New HD...

I recently purchaced a new hard drive for my dell laptop. I dont want anything from the previous HD. Without the dell driver CD, how could I make this work?

Hi,

A few questions:

1. Does the old HDD still work and can you access it?
2. Is the new HDD bigger?
3. Are you going to be using the same operating system?

Somewhere on your old HDD you should have a folder called something like "driver cache" burn a copy of this. It should be in the WINNT folder or whatever.

If you load Windows it should find drivers for most of the stuff anyway.

You could try to borrow a copy of the CD or buy another from DELL.

:)

Here's some more questions:
Do you have the OS CD, (Dell or XP, etc.)?
How long ago did you purchase the Laptop, did you purchase it from Dell?
Do you have a copy of ghost?
Do you want to completely reinstall the OS, or do you just want to copy the old instance onto the new Drive?
If you atleast have the OS CD from Dell (since there's atleast 2-7 CD's included with dell's) the OS CD will normally include enough drivers to get you online. Make sure to copy anything located in the C:/Dell folder, this will be most of the dell drivers.

More information necessary for suggestions :)

Howdy.

I would of suggested maybe using Norton Ghost, and just ghost the hdd image of the old drive.
Then throw in the new drive and just drop the image onto the drive once you've set up the partitions ect.

Galiath's idea on copying the c:\Dell folder would also work.

cheers
f2B

ok,

I have purchaced a new OS.. XP home. It is a down grade from the previous, but it wil make due.

With children running around the house, its hard to keep things in good shape. I was foolish by leaving the HD out on the desk. I came home one night and found a couple pins missing and bent. I should of been mad, but i was not. I was not attached to any files on the previous HD.

The dell is a Latitude D610 - The new HD is the same size as the old one, (40). So far I have had zero luck in trying to access the old one.

I never ghosted the previous HD, so i am shiz out of luck there.

you should have been able to reuse the old CD Key you had on the bottom of your laptop with the new hard drive I would have thought. But now that you own the new Home edition you should eb able to go to support.dell.com and type in the Service ID number you have and download drivers from their website.

You can probably also try to contact Dell to get the driver cd mailed to you. I know we always have copies of that cd laying around somewhere at work.

I think spyrus has the right idea. Install the new HDD and try to install Windows XP.

Either it will work and you can get to the Dell site, or it won't and you will have an indication of what is missing.

;)

Just wondering if this problem is complete, or if your still having problems?

Galiath, something you will learn here is this: the last post was by nihil on 4-10-06. and the last post by the post-ee was a day before that. So generally they have their issues resolved if they havent posted back sooner because now its 6 days later. If you are still really curious you can always PM them. basically im saying ( no offense here) but you just wasted a post.

off topic/ you were born 2 days before me :)

RESOLVED in the title would be most polite to all.. but just a quick post to update helps heaps..

At least here the dates wern't flashing.. so it was still a fair game thread..