How do I save and update drivers for pc with no disk prior to reformatting?

jje_2

Vista works on 1gb memory better with 2gb you can always upgrade ram .
A lot depends on what you use the machine for
Pushing the Dell up to 2GB ram and graphics card pushes price to £279 .
If you go to dell.co.uk you can mess about and see what you get for your pound as you can customize most items .
5% dell discount via Quidco

jje

Lord_Gardener

culpepper wrote: »

Lordgardener it should be an iso file which is a disc image. You can just burn it with nero using 'burn image'. I think there is a free iso burner too which would do it if you dont have nero or another prog that can do it.
Just burn the iso image to CD,stick it in the CD drive ,boot the computer to the bios and choose boot from CD if you dont already have that as an option and then it will boot right into the linux OS.
It sets up a virtual ram when booting from CD so it whirrs away for a little while then asks a couple of very easy questions to determine which mouse,keyboard etc then voila.It found my LCD monitor and my network card first time. I was online almost at once.
You can install it to your hard drive or to a usb drive(even a usb flash drive) if your pc will boot from the usb.

heres the thread with the free versions of software incase you need a burning program
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=287042&highlight=free+iso+cd+burner

Thanks, my pc was seeing it as a rar archive! Have burned image onto cd and run as a live cd. Managed to connect to the net (wasn't straight forward) and to look at a number of the progs included WP, spreadsheet, games, etc.which look fine. A couple of questions! Are anti virus and firewall required? Is it possible to see the content of windows drives via the live cd? If so, this could be a good back up for when the pc crashes!

culpepper

Lord_Gardener wrote: »

Thanks, my pc was seeing it as a rar archive! Have burned image onto cd and run as a live cd. Managed to connect to the net (wasn't straight forward) and to look at a number of the progs included WP, spreadsheet, games, etc.which look fine. A couple of questions! Are anti virus and firewall required? Is it possible to see the content of windows drives via the live cd? If so, this could be a good back up for when the pc crashes!

To connect to the net is pretty much let it detect the network card on booting and make sure DHCP is automatic, well at least thats all it was on my set up. Obviously not everyones is exactly the same.
Look in the wizard section on the menu for firewall.
I dont have AV on mine but then it is on a LAN network with AV on the main gateway computer and also accesses the internet through a second network also AV'd and Firewalled. Im sure the puppy forum would have info.
There is 'setting up a firewall' in the wizards but I havent done that,it looks quite simple as it asks you what you wish to allow etc.
On my ubuntu setup ,the firewall is used to allow access rather than stop access. In other words nothing gets in till you say it can .Try a port scanning website to see how secure it is.
To see the contents of the other drives connected,click the 'drives' logo and anything that the computer can see is in there. You will see 'mount' written beside some drives. Click it and it will mount the drive and you will see the contents.click again to unmount.
It can see my ntfs and fat formatted drives.Also my linux drive and usbs.
There is a good forum if you follow the links provided in the browser
HTH.

jje_2

Lady_K.
If you are still looking this laptop is a bargain.
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4YJW&InMerch=1
regards to the original poster .

jje