Used Laptop

[Raydee]

I recently bought a used Laptop from and Estate sale and all it came with is the power cord. It is an older P3 with a 700 MHZ processor. It has a ton of stuff on it that I really don't care for and some that I like. I would like to just put my fresh version of XP in it and wipe it clean. Is that possible? It already is set up and using XP. By the way it is a Dell Inspiron.

I also use a cable modem at home so is is possible to hook it up the same way?

This is my first laptop...can you tell?

[jdc2000]

Since you did not receive any software disks or CD's with the laptop, a format and re-install will wipe out any existing programs. If there are some you want to keep, you will need to obtain installation files or media for them.

Also, it would be a good idea to see if you can get all of the driver files you will need before wiping the drive. You should probably see what hardware devices and drivers are listed in Device Manager, and print out or save this data so you know what drivers need to be installed.

[Vernon Frazee]

Originally posted by Raydee
I also use a cable modem at home so is is possible to hook it up the same way?

http://www.linksys.com/edu/

[Raydee]

Well I found drivers for my laptop on Dell's website and copied them to a disk. I them installed a fresh version of XP and everything went fine. All the drivers are in and working, but the only problem is that when i reboot the PC I get two choices of which operating system to boot from...but they are both the same! Any idea how to fix this so it will just boot up right away?

[Raydee]

Originally posted by Vernon Frazee
http://www.linksys.com/edu/

Thanks for the info. Here is a Question....If I buy a wireless router and a card for my laptop can I still run my Home PC the way it is now or will i have to buy a card for that PC too?

[Vernon Frazee]

Every device you want on the network will need a Network Interface Card (NIC), (whether it's a wired or wireless network).