Lost and Malfunctioning hardware

sean.ferguson

OSNN Veteran Addict
Joined
4 Jul 2003
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1,693
Im trying to help a friend with a PC that they bought a while back.This is by no means a new PC the hardware spec is as follows:


  • Intel Celeron 700MHz
  • 128MB PC133
  • Creative Soundcard (PCI - unsure of exact model)
  • 2Port USB (PCI) card
  • NVidia Riva TNT2 64 (AGP)
  • PS2 Keyboard and Mouse
  • 6GB Harddrive
I dont know the make of the motherboard but, it has the following ports on-board.

  • 2 USB
  • Parallel
  • 2 COM
  • PS/2
Here is the situation, it has been running Windows ME. They bought a Lexmark X1180 Printer/scanner/copier for christmas but it has never been able to function correctly. While i was looking around for a possible fix for them, I recieved a phone call saying that their sound had stopped working. I went to see what exactly was the problem, this is what I found.

I rebooted the PC to recieve a message similar to "there is an error with your registry. Please run scanreg /fix from the ms dos prompt." I did, so that was the last of that message, however now that I boot into ME I need to get a device driver for the graphics card. Upon inserting the cd into the cdrom drive "My Computer" died a horrible death and only hangs now. Occasionally it will load but shows no cdrom drive.

When I take a look into device manager there is only 3 devices listed instead of a large list that you usually see. As well as many others the soundcard, graphics adapter and all usb related info is missing. I was tempted to try a system restore for them, but the last restore point they have is from February 2003! :eek:

I now have very little options to give them. I either need to find the issue that is now present and fix it, then re-attempt to get the printer installed and working (with the help of osnn). Or, install XP Professional on the computer and hope that it all works correctly again, removing all eye-candy and giving them a similar to ME experience once again.

If any of you can help please help me, I'm getting rather annoyed with visiting them to be presented with only more problems.
 
install XP, stripped down.

ME is just one big bug. I used it on a PC, and i hated it, nothing works, even MS denies its existence at talks they gave to professionals, or seminars.
 
I'd have to agree with X. You'd be much better off installing XP (or even Win2k) on the machine. It would prevent future problems too. ME has been one of the most problematic releases of Windows ever.

Now XP is going to run pretty poorly with 128MB of RAM though (I've seen it running on a PIII notebook with 128MB of RAM, and it wasn't pretty). If it's possible, try to get at least another 128MB in. The rest of the specs look fine. You could use something like nLite or XP Lite to strip down the installation and save some disk space for other software and data.
 
Well, it may be possible for me to obtain a copy of windows 2000 Professional, that coupled with the SP4 should be a better combination. Its just really the worry of the hardware that ME decides it cant see. I dont want to completely format their installation with 2kPro and then have the same issue with the hardware. The POST gives a single beep on boot which should mean that all hardware is functioning.
It might just be a risk i will have to take. :s
 
Rip your HD out of your box, stick it in theirs, and see if it works :p
 
would that work? Because if it will, without messing anything up then thats what i will do :)
 
thekore said:
would that work? Because if it will, without messing anything up then thats what i will do :)

No, if you run 2000 and up it Windows will fail to boot. What I would recommend is possibly putting the drive in your computer and making a ghost image. That way u could always go back.
 
Kore

Try XP or a clean ME on a spare drive. The risk of data loss is high. Also, 2000 will use just as much memeory and disk space as XP. They both use the same kernel (NT). While ME is just a pretty user interface hung on 98.

You will need at least 128+64 to run XP and 2000. There is just too much overhead to get by with 128 of RAM and it gets worse with each SP.

I don't suppose you tried a reinstall of ME on their machine yet? And probably don't want to...

PS Putting your HD in another box will result in at best a failed boot and possibly corrupting your OS. It won't have the right device drivers on it.
 
I agree with the last 2 posts, better to get all essential data off, then slick HD and start over with xp or 2000 adding some mem. ME is bad news, and using your HD is very bad idea also, Unless you got a 3rd HD laying around you can ghost an image onto and try and use it...
Good luck!
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
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Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
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