A "small" query
Dad died a couple of years ago but I have only just come around to clearing out his (very elderly) computer stuff. I have transferred all files to other media so the hard disk can be wiped.

The computer is so old (1/2 gig P3 and a pathetic 500-ish MB Ram) that really it is a take it to the tip job. However my thought is to wipe the disk (one of the serious wipe systems) reload XP and Office and offer it freebee to anyone that wants it eg as a word processor

Problem - Originally the machine had Win98 and the WinXP/ Sp2 on it now was an official "upgrade". I have the upgrade disk etc.

If I try to load XP from the disk I have it warns that the version loaded aready is more recent (because at some time I added SP2 I suppose).

Not sure what to "do" next and your advice will be appreciated.

Given the speed of this machine (speed - that is a joke) I do not want to have to go through the chore of downloading the service packs to bring XP passably up to date.

Could XP WITH SP3 "acquired from somewhere" be loaded using the Key from the upgrade disk? I seriously doubt that.

Snod

The answer to wiping the disk is DBAN. The answer to taking the machine to the tip is DON'T - I can make good use of it!
DBAN is the US Department of Defense standard for removing data from a hard drive. It's free and I can give you a disk. Just put the disk in the drive and restart the PC. The program does the rest. (In technical terms it writes a series of random 1s and 0s all over the disk from front to back three times in random order so NOTHING is left of the data which it originally had. It's the ONLY way they've found which is reliable. Other methods - magnets hammers etc. don't work!) I have legitimate licenses for Windows 98 and XP which I can use to make this machine exactly what you describe, which is a useful, working, web-browsing, word-processor. I will gladly call and give you the disk. and collect the PC at your convenience when you're done.

If you're going to give it away to a needy cause then I'll give you a legitimate COA to use with it.

I always use KillDisk to completely overwrite a disc so nothing can be recovered from it (similar to the one used above except this one is used by the MOD (UK), not the DOD (USA)

If you need a disc with SP3 slipstreamed into you can have one of those as well.

Gents, thank you for your replies. I will get together all the peripherals for this set up (printer/ screen/ utilities disks/ desk unit etc) and will check everything works before I strip the hard disk (which will remove drivers etc). Then I will contact you folk about the offers you have made to get the computer itself into a viable form as a give-away of the whole set up. It may be slow but I am sure someone will use it.

Thanks again

Snod

You should be ok with standard drivers for a computer of that age, but just in case, download and make a backup of the existing drivers using DoubleDriver. Then, when you put XP back on, simply run the backup .exe and it installs all the backed up drivers automatically. I use this everytime and it saves a lot of hassle finding old drivers.

I have probably got some ram (sd) hanging around, do u have any spare slots?