Dell xps 720 desktop problem

[chrisf-1]

Hi everyone I hope someone can be of help to me here I have just sold my Dell XPS 720 and before parting with it I wished to remove all of my personal stuff and my win 7 OS for my new acquisition so thinking I was being clever I formatted my hard drive and was going to reload the original XP system it came with but I have come across problems when I load a windows CD it is not recognised by the drive so I thought maybe I have to load the drivers first but as it is not recognizing the CD drive I transferred both the drivers and the XP operating system to USB sticks and it is not recognising those either, and there is yet another problem when I decided t change to windows7 I also upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 8GB will my my system key still work on a 64 bit windows XP system as I understand a 32 bit system will not be able to utilise all the ram installed, can anyone talk me through exactly what I need to do here because unless I can show it working to it's potential the buyer will not want it many thanks Chris

[KenB]

Hi Chris,

 

Take a look in the BIOS - specifically the Boot Order.

You need to make sure that the CD ROM Drive is first in the order.

 

Switch on and constantly tap F2 ( could be DEL )

You will get a message on screen ......"Press -- to enter Setup" This is the key you want.

Navigate with the arrow keys.

Change the order with the + / - keys.

Don't forget to Save and Exit ( usually F10 )

 

You have a 64 bit XP disk and a 32 bit Product Key ?

They will not be compatible. If the OS Disk is 64 bit - why don't you have the Product Key for it?

 

32 bit systems will only recognise 4GB RAM and then only about 3.5 GB will be available.

The other 500MB is allocated to Video etc.

 

If the original XP version is 32 bit 2 GB RAM is more than enough.