can you uninstall autocad from safemode? If not maybe you can burn Ccleaner to a cd and load that in safe mode and uninstall using that.
There are EIDE cases and bridges as well. Hell some do both connections. Also note that 2.5" laptop drives have different connections for data AND power than a 3.5 desktop drive does.
Safe mode and remove the video card from device manager is the best suggestion I’ve seen. That should force a new driver install and the resolution should no longer be out of wack as it sounds to be. CAD as you’ve been told will NOT run on a system with low resources.
“On board” video refers to integrated video on the logic/motherboard. Often you have shared video memory in this case, aka video consumes a portion of your physical ram. As opposed to a dedicated video card with it’s own bus and memory.
Why bother formatting D??? Just move your files over and do a clean install of windows on C once you’re backed up.
the drive I have is a 3.5 out of a desk top. this one will work right? http://www.newertech.com/products/usb2_adaptv2.php
I have all the files I want moved to D besides my music, I think I am going to wait until i can save that before I reformat C. Safe mode is fine for now, haha.
now how do I reformat C and reinstall windows on C totally ensuring D is left alone? also, I dont want any of those gay programs dell and windows thinks you need (windows calendar, dell quick set, etc…). Once after I just got my computer I did a ‘restore to factory conditions’ by pressing f11 or something while it started up. This time I want to install the windows disc and basically do the same thing right?
Pressing F11 loads for most Dell, HP, etc. loads the recovery partition or the (in most cases) D drive. Which will restore your computer back to the factory settings. When you do a fresh install of XP it will load everything up then take you to a screen which will show the partitions. You can select just C leaving the D partition in tack. I suggest doing a full format as opposed to the “quick”. PLEASE select the right partition!
ok, well f11 wont work for me because I deleted everything on D and put my pics and docs on that.
I am going to radio shack or someplace like that now to see if I can get a usb adapter for my old 3.5 HD.
FUCK. I forgot to grab my ff favorites. god damnit.
otherwise the reinstall of windows is good so far. got my ide hard drive reader in the mail today.
Download xmarks when your done and have central password and bookmarks for FF going forward. 
done. now just gonna finish installing office, create a restore point, and give CAD another whirl.
welp, CAD is installed. so far so good.
edit: kind of not ok. uninstalling CAD. fug it
fml. I uninstalled CAD and now there is a similar but not as tragic problem. whenever I close the lid, it hibernates. when I open the lid and log back into my profile windows explorer freezes. as in I go to click on the start button or a quick start icon the bar freezes and I have to do a hard restart. is there any way to fix this without having to reinstall windows AGAIN.
otherwise it works fine
except that the mouse will automatically move the courser when I am typing as if something clicked the mouse. It did this before and after the reinstall of windows, but not before CAD messed everything up. it also did this before I installed cad after reinstalling windows.
GL.
One thing I’ll say and many have said it before…Your comp isn’t strong enough to run cad, do yourself a favor and stop trying.
As for the issue, Can you hibernate manually without closing the lid and reproduce the issue? I believe it’s the shift key that turns sleep to a hibernate button. Or is it only when you close the lid it locks up?
You never got back to me on the AV software…what happened?
yea I figured I would give it another shot just incase it was something else causing it that I wasnt aware of. I havent tried the AV software yet bc I have a feeling I am going to have to reinstall windows again.
and windows explorer freezes if I do start>hibernate. Ill try start>sleep now… (what exactly is the difference?)
If you don’t need to use hibernate the easiest thing to do is just disable and stop using that feature. Have the computer go to sleep when you close the lid. Or mine is setup to do nothing when I close the lid, and will only sleep/shutdown/hibernate when I tell it to. That way no hibernate = no lockup.
should I install EVERY driver on my drivers disk? I only installed the ones that were checked. well the touchpad one wasnt installed, which was causing it it randomly click, so thats fixed. I am thinking maybe the problem with windows explorer freezing is due to a driver I havent installed yet… eh?
here is what is on that cd. pretty sure I only installed what has a check mark next to it.
Most of those dell driver discs are severely outdated. Try doing a windows update, selecting custom and downloading all the drivers under hardware.
If the checkmark indicates you installed the item, why did you install like 5 wireless nic drivers? You only need 1. Are you sure the video chipset driver you selected is correct?
Best bet is if you have access to another online PC, download the newest drivers for your model off Dell’s site directly. You probably have an older driver issue or something.
You can also go to Dell.com and download the exact drivers for your exact machine via your service tag. Which if it’s a laptop should be located on a white sticker on the bottom of your laptop. I think it’s 7 characters.