NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Notebook Forums › Dell Notebooks - General › Installing Generic Win XP Pro on Dell Inspiron 2200
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Installing Generic Win XP Pro on Dell Inspiron 2200

post #1 of 6
2/28/07 at 5:01pm
Thread Starter 
My son's Dell Inspiron 2200 got hosed from too much spyware or God knows what, so I decided to just reload it. I couldn't find my original Dell disk, and I didn't want to spend any more money on an older laptop so I used a generic Win XP Pro disk I had bought for another PC that I no longer use.

I was able to load the Win XP Pro disk without a problem, but some of the hardware is not recognized --notably the Ethernet Adaptor and built-in WiFi adaptor. Also, whenever I boot the laptop it ask whether to load Win XP Pro or Win XP Home edition. This computer was sold as "home edition only" which makes me wonder if Dell has something in the boot up that is causing this to happen.

Do any of you know what's going on? Do you have any ideas on how to find and install the hardware drivers needed to make the video and networking work correctly? Do you have any idea about the possible win xp home edition restriction?
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 6
2/28/07 at 5:33pm
You can find the drivers at www.dell.com
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 6
2/28/07 at 6:51pm
Thread Starter 
I found the drivers on www.dell.com and downloaded any that seemed to have any possibility of working. But none of them worked. Windows Device Manager still shows yellow question marks and the system cannot find it's wireless card.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 6
2/28/07 at 8:36pm
Thread Starter 
With the help of Dell online support I was finally able to find what I needed. The files were on the Dell download support page but the software didn't all load automatically as expected. After loading them individually, I was able to get everything working.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 6
3/1/07 at 1:08am
The reason you see a choice between XP Home and XP Pro is because you didn't redo the bootsector on the hard drive. You can boot from the XP disc again press "R" to enter the recovery console. When you arrive at a DOS Prompt type 'fixboot' and you're set.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 6
3/1/07 at 10:47am
Thread Starter 
Exactly right. Msconfig also works to correct the proglem. I was able to fix it by running msconfig from the command line under windows then removing the "home edition" sector with the msconfig utility.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Dell Notebooks - General
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Notebook Forums › Dell Notebooks - General › Installing Generic Win XP Pro on Dell Inspiron 2200