Need help helping a friend

[arl16]

I am trying to update a friend's machine which is currently running AdvanceMenu. He wants me to help him add more emulators, and in looking into it, stumbled upon GameEx.

He bought a new hard drive and gave it to me to put everything on, as he doesn't have a desktop/broadband internet connection. Also, his cabinet/motherboard does not have any CD or DVD drive, and is not connected to the internet or any network.

I posted a little while ago and basically heard people saying either it would be very difficult or maybe even impossible for me to install the OS using my computer (and then the emulators/front end), and then put that hard drive in his cabinet.

Has anyone ever done this? (Install an OS on one computer and put it in another)? Is it defintiely impossible? If so, is it impossible for him to install anything new on his cabinet? Would he essentially have to buy a new computer with a CD drive so everything can be installed right in the cabinet? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance...

[Will]

I wouldn't do it. Windows XP (any older and I REALLY wouldn't do it) will SOMETIMES take the transition okay. The problem is Windows has all the drivers installed for your machine such as the motherboard processor type, etc, and then it all of a sudden wakes up in a completely new environment. It will usually be buggy from that point on if it works at all. The other iffy part is which type of harddrive address the two machines use. If they don't use the same type of addressing the harddrive that works fine in your machine may not even boot or be able to read the partitions in the old machine. Your best bet is to tell him to suck it up and spend $15 on a CD-ROM for his cabinet. Then load all the emus, roms and such on another harddrive (maybe the old one) and plug into the cabinet and load all the stuff onto it.

The trouble of buying a cdrom is much less than all the trouble of transferring a WinXP install.

[arl16]

Will -

Thanks for the quick followup. That sounds like a great idea, but I had a concern with it. (Forgive me, I barely know enough about the inside of computers to be dangerous), but installing the CDRom will require more than just plugging it in, will it not? Can we put a brand new CDRom Drive and a brand new hard drive in at the same time?

I believe the hard drive that is in the cabinet now just has DOS and boots directly to AdvanceMenu, so I wouldn't know how to install the CD drive prior to putting the new hard drive in.

Can you steer me in the right direction?

Thanks again...

PS I don't know if it will help at all, but I got some pictures of the inside of the cabinet so you can see what's going on.

[rhijaen]

For installing the new hard drive: There is another connector in the middle of the gray ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the current hard drive. This is where the new hard drive will go. Just plug the connector into where it fits into the hard drive. Take the same kind of power connector coming from the power supply that goes to the current hard drive and plug it into the new hard drive. You will also need to set the jumpers correctly. (see the attached image)

That little blue thing is a jumper. Make sure the current hard drive is set to master and the new one is set to slave.

For installing the CD ROM drive: you need another gray IDE cable (the same kind that connects the 2 hard drives). This goes from the CD ROM drive (same spot as hard drive) to the slot right under where the hard drive cable connects to the motherboard. Also connect a power connector to it. Make sure the jumper is on master.

It's as simple as that.

It's been awhile since I used DOS, and even then i had barely used it at all. You shouldn't need drivers for the CD ROM or Hard drive. just connect them and go.

Although you may need to format/partition the hard drive.

[bkenobi]

If you have a large enough flash drive, you could also use that to install XP from, but I don't think you want to get into that. Just do what Will suggested and get a DVD drive. Heck, for ~$30US you can get a DVD burner with all the fancy features, so you aren't going to go broke even if you splurge!

Oh, and it's not a big deal, but on an older motherboard like this (where you have to set the jumpers rather than just using select), you usually want the cd drive on secondary slave (but having it on master won't hurt anything as long as there isn't anything else plugged in to conflict). I'm not aware of any reason why a DVD drive would be different.

[Will]

All sounds good to me. Make sure the BIOS is set to allow you to boot to the cdrom. When the PC begins to boot, it will prompt you to hit DEL, or F10, or something to go to the settings. In the BIOS menu, you'll need to find either the boot order, or boot options. You want the computer to look at the cdrom before the harddrive. After doing that, and setting up the cdrom and new harddrive like the other guys said, you should be able to boot from the WinXP cd, and install on the new drive. Let us know how it goes.

[arl16]

Wow guys - thanks for all of the tips. I think I got it. My only concern is getting in to set the BIOS, as he doesn't even have a keyboard connected here - it's all in the cabinet, so I'll have to somehow figure out how it translates to his joystick/buttons. I guess we'll start it up, and just start pressing all the buttons while it boots and hope it gets into the BIOS setup screen. Any ideas?

Thanks again...

[bkenobi]

Wow guys - thanks for all of the tips. I think I got it. My only concern is getting in to set the BIOS, as he doesn't even have a keyboard connected here - it's all in the cabinet, so I'll have to somehow figure out how it translates to his joystick/buttons. I guess we'll start it up, and just start pressing all the buttons while it boots and hope it gets into the BIOS setup screen. Any ideas?

Thanks again...

NO, YOUR NOT!

You are going to hook up a keyboard to install WinXP. There is no realistic way to install Windows without a keyboard. I suppose technically you might be able to do it with a mouse only, but just plug one in. If you have a computer, you have a keyboard. If you only have access to the back (no coin door), you could use an extension cable (usb are easy to find or just use a usb hub, ps/2 are a bit harder to find but available).

[arl16]

Ah hah! OK, yes, I certainly can take my keyboard over there, no problem. I assume one of those cards on the left hand side of the pictures has keyboard/mouse inputs on the back of it - I can't tell from the picture, but it stands to reason. Then it should be pretty self-explanatory from there. Great!

I actually also have an external USB DVD drive, but I don't see any USB ports on that motherboard - I'm guessing it doesn't have one. No big deal to go pick up a cheap drive though.

Good stuff. I'll let you know how it goes when I can get over to his place and we're both available to work on this. I think I'm more excited to try it than him - the quest to get it working is more exciting than actually playing the games to me!

Thanks!

[bkenobi]

See the image. There are ways to easily hook up a keyboard.

1) Plug in a PS/2 keyboard into the keyboard port. It's the upper right one in the image. The keyboard emulator is currently plugged in there, so you will have to disconnect it when you are setting things up. Once you are done, just unplug the keyboard and plug the emulator back in.

2) Plug in a USB keyboard into the usb port. I circled what I believe to be the USB port on the motherboard. You can just plug in a USB keyboard and it will work.

Either will work, just depends on what keyboard you are planning on using.

Oh, and while you're in there, see if you can't move the power supply bundle away from the fan. I'm sure it's not a major issue, but it's not helping the cooling of the CPU.

[Will]

if his machine doesn't even have USB ports, you could be in serious "crappy old computer" land. USB ports have been included with PCs since around the early pentium days. I think your friend needs to upgrade if he is planning on using GameEx at all and if it is indeed that old.

[bkenobi]

I'm going to throw a guess out there about this computer.

It says "SV266A" on the motherboard. It uses a VIA chipset. It has 2 DIMM memory sockets. It DOES have at 2 usb ports on the back panel. It has AGP. It looks like it's going to be an AMD Socket A (based primarily on the model number - 266).

So, I'm going to guess it's a Syntax SV266A motherboard. That would mean that it's running at somewhere between 700MHz and 2400+ (faster CPU's don't use 266MHz bus).

Since the video card only has a heat sink and some kind of a pin header, I am going to guess it's a TNT based video card. If so, then it has Directx 6 support.

Check out the requirements of GameEx:

Minimum System Requirements:

Pentium 3 800Mhz CPU (or equivalent)

DirectX(DirectDraw) Compatible Video card, capable of 16 bit colour at 640X480.

[Your video card does not normally need to be too special unless using videos or DVD, although older motherboard onboard video is not recommended]

DirectSound Compatible Sound Card.

256MB Ram

Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, MCE

250MB Free hard drive space

Microsoft .net framework 1.1

Microsoft Direct X 9.0

Windows Media Player 9 or above

So, assuming I'm correct, you would be looking at a machine that would be marginal to run GameEx. The cpu is probably a bit slow, but might be fine (I'm guessing somewhere in the 1GHz range). The video card will work, but it will require most fancy features being turned off (not a big deal, I have a fancy video card and have most of them turned off as well ). Ram might be an issue since there's only 1 stick, but at least there's space for an upgrade.

I would really like to hear how close my guesses are!