That seems to be the problem. In "Network & Dial up connections" I have "Make new connection" and "Tiscali 2" which is the old dial-up connection. No sign of any LAN connection.

If I go into "Administrative tools / Add network components" I have an option to add
a) Networking Services. I can then add RIP listener and Simple TCP/IP services.
b) Other network file and print services, which gives print services for unix.

My guess is that a) might help. Is this the right route?

Anyway, will update you tonight. Busy day at work ahead now. Thanks for all the help.

SC

If you are not going to use the Tiscali connection again, I suggest that you delete it for clarity.

I've just tested a Win 2K installation, the Local Area Connection will not appear in the network connections window until the network card is properly installed in device manager. Check device manager, theire should be a heading under Network Adapters and the ethernet adapter should be shown there. I uninstalled it and then reinstalled it and the connection immediately became live with the automatic setttings in Network connections.

If you've never had a network on that computer, then you may have to install some services. It will probably ask you for the disk, and do it automatically or you may have to add them to the Local Area Connection properties box.

Once you have it up and running, if you are not going to use Tiscali dailup anymore, download the IE6 setup file from microsoft, uninstall any Tiscali software, uninstall IE6 then reinstall IE6 from the MS file. IMO Tiscali is a nasty bit of software.

Thanks Optimist. I think you may have hit the nail on the head. Have never had it networked. Will sort it out tonight.

well new ide drive arrived today...forgetting the other one atm...Need to install this....

it says on the drive itself...go to BIOS select auto detect and enable logical block ...LBA..then reboot...
I could not find this

and on f1 on a reboot its say on the windows install disc...cant find any hard drives...not my week....

Dishwasher and fridge broke this week also..is that relevant :-)

Spellcheck looks to be broken as well. Just not your week is it?

BTW have you cleaned all the dust out of the machine. There's usually loads lurking there. Don't think this will help but worth doing anyway.

spell check fixed...PC interior now spotless,,,,and no cigar
nice blue screen though

foale

Do I gather that you are doing a clean Win XP install on your new disk?

Is the Disk a standard IDE or SATA?

How large is the new disk? How old is your Win XP setup disc?

hi its IDE 160...win XP is a recovery disk...yes quite old

its to install windows on it...as its brand new

blue screen says ENTER to install XP...but the straight asawy says cant find...the HDD

the HDD did saysomething about select auto detect in BIOS and enable LBA...could not see where that was

foale

I think the problem is that you must use a post SP2 installation CD for a large HDD.

If your disk is pre SP2, you need get hold of an SP2 instalation disk or create your own. Let me know if you need to do that and I'll try to find the instructions.

it is SP1
...recovery

how do I do that with my SP Pro service pack 1 CD

You need to copy the cd to a dirctory on a HDD and slipstream the entire SP2 file into it. If you look up slipstream on the MS site you should find some instructions. The difficult bit is to copy the files back to a bootable CD. MS does not help you there.

If you want to PM me your address I could put one in the post for you.

that is very kind I have PM'd you....

foale

Do you want XP Home or XP Pro?

its the XP Pro

foale

It's in the post.

thank you...this really is a full service PC clinic....lol

Optimist, when you have a moment:

Device manager shows IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers/
Texas instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host controller.

Alternatively, I could get hold of a wireless PCMIA card. I've got one somewhere.