I've read your solutions for others who've had some of the same problems. I have an old Dell Optiplex 150 with Windows 98se. In my case, I reformatted the hard drive and then loaded the factory issued reinstallation CD. I then re-installed the other features (sound, CD burner, Office 2000, WinDVD) that I received when I bought the computer and that I had discs for. Unfortunately, I'm left with 16 colors and no internet capabilities (it's not recognizing the ethernet card), so I can't get to the solutions you suggest for other folks who have some of these problems, but can connect their machines to the internet. (I've bought a new computer, so I can get to the internet, but not on the troubled machine.) Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Bacchusman

Hello, bacchusman. It's strange that video and NIC drivers are not included in your discs. Anyhow, if it is only a matter of drivers, you could download them from dell support:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...0&os=W98&osl=EN

I suppose your new computer is got a CD burner, download the drivers and write them to a CD.

Thank you Cyclica. I agree that it's strange that those drivers aren't on disc. My problem in going to the Dell site is that there are several choices for both ethernet and video cards on their site and I don't know which ones I have!! Any ideas how to do this? Should I download several and will my computer recognize the ones it needs? Thanks,
Bill

Did you fdisk or format c in dos? Or did you just do a system restore? Did you remove the ethernet card before you did the restore?
You need to remove your after market stiff before you do a complete system restore or the computer will think its existing hardware.

I did a format c. I didn't remove anything from the computer before I formatted it, and the only thing I changed on the computer after buying it was to install a new CD drive after the original failed. So I don't know why it didn't recognize its own parts!

Run Everest Home (hardware and software information) or Belarc Diagnostic Tool. These programs will give you the skinny on what your system hardware.