> Let me put it this way...before you do ANYTHING MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EVERY
> DRIVER IN EXISTANCE for your machine backed up on disk...don't assume
> anything.
Unfortunately, this is general practice with most companies. I have done
"clean" reinstalls on Dell's Gateway's and Compaq's and each time the
machine was not as healthy as it was before the clean install. For each
of them I had to do a file compare with a backup I had made to tape to
determine the problems. These ranged from the wrong driver, the wrong
values in a .ini file etc. I believe this is a generic problem in the
Windows community, that is why I would guess you all have an interest in
Linux. Drivers in the windows world change constantly, and the source of
the best driver for a particular card is not obvious. I have found
original windows distributions, computer verndors,and card manufactres to
have the best driver atimes.
Dell does not ship the correct network card drivers (actually
> they don't ship any at all..they expect you do download them from 3com, how
> the hell you are supposed to do that without a network card I have no f*ing
> clue, and even then the network drivers on 3com's home page DON'T SUPPORT
> THE DELL NETWORK CARD.) They did, however, ship me cd-rom drivers...that
> don't support the cdrom drive I have (the one dell ships by default
> btw..not a special order). I had to use another computer on my desk to
> download those. Oh yea..and I had to spend approximately 5 hours on the
> phone with dell tech support before they would send me the drivers for the
> DELL 3c575-tx card that they ship, they arn't on the ftp or download web
> sites. After making completely sure that you have EVERY DRIVER for your
> computer ON DISK, then pop a blank floppy into your drive, type:
>
> format a: /u/s and hit enter. let it format the floppy and install the
> boot files to it. Then, you need to find your cd-rom driver on diskette
> (if you are running 95 or 98 I gaurentee it won't be on the damn hard
> drive, it couldn't be that easy) and copy it to your boot floppy. Copy
> format.com, fdisk.exe(or com wich ever it is), edit.com, mscdex.exe, and
> sys.com from the \windows\command directory to your boot floppy, and copy
> the himem.sys file from \windows to your disk as well. Now, you need to
> create a config.sys and autoexec.bat file.
>
> config.sys:
> device=a:\himem.sys
> device=a:\<cdromdriver> /d:cdrom
>
> autoexec.bat:
> a:\mscdex.exe /d:cdrom
>
> or something like that. That will get you a bootable floppy that loads the
> cdrom driver at boot and has the ability to fdisk, format, and sys the
> harddrive. It also has the edit.com file on it so that you can modify the
> config and autoexec file in case of errors. Now, BOOT THE FLOPPY. When
> the CD-ROM drivers fail to load (and they probably will since dell probably
> sent you the wrong damn CD-Drivers), reboot into windows and download a
> cd-driver that works and go through the above process all over again. If
> by some freak chance of god it does work (you've just has a miracle
> preformed before you, make sure to thank whatever god you believe in)
> double check that you have every driver you could possibly want on your
> system on floppy and that the floppy's work. THEN and ONLY THEN should you
> reboot your system OFF the floppy disk, insert the win98 or 95 cd into the
> drive and try to read it...if you read it go back to a: and fdisk and
> format your C: drive, sys is on there for no real purpose except in case
> something screws up you can sys your HD and do something..I don't know what
> but at least your HD would be bootable at that point.. Anyway, once your
> system is fdisked and formatted, you have all the drivers you need to
> reinstall, you can access the cd drive, and you have the win98/95 cd in the
> drive, then start the re-install of 98/95 FIRST. Get it set up completely
> first. If you do linux first (and it's tempting to set up a decent
> workable os first as opposed to one that crashes once for each 15 hours
> it's running at least) then when you install 95/98, it will blow away lilo.
> Anyway, set up 98/95 get it up and running, install all the drivers (and
> call dell tech support to get the ones you missed or that don't work..again
> this is sort of inevatable, just don't let them dish you off to another
> company...all dell shipped parts are supported directly by dell), and once
> 95 is back and working again (took me about 2 days time for htis one..and
> i've been in the network admin/IS indutry for about 6 years now) then put
> your boot floppy in the drive and go through the (compairitivly) seemless
> install of Linux on your Inspiron. As you read about 45 minutes ago (this
> is a long e-mail), I warned you that this was a bad question to ask of a
> person who just went through this living hell..*snicker* Anyway, on a more
> serious note, I've delt with re-installing computers for many many years,
> and I've NEVER seen this much crap and inefficiency in a company as i've
> seen with Dell. The only redeaming factor about Dell and the inspiron
> is.....well.....let me get back to you on that one.
>
> Doug Wagner
>
> p.s. Any comments to the above can be directed to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> If you've got a bitch or complaint about dell you'd like posted but havint
> had the time or inclination, i'm starting a page to do just that...:) Your
> name will be attached to the complaint tho...just for my protection..:)
>
> p.p.s Oh yea...the inspiron is a very nice piece of hardware...mind you
> it's not well designed hardware, and the technical support for the company
> supporting it isn't worth the powder to blow itself to hell, not to mention
> the parts and repairs part of the company....but it is a nice piece of
> hardware when it's finally up and running.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karl Pfleger [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Saturday, November 07, 1998 4:43 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: re-installing Win98 on a freshly repartitioned machine
>
> The other thing the Dell sales rep told me is that Dell will not
> prepartition
> the HDs on its machines, so I expect the machine I will order shortly will
> come with one 4GB Win98 partition.
>
> I realize there are tools for repartitioning without losing the data, but
> they either aren't guaranteed or cost money I think. So I just assume
> re-intall Win98 from scratch myself after repartitioning if I have no data
> of
> my own to loser. It'll be good for the practice in case of a real HD
> failure.
>
> This question is only peripherally Linux-related, but I've never quite
> understood how one is supposed to re-install Win95/98 from scratch on a
> completely wiped partition using the "for distribution only with new PCs"
> Win95/98 CDs. Some friends of mine who just bought an Apple G3 Powerbook
> repartitioned their drive to install MkLinux and they said the the
> re-install
> of the MacOS took about 3 clicks. It was very easy.
>
> It has always seemed much harder in the MS-Windows world. Someone pointed
> out
> to me that this is partially intentional to prevent pirating of MS-Windows,
> something which isn't really a big problem for Apple and its MacOS. And
> that
> this is the reason for there being the special "only with new PCs" version.
> But clearly one has to be able to do this with the computer for which that
> copy of MS-Windows was purchased.
>
> The problem I always run into is how to either boot from the CD (which
> most,
> or all?) PCs can't do, or how to boot from a floppy in such a way as to
> recognize the CD-ROM drive (or DVD-ROM acting as a CD-ROM). Can anyone tell
> me how easy this is to do, either in general or with an Inspiron (3200 with
> DVD-ROM)? What's the basic idea?
>
> The only time I've ever successfully done this was on a SCSI desktop
> system,
> and I had to install MS-DOS 6.22 and then a DOS SCSI driver (from an old
> commercial SCSI package from Corel) in order to get access to the CD.
>
> -Karl
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> Karl Pfleger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.stanford.edu/~kpfleger/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
>
>
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