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Reformatting & Re-installing on a Compaq EP/SB Series
I need to re-format a Compaq Deskpro EP/SB Series(350Mhz), and was
hoping to get advice from someone who has one and has had to install and operating system on it. If I reformat the hard drive(which presently has a very unstable copy of Windows ME on it), I need to know if special disks are needed or if there is a way to put virtually any OS on it. I just don't want to be stuck with a giant paper weight once the drive is erased. Thanks a lot. Darren Harris Staten Island, New York. |
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Darren,
The computer has an Intel 440BX chipset on it. Chipset drivers are built into Win ME or later, required from www.intel.com for Win 98 or NT. You'll also need to identify the audio, network and video drivers and possibly obtain drivers for them as well. Try the HP web site for info about the drivers, many of which can be downloaded there. HP did not trash the Compaq Deskpro driver downloads when it bought up Compaq. HP and Carly have trashed up just about everything else tho in the last 3+ years... Ben Myers On 13 Feb 2005 09:58:15 -0800, wrote: I need to re-format a Compaq Deskpro EP/SB Series(350Mhz), and was hoping to get advice from someone who has one and has had to install and operating system on it. If I reformat the hard drive(which presently has a very unstable copy of Windows ME on it), I need to know if special disks are needed or if there is a way to put virtually any OS on it. I just don't want to be stuck with a giant paper weight once the drive is erased. Thanks a lot. Darren Harris Staten Island, New York. |
#3
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Ben Myers wrote: Darren, The computer has an Intel 440BX chipset on it. Chipset drivers are built into Win ME or later, required from www.intel.com for Win 98 or NT. You'll also need to identify the audio, network and video drivers and possibly obtain drivers for them as well. Try the HP web site for info about the drivers, many of which can be downloaded there. HP did not trash the Compaq Deskpro driver downloads when it bought up Compaq. HP and Carly have trashed up just about everything else tho in the last 3+ years... Ben Myers Thanks. This will take a week, provided I have nothing else to do. (I'll definitely not buy a PC from any of the major companys after this). Darren Harris Staten Island, New York. |
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Um, the Compaq DeskPro with 440BX motherboard chipset is no different than any
other motherboard, name brand or generic. If you install Win 98 or NT, you need to add the 440BX chipset drivers which did not exist when the software was released. Microsoft, as a matter of policy, never (or very rarely) adds drivers for graphics cards, motheboard chipsets, sound cards or any other hardware sold for the first time AFTER a major version of Windows is released. On the other hand, you can depend on Windows 2000 or XP and maybe even butt-ugly ME to have 440BX chipset drivers for Compaq and any other motherboard with the chipset on it. In short, don't blame Compaq or any brand name for the absence of drivers in a Windows release. It is inevitable, no matter what brand or white box computer there is. Now you can blame Carly, $21 million richer in severance pay, and the other HP people for mucking up the ex-Compaq web pages if you can't find what you need. As far as decent web site support (documentation and drivers), I have to rate IBM and Dell at the top, in a dead heat. Gateway is a distant third. The Compaq web pages are 4th. The HP web pages are about 15th, surpassed by just about every other brand name. I will also claim that if you inherited a generic white box computer and had to load it up with Windows software, you would have perhaps a worse challenge than you will have with the Compaq. Remember, a white box computer is assembled by resellers like myself. As a reseller, I take great pains to supply driver CDs and documentation for everything inside a computer I build. Then the computer gets detached from all the documentation. I have been down that road refurbishing or repairing white box computers built by others. It's no fun. I'm not saying all this because I am pro-Compaq. I am citing all this from the experience of working on hundreds and hundreds of computers in the last 12 years. All brands... Ben Myers On 14 Feb 2005 17:24:32 -0800, wrote: Ben Myers wrote: Darren, The computer has an Intel 440BX chipset on it. Chipset drivers are built into Win ME or later, required from www.intel.com for Win 98 or NT. You'll also need to identify the audio, network and video drivers and possibly obtain drivers for them as well. Try the HP web site for info about the drivers, many of which can be downloaded there. HP did not trash the Compaq Deskpro driver downloads when it bought up Compaq. HP and Carly have trashed up just about everything else tho in the last 3+ years... Ben Myers Thanks. This will take a week, provided I have nothing else to do. (I'll definitely not buy a PC from any of the major companys after this). Darren Harris Staten Island, New York. |
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