Hi all,

I was given an old computer with no hard drive, and I have an extra HD laying around so I'm trying to get it running as an extra internet machine and something the kids can play games on.

The problem is that it is an Emachine, and does not have the restore disk. It is a model T3985, and coincidentally the old HD is from an emachine T2862 that I do have the recovery disk for.

At any rate, I can't get it to boot up. I was able to load XP on the HD by putting it in another dell computer and installing XP, but it does not load up when I transferred the HD back into the emachine. I tried burning a ubuntu CD but it will not read the disk either. It will read the T2862 disk but I can't seem to progress any further. Also, I can boot to a command prompt but it seems to have a windows ME dos version when I querry it.

Any helpful suggestions out there? I haven't had to fiddle with setting up computers for quite a few years and it has sure changed since that time!

Mark

quote:

The problem is that it is an Emachine, and does not have the restore disk.

Have you tried contacting emachines customer support? I have an old T6212 that I want to do very much the same things with as your old machine. Somehow a bug got into it and I can't get into the Properties thingy. I right-click, get the small menu with Properties... in it, click there and get a message that says only Administrators or somesuch bullshit are allowed. My computer guru says he can search out and re-install the drivers for $175, but I found multiple drivers for it with a few quick websearches. How to put them on is another thing. I ain't no computer genius, so I don't want to bugger it up any further than it already is...

Try this website: http://www.emachines.com/support/options.html

Or this: http://www.emachines.com/suppo...20Series&model=T3985. Click on Downloads for the readme and drivers files...

All NT-derived versions of Windows have to be installed on a machine that has at least the exact same disk controller drivers.

If at all possible, reinstall XP on to the drive on the machine you intend to run it on. Then install drivers, Windows updates, etc.

If you can get a "restore CD" at all, it is much easier. Setting XP up from scratch is not for everyone.