Clearing old XP

Hi John, sorry had to chase a problem of my own
Mate, I have no more ideas. Did you try SlimDrivers Free - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads ? This is to pick up on drivers you don't have. You may need to login when you use it.

I don't remember now, did the school have any help for you?

Sorry late reply - late shifts this week.

Yeah mate did that and loaded the drivers via USB stick (put on on my other XP machine / software for TP-Link but no go.

The school hasn't been in session until this week so I'll have to get my mate to see if they have any answers.

I did think perhaps it was a BIOS/setup feature stopping any "tampering" as the gov sites out here tend to do but cannot get into that - Lenovo says power on while F1 is held down - did that and it just comes up with a password enter and I am not privy to that so I can't see what is set in it.

Anyway worst comes to the worst I might have to clone the old to the new to give him the extra space or he can just use it with the old drive - I reckon that 15GB will have to be enough for what he wants it for.

Anyhow thanks for being so patient and understanding as have all the others of course.

If I make any "breakthroughs" I'll give you a heads up.

Hiyya B and all I have done what alphanumeric and others have suggested re taking out the battery and did this and left overnight.

Now the machine is booting into an error screen with a last listing of hit F1 for set up.

So hit it and it prompted for a password tried all sorts of combinations - nothing and THEN idly hit enter without any pw being tried and it has entered a ?DOS screen with
Main/Devices/Startup/Advanced/Security/Power/Exit.

Now I have access I guess to reset the machine?? as the different headings include such things as networks, password set, ports, and ACPI BIOS IRQ etc setups.

So am going to have to Google what all these mean and go from there. Am not going to mark as solved yet for that reason.

Will keep you updated on progress - if anyone should want to throw a few tips re these settings my way it would be a great kindness and may even save me some Google time!

Thanks to all for being soooo patient and understanding - I have learnt a great deal already thanks to everyone's efforts.

Such a great forum and marvelous group of fellows to be with.

Sounds like you may be in BIOS, Basic Input/Output System. As for the screen with Main/Devices/Startup/Advanced/Security/Power/Exit, you may be onto something if Startup will get you into XP.

EDIT: No, those are BIOS headings for making settings to the motherboard.

Well I might as well mark this as solved as I cannot get past the black screen > F1 > blue mobo BIOS screen. It will not let me change any settings at all it just goes to exit without saving changes.

Have tried the CTRL-S option, reseating the RAM, taking out the adapter card checked the voltages from the PSU etc ad nauseum. I think the Dept Edu has "fixed" it good and proper so that it would take someone with expert knowledge to get it back to usable by anyone else.

I cannot even change options in that screen so I've probably done my dash and in hindsight should have left the battery in place and put up with the annoying rot on the old hard drive.

I might just buy my mate an old used Dell off Ebay as I feel obligated to set him up with something that is going to work.

One thing I've learnt is leave the reg and bios alone and never buy IBM / Lenovo.

Well you folks thanks to you all - got a tip out here on getting into the BIOS via a password and when it came back on again alpha's tip on the battery worked too.

Anyhow to cut a long story short have now got a new 500GB drive in XP loaded up and all apps MSE , Windows updates downloaded , drivers updated via Slim and every thing hunky dory . Been a long hard road and I did have some help out here from another bloke who is sch a decent bloke like all of you fellows in here.

Have learnt a fair bit re BIOS and some of the other intricacies and I would like once again to thank you all for your time and patience - until next time hmmmm thats got you all worried now eh lolzzzz!!

Finally a big thank you!!