I use an internal drive to do a daily backup and then once a month I copy the backup to my external USB drive and I take that to work with me and store it in my desk. Great way to have an offsite backup in case the house burns down or a power surge fries all of the electronics in the house.
That's actually a pretty good/easy plan. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to try it.
Everything showed up and I'm chomping at the bit to get out of work and go play. However, I have two questions for people smarter than me...
1. Which slots do I put the RAM in? There are four available and I have two sticks, somewhere I read the MOBO manual would specify, but there's no indication in there.
2. Do you guys ever use the driver discs that come with hardware or just let Windows do what it will and set everything up? (I'm planning to use Win 7)
1. Your mobo has 2 black ram slots and 2 blue ram slots. Put your sticks in the two black slots.
2. Install Windows and let it do it's thing. Mop up any missing drivers by downloading them from the manufacturers website. The drivers on the CD that it comes with are already out of date.
Happy building!
Houston, we have a problem. The system is assembled and operating normally. However, my Win7 install is not going so well. I had an existing IDE DVD drive which I reused in my new box. Win7 says early in the install that it cannot locate drivers for CD/DVD drive and I should please provide them. Well after some searching it appears this is not the actual problem and it has something to do with Win7-SATA-IDE not playing well in the same box. (if anyone has further insight please share)
So now I'm thinking I'll disconnect the DVD and burn a ISO to a thumb drive for the Win7 installation. Then I realized I'm pretty sure I have Win7x32 not 64.So now it looks like I probably need to buy a new Win7x64.
Oh yeah, and as I was plugging in all the cables I realized there was no port for my printer! Who doesn't have a USB printer? :thumb: THIS GUY! :thumb: So on top of new software I need to explain to my wife why we need to buy a new printer as well.
The simplicity of this project is fading fast.
Are you sure? I bought a non-USB printer because I thought USB printers were to slow. So I thought I was screwed when my new mobo didn't have a printer port. But I looked at the back of the printer and TADA, USB port.
I bet there's a 3rd party market for parallel<->usb converter boxes, if that's what the printer is using (and there isn't a usb port as gnorlin stated). I saw similar stuff last time I was in a Microcenter.
USB to parallel adapter $7.21 at monoprice.
And seriously... get a SATA optical drive. They're $29.
As for installing Win7 32 bit on 64 bit hardware, yeah that won't work so well. Win7 Home Premium 64 bit is $99.99. Unless of course you are, or know, a student who can get academia pricing.
Note that I didn't really do any price hunting for you but these are from my go to places where I know the prices are always competitive.
Yes, it's from 1998. (HP 722c) It's served us well, but I've been itching to throw it out anyway.Originally Posted by Gnorlin
ssshhhhhhhh, don't tell my wife that, I want a new printer from this century!
I guess I could, but it was one more way to save $30.
This is the real budget kicker. I'm going to look into that student pricing though, I know some kids in college.
Ok, so with a student (.edu) email I can purchase Windows 7 Pro for $65. Done and done. Now I'm hoping I can get my IT guy at work to let me download it and make an .iso to put on a thumbdrive so I can skip the SATA optical drive for now. If I read the help threads right I can just unplug my IDE drive and install off the thumb drive, then Win7 shouldn't have a problem with the IDE drive once it's installed.
THEN I'm going printer shopping!
And yes, eventually I'll upgrade the DVD, but I just don't see the need because I barely use it so I don't care how fast it is.
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