Revamping old PC for my young child

W

Windoze

New Member
Hi Folks,

I have years of PC experience, but just a grab bag of skills, and some "hard-knocks" experience. A relative gave us his (pretty good & powerful) system (Win98 os) for my 6-year-old to use. He removed a bunch of stuff that was either personal, or inappropriate for kids.

I wanted to do a thorough clean-up, since it's only to be used for "games", and maybe Word at some point. Recently I went in and used Add/Remove to remove all kinds of things; and I deleted some others. To make a long story short - maybe I went too far. The Display Settings now only gives two choices for colors: 16 colors, and 2 colors. The other settings (that you would need for games) are no longer listed. And - I can't move the slider for screen resolution size; it is stuck.

I found some articles on Video Drivers and Video Cards, but I am really starting from scratch; I know nothing about drivers and cards except that they're necessary.

Another issue: ideally, I'd like to just "wipe" the computer and reinstall Win98 as if I had a new machine. Maybe this is not so easy. I know the hard drive tends to retain everything, at some level? ...I have never tried playing with "registry" functions, I gather that can be risky. But is it less risky if you don't care about data loss? Is the registry the key to this?

Another thing: I don't have an internet connection for this machine. But maybe I will want one if I intend to do tweaking and fixing? That's where I'm at: a 90% free resources machine with terrible color. Thanks for any advice on these issues!
 
well maybe u uninstalled the driver for the graphic card, try to reinstall the correct one...or better yet format ur drive and start over.
 
Just insert the OS CD-ROM into the drive and when it runs the CD just select the option that allows you to delete and create a new partition, this allow you to start from scratch and this will most likely able you to alter the display settings as the drivers will be reinstalled and set to default.
 
Thanks to all for the tips! I've never done those things, but I took the plunge, using my own computer to access the internet for help articles and resources such as bootdisk.com

For better or worse, I wiped the hard drive clean using fdisk, managed to format, and finally managed to reinstall the Win98 os which I then upgraded to 98Plus. Pretty much achieved my goals... except I still have only 16 colors! Higher settings such as 256 no longer are listed; resolution control still stuck. Monitor picture looks lousy and settings controls are messed up somehow.

I know how to get to Hardware Properties from the desktop but not how to do anything. Is there any way to work on the drivers or whatnot... i.e., possible fix without spending money, or having web access? Or should I be looking in C drive program files, and doing something there? I ran Dr. Watson but it reported no obvious problems. Thanks for listening.
 
It sounds like you need to install the video card drivers. They should have come on a CD with the computer or the card itself. What are the computer specs?
 
Maybe this is not so easy. I know the hard drive tends to retain everything, at some level?
Click to expand...
Yes that's correct hwoever I wouldnt suspect that the kids would be able to do anything with it.

Just insert the OS CD-ROM into the drive and when it runs the CD just select the option that allows you to delete and create a new partition, this allow you to start from scratch and this will most likely able you to alter the display settings as the drivers will be reinstalled and set to default.
Click to expand...
Not all OSes do this :)
 
your problem is you need to install the video drivers in order to get your resoultion and colors back. First step of this is determining what video card you have. If you have no clue what video card you have then download everest.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html go into the program then click on display on the side then click on pci/agp on the right it should give you the name of your graphic card. After you determine the name of the graphic card post it and we will help you locate the drivers for it.
 
Thanks, will keep on trying

Thanks again to all who responded. I had to swallow my pride and get my brother to work on his old computer. I thought I had managed to partition and reformat, but "not quite" it seems.

Neither of us can believe my Bro failed to keep certain old manuals and installation discs, but so far we're still missing some key stuff. Need to reinstall an o/s; I may have to just buy one(!). And get hooked up to the Internet. Anyway, I learned some lessons here. Glad I found this forum.
 
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