Dell PC... Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro

You wrote:

"Thanks. I'll keep your offer of help in mind. Hopefully, I already have something of a solution... I bought a later-dated disk on eBay with the presumption the controller driver is on it."

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Gnome....

A newer hard drive has nothing to do with the hardware drivers for the SCSI card itself.
You still need the SCSI card hardware drivers before any SCSI drive will work. It doesn't matter how new the SCSI DRIVE is without the correct SCSI CARD hardware drivers.

Best of luck...and just post on this thread if you need some help.

Nite. :)
 
Quote from BlueDoji:

You wrote:

"Thanks. I'll keep your offer of help in mind. Hopefully, I already have something of a solution... I bought a later-dated disk on eBay with the presumption the controller driver is on it."

______________________

Gnome....

A newer hard drive has nothing to do with the hardware drivers for the SCSI card itself.
You still need the SCSI card hardware drivers before any SCSI drive will work. It doesn't matter how new the SCSI DRIVE is without the correct SCSI CARD hardware drivers.

Best of luck...and just post on this thread if you need some help.

Nite. :)
More...

Yeah, well... that was my point. While trying to install XP Pro with an older Dell reinstallation disk, the process stopped and basically said, "hard drive not recognized".... however the same model reinstall disk works on older Dells with IDE controller.
 
You wrote:

"Yeah, well... that was my point. While trying to install XP Pro with an older Dell reinstallation disk, the process stopped and basically said, "hard drive not recognized".... however the same model reinstall disk works on older Dells with IDE controller."

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OK....sounds like you have an ancient DELL RESTORE CD which pukes with newer hardware...so you are using outdated drivers for a NEW XP install...which might be the root of the problem. Old drivers were not designed to work with Win_XP and newer OS'es.

Honestly, without any specific info it's near impossible to help you other than suggest potential solutions. No doubt you have your own motives for this but...but it's not a standard install. If you are trying to save licensing fees I understand...and what you are doing is nothing new...but you still have to have the newest drivers for XP to work correctly.
Win 95/98 & NT worked much differently than Win_XP so you can't use old DELL drivers(on the ancient restore disk) for modern operating systems. Some Win 2000 stuff is interchangeable with Win_XP....but even that is "iffy" and must be tested by hand one at a time.

So....not knowing the whole story...I suggest starting from scratch.

Use the asset tag and download EVERY DRIVER made for your PC FOR WINDOWS XP from the DELL site and then any you can't find 3rd party manufacturers....then install everything manually to overcome this problem.
Start with the motherboard I/O chipset installs first...they are critical to the others working correctly in modern OS's and PC's.

Honestly Gnome....lol...at this point why bother. I think you are spitting into the wind....a good cheap SATA2 drive will keep pace(or even out pace...with an 8MB or more cache drive) any SCSI setup you may install unless....its a Cheetah 15K RPM server drive.

Me thinks the time is not worth the effort. :)

Anyway...good luck again. :)
 
Quote from BlueDoji:

You wrote:

"Yeah, well... that was my point. While trying to install XP Pro with an older Dell reinstallation disk, the process stopped and basically said, "hard drive not recognized".... however the same model reinstall disk works on older Dells with IDE controller."

___________________

OK....sounds like you have an ancient DELL RESTORE CD...
More...

Yes, that's the problem. A couple of years ago I picked up a few Reinstallation CD's, with 2005 date, thinking [mistakenly] I was "good to go got all time". They worked on my 8300's and Inspirons because they had IDE controllers which were current with the the disk.

When I discovered they wouldn't work on more modern hardware, I offered them to ET'ers who also had 2-3 year old cumputers with IDE controllers... but cautioned that they wouldn't work with newer machines... those with SATA and SCSI controllers.

Thanks for your input. The problem and resolution are now sorted out


So.... If any of you ET'ers want to upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro, AND your rig was built prior to 2006, here's a cheap way to do so.
 
bump.

If you want to do this upgrade, you'll need a Dell Reinstallation disk from approximately the same time as your rig was made. (I've tried older disks on newer rigs and new disks on older rigs... if the date of the disk and the date of the rig are too far apart, the Reinstall disk doesn't work.)

Dell didn't match disks and rigs perfectly, but generally.... so there is some overlap.

The disks I have are for '04, and '05. They will probably work for rigs made in '03, as well, and will POSSIBLY work for the '06's.
 
Gnome,

Thanks for you computer support over the years. I've learned alot from you (among others).

Good trading.
 
When all else fails....

Use the restore disk as a coaster and instead, load the O/S and then the drivers yourself.

Usually the OEM manufacturer will offer newer drivers to work with the newer operating systems.
It just takes time.
Many Win2000 based drivers will work with Win_XP as well. :)
 
Quote from BlueDoji:

When all else fails....

Use the restore disk as a coaster and instead, load the O/S and then the drivers yourself....
More...

No offense intended, but you're not reading the post correctly....

I'm not offering "restore" disk, nor outdated Resources/Driver disk....

You say, "load the OS..." That's what I'm offering... Windows XP Pro Operating System Disk... for Dell machines built '04 & '05, and possibly '06.

A Reinstallation Disk and Restore Disk are two entirely different things.
 
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