Hi thanks for the reply's. This is going to be a long post Sorry.
I have a
Dell dimension 4600i
Sevice Tag 7xkz91s
1 Gig ram
500 Gig SATA drive
Pioneer CD/DVD burner
Loaded O/S Windows XP sp 3
Carbon Yes thats me.
Broni helped me with that part and all was well. Computer worked really well and had internet capabilities. (with Internet Explorer Only though. Firefox wouldnt access the net.) Probably just a browser setting adjustment needed there.
Then I went to the Dell website to get the other drivers and they recommended to remove/delete the yellow highlighted items from the list, and then reinstall the drivers and that would cure the problem with the yellow ! in device Manager.
I deleted two of them audio and communication, before I thought, maybe I should restart the comp and see what happens before I do the lot.
So I rebooted and that when the trouble began.
It caused a conflict in windows and the system began to hang, (looking for those two I deleted, I thought. I knew that would happen... I'll do a system restore and fix that)
Norton went wild and was looking for parts of itself to start the virus scan on the new drive,(it must have initialized as start scan on boot up.) asking to got to the web to find files, windows would hang and not go anywhere and at one stage Id clicked system restore while the computer was stable (I thought) and it wanted to shut down.
Ctl Alt Del did nothing, system hanging and norton trying to get on the net AND run a virus scan every time I rebooted.
So out came the power cord.
I figured I'll try a recovery with the XP CD, and there is a section in the install process that says "To boot from CD press enter ......" as the dots increase, if you press enter the CD starts to install a second copy of the Windows files.
The total result of the reinstall XP was ,
1 Copy of XP without the Audio and communications Devices, corrupted Norton and system hanging.
1 Incomplete install of XP (that was later completed, and I added administrator passwords to, so I could change settings in the internet manager)
1 copy complete of XP and works fine. Install 3 has access to the net again after reinstalling the Ethernet files that Broni helped me with, and again with new passwords for administrator rights.
Now when I boot up I have three choices of XP, one corrupt and the other two with passwords to log in and when I look on the drive in My Computer all the previous installs are there but they are not in the "Good Copy" of XP programs menu.
So at this stage I can format the drive and start again, (which is probably the best choice)
or
Fiddle around with trying to delete the other copies of windows Xp, fix the norton files and trying to delete the password protects.... I think formatting the drive is the best option and load a clean install of XP.
Aint technology grand (in the hands of the right people)
