I'm a retired Telecom guy and part time PC fixer for family and friends. But maybe I'm in over my head on this one.
In the wife's Dell D620 laptop, SATA drive, trying to replace a 40gb Hitachi with a 250gb Seagate. The 40gb is good, we just ran out of space. I did a fresh backup to an external USB 160gb HDD. I put the new drive in then set the bios to boot from the CD using the "Reinstall Windows XP" CD that came with the PC. I get the standard driver loads then the blue screen error. I do NOT have a floppy drive available so can't create an auto recovery disk. I do have all the original software to reload and have a fresh backup on an external HDD (USB) - once the PC will recognize the new HDD and load windows.
Do I need to format the new HDD? How to get there?
Do I need to download and install some new drivers? Which ones?
Any assistance will be appreciated.
In the wife's Dell D620 laptop, SATA drive, trying to replace a 40gb Hitachi with a 250gb Seagate. The 40gb is good, we just ran out of space. I did a fresh backup to an external USB 160gb HDD. I put the new drive in then set the bios to boot from the CD using the "Reinstall Windows XP" CD that came with the PC. I get the standard driver loads then the blue screen error. I do NOT have a floppy drive available so can't create an auto recovery disk. I do have all the original software to reload and have a fresh backup on an external HDD (USB) - once the PC will recognize the new HDD and load windows.
Do I need to format the new HDD? How to get there?
Do I need to download and install some new drivers? Which ones?
Any assistance will be appreciated.