I am trying to get an old Dell Inspiron 5000e laptop working. I've been fooling with it all day. When I boot up the computer I get to the start page with all the icons displayed but the hour-glass never stops running. So I can't get any further.

I can start the computer in safe mode and I have run clean-up, scan disk, and defrag as well as a virus, Ad Aware and Spy Bot scan. Then I realized that the computer is not recognizing the CD drive. It shows in System, hardware, but I can't access it.

I was thinking of a complete restore (my restore points didn't help) of Win Me and I also wanted to run a Dell Diagnostics disk. But I'm really stumped without the use of the CD drive.

Any ideas before I scrap the thing!

Are you seeing it in the Device Manager? If so does it indicate any error? Is there an option to update the driver?

Originally Posted by jephree

Are you seeing it in the Device Manager? If so does it indicate any error? Is there an option to update the driver?

I finely reformatted the hard drive and installed WinMe and the drivers that were on the Dell recovery disk.

Now I'm having a problem reinstalling the Netgear Wireless PC Network card. I downloaded the driver info and configuration utility and installed them. According to the Config Utility in the tool bar I'm getting no wifi signal. My router is right above the computer and the card worked before reinstalling WinMe.

If I can't get the wifi to work there is no reason to continue trying to get this old Dell laptop to work again.

Very frustrating.