My Hard Drive is getting eaten up.

[sccrbrandon47881]

*cough*getthestudentversionwiththekey*cough*

 

[donutdan4114]

That'd work too... I've never heard of Windows XP student??? Anyway, your best bet would be XP Pro w/ service pack 2 of course... I think the cheapest i've seen them are like $130... if you want the full version, not the upgrade.

 

[Jp425]

Yeah i'd prefer to have windows xp, its much better then vista.

I think I just misplaced it somewhere, I'm certain I didn't throw it away, even by accident. I'm good about keeping all my cd's, I have ones from years ago that are no use to me, lol.

 

[donutdan4114]

Well, just get to downloading all of the drivers that you need.. Remember, ALL of the data on the computer will be erased if you reformat. Backup EVERYTHING that you want. Also, i dont think i ever asked, but is your hard drive connected via SATA? It will be SO much easier to install XP if you are just using ye old IDE cables. (The fat grey ones, sometimes black though). Anywho, once you have everything set, just put the XP CD in the drive (make sure your CD-ROM is in first order to boot from) and it'll tell you to press a key to boot from CD or something.. Upon entering the CD menu, you will want to format your disk, then install XP using NTFS.. Once you install XP, you can then try installing the drivers for what you can. Anyway, have fun.

 

[Rudster8161]

right click the drive in my computer. go to properties. go to tools. run error checking. try that

error checking checks for bad sectors on the HDD, it should have nothing to do with the amount of free space.

 

[Celegorm]

Microsoft used to just sell the CD. Most of the cost of XP is for the key, not the CD itself. Replacement shouldn't be that expensive.

 

[donutdan4114]

If you end up not finding your CD, download this program
http://www.download.com/3001-2094_4-10664536.html
or one like it anyway, it lets you find your product key.
Then, you can get another copy of JUST windows xp without a key, which should cost pennies, and use the key that the program finds for you.
You already payed for it once, don't pay for it again.

 

[Jp425]

Thanks everyone for your help. I found my xp cd, lol, I can't believe I just overlooked it.
Anyways I reformatted and everything went smooth for my first time. My only issue is I downloaded and extracted this file for my motherboard:
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

It is a ROM File and when I ckick on it, my computer does not recognize this type of file. How do I install this and is it necessary, as so far everything is working fine.
But I would like to have the latest drivers etc.


edit...that link doesn't seem to work.

this is the file:

M2V-TVM
BIOS


All OS

Version 0802 2007/10/05 update
Description M2V-TVM Beta BIOS 0802
Latest beta BIOS.
File Size 464.11 (KBytes)

 

[Celegorm]

Oh, that's not a driver. You shouldn't even need to worry about that one.

If you want to know, that is a file to update your motherboard's BIOS.

 

[Jp425]

Oh, that's not a driver. You shouldn't even need to worry about that one.

If you want to know, that is a file to update your motherboard's BIOS.

Oh, thanks so I can just leave it as it is. But what driver should I update? When I check ASUS for my model it list these files:
M2V-TVM
BIOS

BIOS-Utilities

AUDIO

VGA

LAN

Utilities

Others

Manual

I installed drivers for audio, LAN, and ASUS Cool and Quiet Utility under the Utilities section. I don't need VGA do I as my monitor is a DVI monitor.

Shouldn't there be a all in one driver for the motherboard itself?