IT help please

[Raymy]

Can any IT bods help?
I decided to reinstall Windows. Deleted partition and full format from CD. Forgot to back up all the drivers. Not that it would have mattered, as it seems I have mostly no hardware, ergo, VGA display, no Ethernet, soundcard and probably some other stuff. How can I get XP to recognise the hardware that's in the system and how then can I install the drivers? For info its a Dell Latitude D531 with XP SP2. ATI card and connexant something or other. Many thanks in advance

[karlo]

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/uk/en/ukdhs1/DriversHome/NeedProductSelection


http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/uk/en/ukdhs1/Product/latitude-d531

[Lawrence]

Easiest option is probably to just install the network drivers and get it on the internet, then run Windows update to get all the others.  Any that it can't get a driver for, grab off the Dell site.

[Hodge]

Why are you still using XP. Windows 7 is far superior and has most drivers built into it.

[goldfazer]

Cos he's paid for XP, and has  the CD in front of him!

[Lazarus]

if you dont have the drivers cd, then you need to download from the internet - so you need your network drivers (at least) on the machine.


XP can sometimes be a bitch to reload since a lot of the drivers arent "automatically" added for the hardware you have.

[Raymy]

No driver cd. Drivers are downloaded onto phone (mostly) and tranferred onto laptop through usb.
Turns out I must not have the service pack cos there's not been option to hibernate nor a wireless network finder.
Problem is the computer says there's no modem, video card, sound card , Ethernet and wireless etc installed. Which untrue cos I never took em out. I need to find out hoe to get it to recognise them and then I can run each driver exe. The only one its recognised so far is the touchpad

[Lawrence]

Try this one:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/uk/en/ukdhs1/GetDriver/InitiateSingleFileDownload?fileId=2731099229&driverId=96C98&isInstallAvailable=False&isKCSArticleTobeShown=False&categoryId=NI&returnUrl=%2Fsupport%2Fdrivers%2Fuk%2Fen%2Fukdhs1%2FProduct%2Flatitude-d531%3FretrieveState%3DTrue&isUSDownload=false
 
That should give you wired network... once you've got that recognised you should be able to plug into your router with a cable and run Windows Update (open Internet Explorer, Tools menu I think, then Windows Update).  Install any plugins it needs when loading the page and pick Custom (rather than Express).  Check out the Hardware section and you should see drivers for the other stuff that's not working... run through Windows Update a few times to get all the updates, SP3 etc.
 
Reason for the wired, rather than wifi, driver is that it's 5mb vs 113mb 

[Raymy]

Thanks Lawrence, will update in a while.

[breadlord]

*cough*
Linux
*cough*

[Raymy]

Ok Brad, I'm convinced.

Talk me through it. I'd imagine that I'd need to download base system and a form of distribution before deleting Windows and the partition. is there a step by step you'd recommend?
I watch lots of video. flash and divx. will it work?
Which distributor? I browse web, stream from lots of hosts, play tunes, normally through winamp, and do office work (word and Excel mainly) so compatibility with Windows is a must in this respect as work files will need to be used on work systems that run Windows.
I like decent net speed with no pop-ups but I already use FireFox so that's fine.
What's the best way to go about it. Bear in mind I need to recognise the hardware and find drivers, while not entirely knowing what the hardware might be cos the system info browser can't see them. I'll need to make sure they are there and disassemble is a last resort.

[goldfazer]

Ubuntu's probably yer best bet.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Dell have a habit of putting broadcom n/w cards in which may need extra drivers - just google 'ubuntu broadcom' for 'em.

[Slaninar]

For Word and Excel:

http://www.openoffice.org/

[breadlord]

Ubuntu is probably your best bet for getting everything working, but they're insisting on using their own stupid Unity UI, which everyone pulls off and replaces with Gnome classic. But don't worry about that for now.



Download the livecd and see what's what. Broadcom drivers are normally OK on the more recent releases.

[Raymy]

I'll get on that tonight. Nice one dudes. many thanks. will update on progress later.

[Raymy]

Pendrive installing


Here goes.


Smoke me a kipper an that

[Raymy]

Holy shit, this is gonna take some getting used to

Got a lot of work to do to get the wireless sorted (hardware button not recognised) and find suitable ATI drivers plus the installation software. All this to see if my computer will run faster, even tho i think that's a hardware issue as well. Well here's hoping its not but its a bit slow for commands.

I'll be at this all week by the look of it so i'll get back to you later down the line

[Raymy]

OK dudes. liking Ubuntu. Neat. Software package is great as well. so much support and easy to access apps etc. The one stop shop for software is so far ahead of MS it isn't funny.

Unity seems ok just now, and sound drivers are working, apparently the ATI proprietary driver is useless compared to the Linux built in one, but I'll need to read some more on that.
The wireless issue remains but there's a few posts online about it so got them bookmarked for later but the research continues.

Gonna have to get used to using the terminal by the looks of it as well.

Many thanks for the input lads. If anyone has any Linux tips, feel free to batter in.

[breadlord]

Ubuntu's got some OK tooling for getting ndiswrapper configured easily. ATIs drivers are a bag of wank, yes. I tend to turn them off in favour of the x.org versions.

Glad you're liking it. It's a shit-ton nicer than windows if you don't play games. You'll soon be recompiling your kernel with the best of us.