Lot of PCs and i dont know what to do...

[garnerb350]

Guys need some advice and I dont know where to start...

I recently was given over 20 pcs from a friend of mine who accounting firm went under last year...She knew that I built my Mame cab and she had to get rid of these pc's and she basiclly called me and said come get em. I have them sitting at my house, and my goal is to take some of the PCs and use them for Maming and use some for extra parts and whatnot...

I need to take the existing data on the PC and erase them, so I guess that I need to reformat the harddrives...Only thing is, I dont have the software (drivers, etc) to do it...how is the best way to do this? I was going to just make these stand-alones...

I must admit, I feel very overwhelmed right now, and my wife is looking at me wondering when i am going to move them...(evil eye)

Any suggestions? or am i over my head?

[dafelandry]

If you want to just reformat them you can do it while installing an os.... I recommend Tinyxp Rev 09... once you get that together setup up your ethernet driver and do a manual search.... OR you can back up the drives using this handy batch file (before you reformat obviously) (http://www.pcworld.com/article/151125/how_do_i_back_up_my_drivers.html) also there are some programs (driver genius) that are made to "find" drivers... however, you will need an ethernet card driver installed to use them.... Also http://www.killdisk.com/ is great for reformatting....

I am actually in the same boat I have over 8 p4 pcs and am slowly "finding a home" for them.... I am creating mame images for freinds and literally "giving them away" but the catch is i charge them for helping them get set up... (building cps, cabinets etc...) Also I built a franken-pc the other night using the best of old hardware for a touch screen juke (it can handle 150 popcap/gamehouse games as well as world of goo)

Best of luck and if you need any additional tools (links) let me know!

[garnerb350]

Thanks dafe, I'll look into it...
I'm also going that same direction, with the cabs and pcs...

Let me tell you where I am at : I have 20 pcs...(couple are dells, majority I cant tell what brand they are (emachines?)
( I know on dells, I can look at the sticker on the side and take the code and do a lookup of what specs, drivers, etc, but on the rest, there is no sticker or label sayng what type PC it is...only info I have is that I was told the PCs are 4-5 years old...)

A tub of extra keyboards, mice, powerstrips etc...

A windows xp professional with SP2 (came in book and had cd-key...)

First one I looked at...(Dell 4600) I went to system restore and went to the earliest setting, did a restart and now I am locked out because I need a password to enter (login feature)...

2nd PC , It came up and it was running dead slow...so I did a full reformat with the provided xp disk...I put in the key code and then I realized that I also needed drivers...BUT then I noticed that the xp needed to be verified and it told me that i have 30 days use of xp...
(i thought just having a disk with key was what i only needed)...

After doing this i did and realizing the problems I am having, i figured i would consult with you guys here...
(im new to all this, and i really want to learn...my last cab I used an old personal pc , never had to reformat or anything to that nature)

Me & my wife have a personal wireless laptop ... I figured that I would take a flashdrive and manually look up the drivers needed for each PC and save to it and place it on the PCs...

[massive88]

You sound over your head.

Having a network connection will be invaluable.  Do you have a cat5 jack you can use in the process?

The Dells, and the others actually, should have a sticker on them that has their XP product key.  You can try reinstalling XP on all of them using their own key to avoid getting locked out after 30 days.

Your other legal option is to mess around with Free OS's like Ubuntu.  If you have a flash drive (and the computers can boot from USB), you can download the program unetbootin and it will take care of prepping the flash drive to run live linux versions, so you can check out how well they work, or dont work.  Your illegal options are always there as well.

The vast majority of the drivers will be included in the OS install, whether its Ubuntu or XP.  You might need to get a separate GFX card driver, but the rest of it should be pretty fully operational just from installing the OS.  You dont usually need a separate ethernet driver, hdd controller, cd-rom driver, or whatever else these days.

[dafelandry]

Another thing will "dell and emachine" is that they are mass produced.... search for the "Series" on the company website and you should be able to find all drivers that came with the pc.... But the flashdrive idea is what i generally use when i had to install my 3rd party wireless ethernet desktop card (some d-link)

EDIT: Another option is create a Franken-PC..... find the pc with the best mobo (newer with lots of ram slots) and fill it with the best ram, best power supply, video card and watch it go!

[bleargh]

I need to take the existing data on the PC and erase them, so I guess that I need to reformat the harddrives...Only thing is, I dont have the software (drivers, etc) to do it...how is the best way to do this? I was going to just make these stand-alones...

If you just want to nuke the boxes, I've always been fond of "Dariks Boot and Nuke" http://www.dban.org

Its a bootable ISO image that lets you erase HDs as fast as your controllers will allow.  Lots of twiddable options for those who want serious data scrubbing.

[garnerb350]

ok....managed to find a xp disk...
Tell me if I am doing this wrong....

1. Insert disk, turn PC on...go through entire wipeout...use key located on side of PC case...

( doing this wipes everything, so i know i will need the drivers for coponents)

2. Look at Device Manager, see what drivers i need and locate drivers and install...

PC should be good to go....I hope...

(this is the poor-man approach)

[Rossman]

Doesn't sound like a big deal to me. Sounds like you're doing it right. I would only format 5 computers, then rip out all the parts from the others and put them in anti static bags... you can still mount the parts directly in cabs if you wanna build a cocktail or mini cab 

[garnerb350]

Thanks Ross...yeah so far i have 3 ready to go...they are Dell p4s and it was easy to locate everything and reformat...

But here is the next problem i am having...(remember I am 75% computer illliterate now so be gentle lol)

The rest of the PC's I have are some unknown manufacturers...Looking at the case I cant reconize what type they are (Dell, HP, Gateway, etc)...
I went to Control Panel/System and looked at the Specs...all it says is AMD Seffron 2400, Ram and HD size...
So far I know AMD is a processor...(and no luck finding a support page (unlike Dell/HPs etc)

How can i find out where the location of the drivers are so i can back them up?
(Dells are easy because they have Dell/driver folders)

[Rossman]

Let's say you need drivers for the motherboard's components, but all you know is it's a dell, not the model number or anything. Open up that computer, and the model number should be printed on the board.
For instance, I have a ASUS P55 SLI, which is the number that's printed on the board, so I go to ASUS website, download the specific drivers, then things like USB ports, BIOs, Firewire, Ethernet are all working! This goes the same for any hardware component in your computer, although it might take some poking around to find those numbers.
Most of the time, you won't need to install ALL of the drivers to get it working for a arcade cab, but it's always nice to have everything working 100%!
An alternative is you buy one of those driver programs (Driver Max or something). There's companies that have programs that scan your computer and automatically download and install missing divers, great programs, but none of them are free. I'm cheap, so I never use them.
One last alternative is if you have the most recent version of Windows XP Black Edition, (Torrent... ILLEGAL!!!) when you install XP, most of the drivers will automatically be installed as well!
So there you go, information!!!

[flashiv]

Try this to copy the drivers, if you still have some that aren't formatted yet. 
http://www.drivermagician.com/Lite.htm

Try this to detect devices if the PC is already wiped.
http://www.driverguidetoolkit.com/

Then go to http://www.driverguide.com and sign up for a free account and find the drivers.  I use driverguide esp. if I can't find the manufacture's website or they are out of business.  Click join and then scroll down to the bottom of the page go to the free membership link.  I've never been anything but a free member.

[garnerb350]

Thanks Flash....this is exactly what i need...appreciate the help...

[flashiv]

No prob, glad to see "old" tech get put to good use. 

[garnerb350]

Next problem.....

(and by the way, I really appreicate you guys taking the time to help me on this dumb problem)

I fixed the dells...they were so simple...placed reinstall disk and it did the job...

But the other off the wall pcs (no brand name) are telling me that i must activate windows...even after i used a Windows disk...( i guess license issues) I cant figure out what brand they are...they just say Windows OEM XP professionals...they use AMD processers..

I know that this might be a racey issue...but is there a way to bypass this? (the pcs are just going to be stand-alones and only use mame+frontends)

[Rossman]

I know that this might be a racey issue...but is there a way to bypass this? (the pcs are just going to be stand-alones and only use mame+frontends)

It's illegal, but you could just use a pirated version, like XP Black.

[massive88]

Or you could legally try a free os, such as - http://scottjarvis.com/page105.htm

[Rossman]

That is really neat for mame! I think I might use this on a cocktail cab! For my main though, gotta have Dreamcast, and lots of new PC games!

[DeLuSioNal29]

Older PC's are great!  About a year ago, I picked up two older Pentium II PCs for free on Craigslist.  Recently, I put one of them into a vertical MAME cabinet (took the best parts from the 2 to create 1 good one).  I'm running Windows 98se and an old DOS version of MAME .036 on a 4gb hard drive.  Running through Windows 98se gives MAME the sound support I need.  And it runs beautifully.  This one definitely gets more game play than my newer quad cab.

Click on the "Green Invader Vertical Arcade V.1" link
http://www.youtube.com/delusional2971

P.S. - Show this vid to your wife to stretch out the time you have to clean up the PCs laying everywhere.   

DeLuSioNaL29

[Encryptor]

But the other off the wall pcs (no brand name) are telling me that i must activate windows...even after i used a Windows disk...( i guess license issues) I cant figure out what brand they are...they just say Windows OEM XP professionals...they use AMD processers..

If you have a legit COA for each of them you should be able to activate them with no problem. Just put them online and activate them.

Encryptor