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Genius!!!! I am going to try this.  So my old hard drive is still good?  My computer kept saying no bootable devices found.  And Dell said I needed a new hard drive. So I purchased one.

Thanks so much. The OS disc I got for my desktop I guess is a home disc.  Are you saying I cannot use the driver  and utilities disk with my desk top for the laptop.  I have the battery out of the laptop and the hard drive installed.  So now do I put the battery back in and turn it on and then go to downloads for the drivers on the laptop?

I guess they just want you to buy up the Vista.  And you are right, you are probably smarter than they are.  They  have little nitwiches sitting there just trying to sell you something.   I think the one I was speaking with was in India could hardly understand her!

Reply

Hi, SMcKinzey:

First, you can use the OS disc that came with your desktop as long as it's the same flavor (home or pro).

Second, all of your drivers can be downloaded from Downloads (click Support above to get there).

Third, you can order replacment discs by going to this page.

Now, you're probably asking yourself, Why couldn't Dell support tell me this? The answer is simple. I'm smarter than they are!! :emotion-2:

Sorry, but there's no way to tell if your old hard drive is good or not based on the limited information you provided. You need to run the Dell diagnostics on the drive to tell.

Hi, SMcKinzey:

I believe I said you could use the XP disc if it matches the version, home or pro, between your desktop and laptop.

Obviously, you cannot use the drivers disc, but you can download all of the drivers, as I explained above. You should click Support above, and go to Downloads to get all your drivers before you start. Make sure you follow these instructions for installing XP.

Anything else, check your manual!! If you've lost it, look it up in Support.

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Breathe muto... breathe :emotion-3:

I'm going to sound like the grammar police here, but that post is very hard to read, due to the lack of paragraphs, and an absence of capital letters at the start of new sentences - resulting in it being very hard to tell where one sentence ends, and the next starts?

And...

... install all the other drivers in whatever order you wish...

... that's bad advice!

Dell created a 'Drivers installation order' guide, specifically because all the drivers have to be installed in a certain order, to help avoid problems later :emotion-55:

However, your advice about downloading drivers in advance, downloading them to individual folders (chipset, audio, graphics, network etc etc), and copying them to an external source, is first rate :emotion-5:

That's exactly what I do myself.  'Nuff said :emotion-21:

Breathe muto... breathe :emotion-3:

:emotion-2:

If there isnt anything wrong with your old drive you can clone the old drive to the new drive and not lose anything

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Hard_Drives_External/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdt1&sku=A1287050&~lt=popup&~ck=XYRelated

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opinion is not helpful in these sorts of discussions.

Mine wasn't an opinion.  The only person who has expressed an opinion in this thread regarding driver installation order, is you.

You carry on installing them in whatever order you want, by all means.

But if Dell advise owners that the drivers for their systems should be installed in a certain order, then it's advisable to do so - pure and simple.

It's particularly important to tell new owners/forum members, that Dell advise installing drivers in a specific order - and (ideally) then point them in the direction of the document which lists the order.

Whether installing the chipset drivers, then the others in any order works for you, is besides the point. 

Dell state quite clearly before going on to list the installation order:

Quote:

The list below is an overview of the correct order to install drivers on Dell desktop and laptop systems.

After reinstalling the operating system, follow the order listed when reinstalling drivers. It is recommended that you print this list for referral when installing drivers.

/Unquote.

So recommending "chipset driver first, others in any order thereafter." is not good advice to be giving others :emotion-43:

... the dell instructions break down after a couple of suggestions to simply says to install 'all others'...

????

You must be reading a different document to the rest of us?

This is Dell's official drivers installation order document.

It lists a darned sight more than a "couple of suggestions"?  It doesn't "break down"?  And it doesn't say to install "all others"?

@ OP:  Apologies for the thread hijack :emotion-7:

Dell, INTEL, Microsoft, etc also have suggestions that install order DOES matter.

Chipset drivers are mucho importante.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d845bg/sb/cs-013134.htm

Driver installation order is one of the most crucial issues when talking about overall platform performance. This is especially true for Intel® chipsets. Drivers should always be installed in the order displayed in Table 1 below. The most critical step in the installation order is to install the Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (INF) first before all other drivers. Once the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility is properly installed device driver installation order becomes less crucial and will have less impact on system performance.  If your hard drive was built using a different board model, it is highly advised that a clean operating system install be performed before conducting these driver installations.  Table 1: Installation & Configuration Order Order   1 Operating system loaded OR clean install if hard drive was installed using a different board model 2 Latest Service Pack or Patch 3 Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (INF Utility) 4 All other device drivers 5 Intel® Application Accelerator if needed 6 Microsoft DirectX 8.0 or higher   Driver Description Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility The Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (INF) is a driver that enables many features of the Intel chipset that are built into your Intel® Desktop Board. This utility must be installed FIRST in order for the operating system to accurately use the features built into the chipset. If this utility is not installed, the operating system will not know what chipset features exist. Peripherals added may, in most cases, not run to full potential. This is especially true with graphics performance. Intel® Application Accelerator This driver provides all the features of the Intel Ultra ATA Storage Driver, plus Windows XP support and includes faster boot time via accelerated operating system load time. This driver also enhances disk I/O for games, graphic applications, disk utilities, and media authoring applications. On Pentium® 4 processor based systems, this driver provides a performance-enhancing data pre-fetcher. The Intel® Application Accelerator also provides support for 137GB and larger IDE hard drives. Microsoft* DirectX* 8.0 Microsoft* DirectX* is the next driver that will need to be loaded. DirectX* 8.0 or higher recommended. †   † This link will take you off of the Intel Web site. Intel does not control the content of the destination Web Site.   This applies to: Intel® Desktop Board D845BG

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