Suggestions for replacement desktop

googler

You don't have to reinstall on your existing hard drive. Your machine has two internal hard drive bays. You could move the existing HD, unchanged, to the second drive position, and install a new, clean primary drive, with a fresh install of whatever operating system you want. If you have an install disc for the current OS that came with the machine, you can use this.

Drivers can be downloaded from Dell's website if you need them. The user manual will also be there, with upgrade and installation instructions for the bits mentioned above.

Either leave your data files on the secondary disk, or copy/paste to the primary.

Advantages; this gives you two backups of your data - one on the external drive you mentioned, and one on the secondary drive (your former primary)

If you want to copy/paste data to the new primary, it will copy faster from an internal drive than through USB

Installing a Solid State Drive (SSD) as the new primary, with ONLY the op sys on it will really help the machine to fly.

NiftyDigits

googler wrote: »

You don't have to reinstall on your existing hard drive. Your machine has two internal hard drive bays. You could move the existing HD, unchanged, to the second drive position, and install a new, clean primary drive, with a fresh install of whatever operating system you want. If you have an install disc for the current OS that came with the machine, you can use this.

Drivers can be downloaded from Dell's website if you need them. The user manual will also be there, with upgrade and installation instructions for the bits mentioned above.

Either leave your data files on the secondary disk, or copy/paste to the primary.

Advantages; this gives you two backups of your data - one on the external drive you mentioned, and one on the secondary drive (your former primary)

If you want to copy/paste data to the new primary, it will copy faster from an internal drive than through USB

Installing a Solid State Drive (SSD) as the new primary, with ONLY the op sys on it will really help the machine to fly.

Let's take it a step at a time. don't scare the OP.

Lisa82

Stuck at the first step!

Pressing F8 continuously is doing nothing, Windows just continues loading. There is a F12 option, but that's not got the repair option ?

NiftyDigits

Lisa82 wrote: »

Stuck at the first step!

Pressing F8 continuously is doing nothing, Windows just continues loading. There is a F12 option, but that's not got the repair option ?

Reinstallation disc at hand. Let me know if you have any issues.

Lisa82

Thanks for everyone's help so far. Now successfully back to Windows 7 with a clean install and installed some ram so now got 4gb. Also got a wireless adapter. So now just to see if performance has improved, and try hooking it up to tv and check graphics.

Thanks all