Backtracking.. first of all, I never expect used equipment to operate
perfectly, much less when I encounter something that was discarded (found in
a dump/ster).

I dunno if the BB store label was an indication that the unit was a customer
return that couldn't be/wasn't economically practical to try to figue out,
or that it was just a BB store product that some customer threw away.

When used equipment does turn out to be fully functional (as it often does),
that's just a bonus.

Someone had already decided that it was trash, so expectations of it working
properly could be unrealistic, you see.

Whe I mentioned a linux Live CD, I was referring to the linux OS not being
installed, just run Live as thay will often do, from the CD drive (as almost
all m-bds now boot from the CD).
A HDD isn't even required.

Some linux Live versions will be more favorable with certain types of system
hardware.
Several years ago, I bought about 12 different flavors of linux OSs, most of
'em Live CDs (cheap, from from an eBay'er). I know they can be downloaded
for "free" from numerous websites but I was on dialup service at the time.

Try a couple/few different linux Live CDs (no HDD or any other unneeded
stuff), if there are problems with all attempts, there's very likely
something wrong with the m-bd.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"mike" wrote in message
...
Greetings technically gifted net-denizens,

I recently acquired an older Dell Dimension 2350 motherboard, along
with what I
believe is the original 48x CD-rom drive. It ended up in the scrap
yard after first residing at the best-buy repair facility (I'm kinda
reading between the lines here, it has a sticker on it which is dated
August, 2010 and has their name on it) and from what info I've
gathered so far, it was made some time around 2003 or 4.

I've probably spent enough time so far to reload the operating system
(only tried MS product so far) about 30 times now, and have gathered
info and files from both the Intel and the Dell support sites, I've
done multiple reloads of XP pro w/sp2; but, I finally ended up with a
kinda-successful install by using the restore discs for a E-machines
system that I used to have (that was made around the same time, and
had the same speed processor and a couple other similarities,
including an Intel chipset).

I say it was a 'kinda successful install' because I can start it up
in safe mode and do further set up to it, but it wants me to call MS
product activation before it will boot in normal mode.

Anyway, I think the main problem is that the chipset needs to have
some special software available to it on startup so it 'knows' how to
interpret the OS - it's called
'infinst.exe' and from the literature is spose to be installed in
certain location on the
HDD before XP is loaded (plus, I think the BIOS tells the machine that
the OS should be XP Home, not Pro). When I try to run the chipset
setup utility available from either Intel or Dell, I get a message
telling me that I don't have permission to do that or some such - I
can create the directories specified, but when the program runs an
error occurs and stops the installation.

Just wondering if someone here can shed some light as to what is going
on, and maybe even describe the process that these Intel-specific
machines required when putting in a new HDD (besides cloning from the
old hdd).

So far I've been using various diagnostic utilitiy packages that are
available around the 'net', including 'PartEd magic',
'YetAnotherBootDisc', 'UltimateBootCD 4.1.1', 'UBCDforWIN'; I've
found that I can't run the chipset software from DOS, always get a
message that "this progam must be run from windows".

So, anybody got any hints? As always, TIA.

Mike