the company I got it from didn't give me the Home basic discs it gave me the Media Center edition and no recovery image back to factory settings. Otherwise I would just run a repair from the home basic disc or factory image discs, but I don't have those to work with. So I would be changing the OS. I'm pretty sure the computer is incompatible with windows 7 since it didn't live up to the standards of Vista when it came out.

all in all, I now know there is some preparation work to do before I actually go ahead with this. I'll track down the Drivers I'll need first and get everything ready on a flash drive before I have a go of it. Thanks again.

 

Yes, it seems like a rather old computer. And with the different OS situation, which I am not sure why that would be the case, you may be better holding off. A Pentium 4 will run Win7 but it needs a minimum of probably 1.5gb RAM to function properly. We don't know what you have in terms of RAM.

Are you certain you are running XP Home. If you go to Start and right-click Computer and select Properties does it show XP Home as your OS?

One thought is that depending on the size of your HD you may be able to attempt a parallel install of a new XP to see how it goes. Leaving your current install intact. If it installs OK and runs better then you know that a reinstall is a possibility.

You could go to Control Panel> Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management (from the left) and look at the graph. How many partitions do you have on disk 0 and what are their sizes? Look at drive C: in the top pane, what is the capacity and what is the free space?

You might want to explain the glitches you are having to see if it might be something that is fixable without a reinstall.

 

Keep in mind, some computers that were not compatible with Vista, were suddenly compatible with Windows 7.