Laptop problems

[Berithil]

Alright, Escapist, I require some aid.

So here's the problem: My brother brought his laptop over because it was completely borked and wouldn't even boot up completely. He asked me if I could wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. Problem is, the laptop originally came with Windows 7, and the only OS disk he had available was Windows XP. XP installed fine onto the computer, but it won't connect to the internet (neither through wifi, nor through an cable). I can't install any drivers (they keep coming up with an error). Also, his laptop has a keyboard button to eject the CD. Said button no longer works, so the XP disk is stuck.

Any suggestions? He's fine with XP, but I just need to make sure it's in working order before giving it back. I really don't feel like spending the money to get a Windows 7 recovery disk, and I know he doesn't have the money for that.

Edit: So I remembered that I can eject the disk by right clicking the drive in My Computer (dur). But everything else is still a problem.

 

[AWAR]

-snip

What do you mean you can't install the drivers? Did you try to find the Win XP driver's from the manufacturer's website?

 

[Frezzato]

snip

Berithil, are you familiar with setting up an internet connection manually within XP? Did you try that already?

snip

AWAR, if he needs to set an internet connection manually, do you think this [http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/howto_i_client.mspx?mfr=true] is a good guide? It's been so long since I've had to do that in XP, but I think that guide is fairly accurate.


I would suggest manually downloading XP SP2 or SP3 to another computer and then transferring it over via USB key, but I wonder if there are decent USB drivers in the vanilla install of XP.

 

[SnowyGamester]

Double check you have the correct drivers...installing ones intended for Windows 7 aren't likely to work. Depending on the laptop it might not even have proper drivers for XP as evidently it was made when Windows 7 was already available. Though honestly I'd skip the whole XP thing and download an .iso for Windows 7 and use the key that should be printed on the laptop (totally legal by the way...the key is all that's important). That or buy Windows 8, but I'm crazy like that. Windows 7/8 is likely to include basic Ethernet drivers on disc that should let you plug in and retrieve the rest via Windows update...if not the Ethernet drivers will be all you'll need to find though that should be much easier than finding working XP drivers.

 

[AWAR]

-snip

I think this is not needed if he installs the drivers. The connection is made automatically but then again I haven't used XP for a while

O.T. What Snowy proposes is actually a good idea. With windows 7 everything should work "out of the box", no need to manually search for driver's etc. You have to find a copy of win 7 though.

 

[SnowyGamester]

I had a bit of a look online...not sure exactly which Windows 7 version your friend has but you can find a list of links to legitimate .iso downloads for every version here [http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html]. It's just a matter of downloading the right one and burning it to disk (or extracting it to a big enough flash drive if you're lacking a DVD burner or blank discs).