Hi there,
I'm new to these forums. I've had a Dell Desktop Vista PC for many years without problem and never needed to ask for any help. However, now that I am preparing my old PC for passing on, I could do with some help and advice.
First a little background. The PC in question is about 8 years old, but up until about 12mths ago we still regularly used it for emails and word processing. Over the years though it had very much become a second or even third PC as laptops and iPads became more prevalent in our household.
In fact, it hasn't been used at all for over 12mths, and the time has now come to dispose of it.
I had already had a clear out of old CDs, cables etc and therein lies part of my problem which I will come to later.
My original intention was to scrap the PC and my thoughts were mainly about overwriting all my personal data, so a week or so ago I reformatted the hard disk. If I ever had any Windows Vista CDs it seems likely they were thrown out during my previous clear out, but the reformat worked by booting up into the D: drive and choosing the repair option.
So far, so good. However I then heard that someone was looking for an old PC to learn on and I thought this might be a better way to dispose of what has been a very good PC for us.
This is where I have hot a few problems. When I start up the PC it all runs perfectly normally, but the first set-up page it comes to asks me to setup the Dell bluetooth mouse and keyboard. These both stopped working years ago and were replaced by plug in mouse and keyboard. In fact we tried several plug-in mice over the course of the last 12-18mths the PC was in use and kept having problems with them. This was one of the reasons why the PC fell into disuse. It is also the reason why, during my major clearout all these defunct mice were thrown out., and in fact I n longer have a PC mouse in the house, although the plug-in keyboard is still perfectly operable.
So to get back to my problems:
Is there a way of getting past this screen (that asks me to set up the bluetooth mouse and keyboard) using only a plug-in keyboard? I have tried Escape, Enter and using the Tab keys but the screen looks almost more like a page from a quick start guide and may be waiting for a bluetooth response.
Assuming that is possible, is the set up going to require CDs at any point? I can't remember whether the PC came with CDs or whether the D: recovery drive has all it needs.
Am I likely to hit any other problems - registration keys for Windows etc - that will prevent a full set up of the operating system? It doesn't need any additional software installed - that will be up to the new owner.
The final point is that, having initially reformatted the disk to wipe the data with the intention of scrapping the PC, I didn't make a note of the specification, so I can't remember what RAM, processor etc it has, just that it was a Vista Home Edition PC.
I've kind of promised this PC to someone now and don't want to let them down, but if I can't complete the setup I think I will have to.
Thank you in advance for your help.