https://www.posetteforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=3438&p=41132#p41132 ----------------------------------- GrouchoCaesar Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 09:39 AM Re: The Twelve Tasks Of Grouchales ----------------------------------- Number 4 TRUDY March 10th 2009, 8:25AM Now, this one is a little off the beaten track. First off, this PC is not mine. I'm calling her Trudy, because she's an intruder on my free time. She belongs to my next-door-neighbor, and has been on my coffee table for the last 5-6 weeks waiting for my broadband access to be turned on so I can deal with her. Trudy has been in the wars - no battery, a distorted display in one corner, and worst of all, she's been "fixed" by a truly incompetent I.T. guy who managed not only to screw up the recovery partition mechanism, but accidentally switched on the disk quota system... not to mention erasing SATA drivers required for efficient operation. My life isn't made any easier when I find out the the recovery discs given to me are scratched, and one of the custom format CAB files is corrupt - on the recovery partition AND the recovery disc. Luckily, the corrupt file is not required for recovery of this system. However, I decide to take a different tack. I install a separate, clean version of XP Home, and locate all the drivers for the nasty little beast on H/P's website. That takes about an hour this morning. Once everything is installed, I let Windows Update do it's thing... and a few hours later... she's all set. I've even used Partition Magic to create a second partition so my neighbor can use that for her data and make restoring her system easier and more risk-free. I also make new copies of her recovery discs, and create a disc containing all her drivers. And, as a final bonus, I realize that I have 512Mb of suitable RAM sitting in a drawer that I'm not likely to need anytime soon, so I throw that in for good measure. I'm not too sure about Trudy's specs, but she is definitely running a lot sweeter than she was 24 hours ago. Trudy's Vital Statistics Compaq Presario V6126TU Celeron 1 GB RAM Intel GM45 Chipset MS XP Home