need work on laptop

[Monstr913]

so my lap top is about 3-4 years old Dell Inspirion B130 and about a month ago it kept freezing on start up menu...so my brother dumped my hard drive and reinstalled XP now it isn't reading my wireless card and pretty much is missing a bunch of stuff...i know minimal about computers and hes busy and having a difficult time figuring it out...wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to a good place or person to take it too? we figure it shouldn't take more than an hour or so...any insight would be great

[Yooformula]

there are few guys here really good with this stuff, hopefully they chime in soon for ya.

[Myles]

Sounds like maybe the Dell drivers are not installed. You can try going to the dell site and type in the information of the laptop and look for the things that are missing or not working properly.

[BoosTT]

Sounds like maybe the Dell drivers are not installed. You can try going to the dell site and type in the information of the laptop and look for the things that are missing or not working properly.

Exactly. Go to the device manager (under the control pannel). Everything with a yellow question mark needs a driver yet.

Get the drives off the dell website. You find your drivers by entering your dell express service code. You are going to need two computers, atleast until you get the ethernet/wireless drivers installed.

[wikked]

^^^

Thumbdrives are great for this kind of thing, so you don't have to go burning cd's for a few files.

[Anakonda69]

Only problem is he bought this computer from the liquidator place. i will try this tonight on the computer just not sure if all the parts inside are factory. didn't wanna rip the case open if i didn't have too. thanks for the help guys.

[subliminal1284]

Sounds like your brother doesnt really know what hes doing and failed to re install the drivers after installing XP. If you were close to Kenosha I would help you out.

[Anakonda69]

Sounds like your brother doesnt really know what hes doing and failed to re install the drivers after installing XP. If you were close to Kenosha I would help you out.


thank you captain obvious. i did not reinstall the drivers yet due to the fact that i have been a lil busy selling my house and haven't had time to work on it. also not knowing what parts are inside the computer makes it hard to dl the correct driver. there are no restore disks either so evrything has to be done manually.

[WickedSix]

damn ty your brother sounds no effin good :rolf :rolf steals your programmer...wont fix ur computer right.. :rolf

[Myles]

thank you captain obvious. i did not reinstall the drivers yet due to the fact that i have been a lil busy selling my house and haven't had time to work on it. also not knowing what parts are inside the computer makes it hard to dl the correct driver. there are no restore disks either so evrything has to be done manually.

In order for the parts inside to have been swapped it would have to be a completely new mobo in most cases. Laptops are not configurable hardware wise like desktops are. ALWAYS put drivers on it regardless if you think hardware isn't the same when it comes to laptops.

[Anakonda69]

Thanks myles. i will be working on it tonight. it's been awhile since i had to do this stuff. just looking for a push in the right direction. pat you can buy me a ppe. lol

[ND4SPD]

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~ck=mn

Put in your service tag and start downloading drivers from a different computer if necessary. If you don't have a usb flash drive... go buy one even if it's only a 1GB.

[Anakonda69]

his service tag sticker is gone so i'm doing it by product number

[ND4SPD]

I think you can look up the service tag in the Bios if you need to. Del or F2 at startup should get you into it.

[BoosTT]

Once you get the computer online- you can click the service tag link and the dell website finds it for you.

[Anakonda69]

problem now is in order to install drivers i need to have installer 3.1 or newer which need service pack 2 or better so i am dling the service pack and new installer which will hopefully work and allow me to install the drivers. lol

[Cutlass Queen]

Sounds like your brother has no idea what the hell he's doing......hehehe Hi Brandon :goof

[Anakonda69]

you wanna fix it deanna? that oughta be fun to watch. lol

[Cutlass Queen]

you wanna fix it deanna? that oughta be fun to watch. lol

I can fix anything if you let me use a hammer :D

[Exitspeed]

Download Windows 7. You don't need to install the drivers then.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/download.aspx