</font><font color="blue" class="small">( So how's the project coming, Bird? )</font>
Probably about like you'd expect from a computer illiterate. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif I installed the new hard drive, disconnected the cables from the original hard drive and connected them to the new one. As for the jumpers, I didn't mess with them at all; just left them as they were, which appears to me to be "cable select" on both drives. I disconnected the ribbon and power cables from the old drive and connnected the same to the new drive. Now the instructions that came with the new drive talk about modifying either the BIOS or CMOS, and tell what you'll see in the box on the screen ('cept you don't see anything like that on my screen), so I skipped that step and formatted the new drive. The instructions also mention formatting and "partitioning" the new drive, but I never saw any option or opportunity to do any "partitioning". So . . ., it was formatted with the single partition. Then I tried to install Windows XP from the CD I got a couple of years ago from Dell. As far as I could get was for it to boot to a message "NTLDR is missing""Press Ctrl+Atl+Del to restart". The instructions say when you get that to insert the CD and restart. Easy enough, right? But you just get that same message again. Now from there, the instructions shoot plumb over my head, talking about things like a "cylinder limitation jumper", buying additional jumpers, unplugging and plugging cable to or from ATAPI devices or drives, etc. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
For one thing, the XP CD I have is labelled "For distribution with a new PC only. For product support, contact the manufacturer of your PC" and I don't know for sure that it's even any good. I think I mentioned before that when I got it from Dell and "upgraded" from ME to XP, we had all kinds of weird problems, and when we finally got it working, the hard drive was drive E instead of C, the floppy stayed as A, the Zip drive is C, and the CD-ROM is D.
So for now, I have both hard drives hooked up, the new drive is F, and there's no problem using it for storage. I can copy files to and from it just fine, but since I'm only using about half the original 20GB drive, I really don't need another 80GB for backups. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
As much as I hate to turn loose of any money right now, I'd be willing to spend the couple of hundred a genuine, in the box, from Microsoft, version of Windows XP costs if I knew I could solve the problem with it. Since most things are working OK on this contraption, I'm not in any big hurry, but I'll probably go back to Fry's service department this week and see if they're confident they could do whatever it takes to make the new drive the boot drive, call it drive C, preferably (but not absolutely required) partition it, and install a new version of XP on it. If so, I'll probably let them do it.
I seem to recall something else about some different file systems; FAT 32 and sumpin' else and think the old drive is FAT 32 and the new one may be the "sumpin' else". /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Who said ignorance has no limits? /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
