You're welcome!
Sorry I didn't get back sooner; I had a couple of Customer emergencies yesterday. Let me clarify where you are in the rebuild process: so you HAVE got Windows Activated on the System screen, Yes?
Sounds like the Staples tech didn't properly repair your 2305; you should have to be reinstalling drivers for your model PC again!
The Tech should have done that for you!
So, if you go into Device Manager and see a bunch of items like display, video, audio, storage, diagnostics, usb root, and others all with yellow exclamation marks or red-X'Ă©s next to them, you'll have to reinstall them from your Dell Driver DVD disc you mention. Since those are several years out of date, I suggest you go to the Dell support site for your Model PC, and enter your
Service Tag NUMBER. Click on the Exact version of Win7 that Staples installed on your PC; either Win7 32bit or Win7 64bit. [
you can tell which you actually have installed, by going back to the System screen, the same screen you used to tell that your Windows was not Activated]. Then you'll see a list of drivers which you can download to your PC, store in a file called
2305 DRIVERS or somesuch.
Here's a link which should be similar to what you'll see:
Support for Inspiron One 2305 | Dell US This link shows you the download page you'll need to get to for Win7 64bit English, which you should have. All 2305's should be 64bit, not 32bit as the driver download page has no 32bit drivers available.
***CAUTION: WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT UPGRADE THE BIOS ON THAT MACHINE!!! ESPECIALLY IF YOU'VE NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE YOURSELF!! DOING SO WITHOUT PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY RESULT IN A BORKED MOTHERBOARD, WHICH IS NOT COVERED BY DELL WARRANTY AND WILL COST YOU HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS TO REPLACE IT!!!**** [and this is not needed unless you are planning on upgrading that PC to Win10]. There is a specific order also for installing these drivers, and if you do it in the wrong order Windows may stop working or those devices will never work again!
That order goes like this:
1.) BIOS
2.) Chipset
3.) Audio
4.) Video
5.) Network (which you said you already installed and is working)
6.) Storage
7.) Dell Diagnostics
8.) Software Apps
9.) Software updates for Dell-specific Apps
10.) USB drivers So, basically you can do all of those
EXCEPT #1 and #5. If you do it correctly, you should eliminate any and all Yellow Exclamation marks or Red-X_es that you see in Device Manager which you'll need to be looking at after you install each category of driver. If all of those warnings are gone-you've successfully installed all those drivers into your Windows and you're good to go.
It's a good idea to first check your Internet, audio (check sounds and music work with your speakers), video (change your video resolution). If those 3 work, for the most part you are set.
If this is the case, you can skip to the paragraph titled:
USING BACKUP IMAGE SOFTWARE TO BACKUP YOUR WORKING PC: Next, I'm telling you all this and you're probably wondering you never had to do this before after getting a computer repaired, "why now?" As I said, the Staples Tech didn't do his job right, and so you're having to fix it for him even though you paid them to do so.
If this bugs you, I suggest you do not take it back there, but rather to Best Buy Geek Squad or to a local repair shop in your location which employs licensed A+ Technicians only and pay them to do it. They may have to order the Dell Factory Recovery Media from Dell for your model PC (that's gonna cost $29-$99 US0 and is going to take a few weeks for them to get. This will be a parts charge on top of the labor charge to properly reinstall W7 and all the drivers onto your PC; from $65-$135 or more!
Total cost for doing this job right could be as high as $235.
USING BACKUP IMAGE SOFTWARE TO BACKUP YOUR WORKING PC: Let's assume at this point in reading this Post you've either gotten all your drivers installed and working or you took it to another repair shop and paid them to do for you, and you want to make your Backup Image. There are free software to do this, but we've only tested 3 that we like that work from XP-W10. I'm going to recommend you use
Macrium Reflect which I've been using for 3 years on all my personal PCs and Customer PCs as well. You can download free from here:
Macrium Software You'll of course need to use or purchase an external USB hard drive which has at least the same or larger capacity than the drive inside the 2305 on which to save your Backup Image file. Here's a great video which explains the process which you should watch before you try using it:
If your hard drive ever craps out, or you get a nasty virus that you can't get rid of and you need to reinstall your Windows without removing all your programs and data; Macrium stores all of that in 1 single file. For either situation, you simply hook up your external USB drive to your 2305, fire up your Macrium from Recovery Boot Menu or Rescue Disc, select Restore, and browse to that Backup image file you made previous when your PC was working properly (you should do this right away once it does work correctly!), and click through the menus.
After 1-2 hours or less, your PC will be completely Restored back to Win7 with all programs and data restored and working just as it was before the catastrophe hit your computer (failed hard drive or killer virus), and you're back online set to go! This method is being used by more and more Techs and repair shops as it cuts down repair times from weeks to days; not to mention you can do it yourself. If you get stuck many of us here use Macrium and can walk you through the process. There's also a Restore video on YouTube you can watch to see how the back-end process works too.
That should get you going--too bad you took your PC to a place that didn't repair your PC correctly! Staples doesn't have a very good rep or street-cred on PC repairs, as I said I know as I used to train their Techs after working there 4 years. Sorry this happened to you.
Let me know how it goes.
<<<<BBJ>>>>