Explain Hard Drive Installation Like I'm 3 years Old

[Stick_man]

Explain Post-Hard Drive Installation -- Like I'm 3 years Old

I keep trying to find stuff on Google about what I need to do exactly to get my computer going again.

I have an old Dell Dimension 2350 that had a screwed up Hard Disk. I bought a cheap one on Dell.com for $50 that I'm assuming should work since I typed in my service tag and all that.

I simply took the old one out and reconnected exactly the way it was before

I then ordered a Windows CD and installed Windows XP. I can't do anything with this computer. I can't get online. It's like I'm missing a whole bunch of stuff. My screen has the minimum pixels allowed; can't be adjusted; and looks terrible.

Was i supposed to format something before installing windows? It looks like windows partitioned and formated something or other upon install. Should I cut my losses and get Mac Notebook. I only have 1 GB in my new disk; i don't want to call the retards at Dell that send me the wrong harddisk; are no help; didn't provide instructions; tell me my warranty expired and want to charge 50 dollars for helping me etc etc.

 

[berry120]

Relax - it sounds like you've installed the hard drive and OS fine, now you just need to install your drivers.

Head over to here and then install the relevant ones that you need

 

[Jesusfrk611]

Yep exactly what berry said. Install the drivers and it will work like it's supposed to.

 

[Stick_man]

OK I downloaded drivers on to a CD and copied them to my PC. My Windows look normal now

Why doesn't it detect an i-net connection when I plug a LAN line in however? Is it drivers? I know it's not the internet line itself; I tried in 2 different places; my apt and parents house.

 

[jmacavali]

Go to START>Right Click on MY COMPUTER>PROPERTIES. In the Properties window go to the HARDWARE tab. Click on Device Manager. Anything with a yellow circle with an ! mark is missing a driver. You need to make sure you get all of them from the link. And it's possible the Dell offers more than one type of driver (like for you LAN it might have an Intel or a Broadcom) and you have to choose the right one. If you go to START>RUN>type cmd. In the black box type IPCONFIG /ALL and look for Ethernet Adapter and then under that Description. It should tell you what card you have onboard. Otherwise you can just download all the Ethernet drivers available and install each one until one of them works.