Well, I'll consider a thinkpad T500 (15-inch) if I can get one with 256 MB discrete VRAM ATI or Nvidia GeForce card, Core 2 Duo, XP, if it's around 5 or 6 pounds, or even a different brand of laptop with the same specs, as long as it's $500 or less, buy it now.

Found a Dell Inspiron notebook w/ NVidia graphics card for $400 plus ($20 S & H) - should I buy it?

Dell Inspiron laptop

and look here - I believe I found all the XP (32-bit) drivers for this laptop, which I d/l'ed,

Dell Inspiron M1530 XP drivers

Personally, I'd take a chance with it - but remember what Jenny mentioned.



I think most of the heating issues were related to 3D type games, maybe not, but I think it's probably as close to your original requirements as you're going to get.

Did you notice that the screen itself has scuffs on it?

I didn't see that drac - good catch You might ask the seller to provide a few close up images of the damaged areas and then make a decision Cruise.

The case on a used laptop, no biggie. The screen? Especially for gaming? Better ask more.

Um, I'm not too worried about that screen, Inland and Drac - b/c I play games 1 time while taking gameplay screenshots of them, and I'd be more concerned with the quality of these screenshots than the actual screen itself.

Since it's as close to my specs as I'm going to get (according to Inland), I bought it just now.

EDIT - here's a review in terms of gaming performance as well as pricing from Cnet:



Why are these laptops so expensive? Did I get a bargain?

They were high end performers in their day - My VGN-AR190G retailed for $3500... and of course as soon as it arrived, they're replaced with something better - but, that's the way it goes...

You got a good deal assuming it works well.

That website I linked to to try to get XP drivers for the Dell XPS M1530 laptop I bought yesterday (since I just checked Dell's website for this model but they only have Vista drivers) does that website really have the XP drives for this laptop, or am I being fooled again?

EDIT - I double checked and these drivers I linked to are either for Vista, XP, or multi OS, but it looks like that one Roxio driver is only for Vista (which the laptop comes with) - but do I really need that Roxio Sonic Solutions Roxio Creator driver if I already have Roxio DVD burner software for XP in my office?

Cruise, when you get the laptop the Dell should have a reference number on it that you should be able to use at the Dell site to reference all the drivers that belong to that machine... I would imagine that if it came loaded with XP that Dell should have the correct drivers for it.

The ebay page said it comes loaded with Vista, Win. I'm hoping to wipe the hard drive and do a clean, fresh install of XP on this laptop.

Roxio is not a driver. It's disc burning software that is optional for the laptop. There's plenty of disc burning software that is compatible with XP, assuming you even need it.


The M1530 was sold with Vista. Plenty of people have managed to install XP on it though, and there are instructions you can find on the Internet by Googling "XP on the M1530". For example, ***here*** is a step-by-step guide.

Assuming it's still equipped with the original hard drive (and no one's deleted it) the M1530 has a hidden recovery partition - just press F8 at boot up. I doubt you'll have issues installing XP, but if you do you can always restore.

You might examine your hard drive when you get the computer to see if it has the restore partition. Run diskmgmt.msc and you should be able to see the partitions. By default the XPS M1330/M1530 Dell laptops had 4 partitions:

1. a tiny Dell Diagnostics partition
2. the Vista partition
3. the restore partition
4. the Media Direct partition.

The Media Direct button on the laptop caused no end of grief for people who installed XP or Vista and who simply formatted the Vista partition without using the Media Direct DVD. The Media Direct button closely resembles the On button and can easily be pressed by accident. It earned the nickname of "the self-destruct button" because after accidentally pressing it they were unable to boot their laptops to Windows anymore. One guy at Notebookreview was so proud of himself when he found pressing the Media Direct button a second time and his computer booted to Windows. Then he tried it again and it didn't work --> he had to reinstall Windows just like everyone else who had been victimized by the "self destruct button."

What the Media Direct button does is boot to the last partition on the hard drive, which in the default configuration is the Media Direct partition. Unfortunately it does this using some information that's hidden in ***HPA***. The trouble is, installing Windows deletes this information so the computer gets stuck with no instructions of where to boot from.

There are two ways to avoid creating a self-destruct button:

One way is to install Windows using the Media Direct disc that came with the Dell laptop if you bought it new from Dell. (Dell used to include Windows discs, driver discs, and Media Direct discs with their computers for free). You start the install with the Media Direct disc, switch to the Windows disc when prompted, and switch back to the Media Direct disc to complete the installation. The M1330/M1530 laptops (and other Dell laptop models from around the same time) shipped with ***Media Direct v3.5***.

The second way is to simply delete every partition (with the possible exception of the Dell Diagnostics) and free the rest of the hard drive for Windows. When you do this, the last partition is the same as the Windows partition, so the Media Direct button simply becomes a second On button. Of course by doing this you also lose the restore partition, but I'm not sure if that would work after reinstalling Windows anyway if Dell uses the HPA for that too.

There was one guy who found a 3rd way -- he physically removed the Media Direct button from his laptop. But most people wouldn't want to deface their laptops this way.

Is it worth keeping Media Direct? Most people say ***No***. It did boot faster than Vista, but wouldn't boot appreciably faster than XP. It allowed you to watch DVD's, view pictures, and listen to music without having to boot Vista. You can read about it ***here***. You could also run a Vista-compatible version of Media Direct after booting to Vista, but that was simply a Vista program and didn't affect booting.

Duct tape over the button! Mankind's answer to all problems. Especially the irridescent orange duct tape.

You can still press on duct tape (and no doubt you will if you use the computer when you're half asleep). You need to remove the contact under the button.

Or just trash the Media Direct and restore partitions. If you want XP on the computer, the restore partition (which has Vista) won't do you much good.

Super Glue!

Having read this, Jenny, I'm in favor of deleting all of the partitions except the Diagnostics partition, but really, would I really need the Dell Diagnostic partition in the first place if I want to wipe the hard drive and do a clean, fresh install of XP?

The diagnostics partition is tiny -- in the MB range, so you don't really gain anything by deleting it. It's useful for troubleshooting hardware problems, like testing memory. You can Google for
"Dell Diagnostics"
to find out more about it.

Of course it's up to you if you want to keep it or not.

How exactly do I remove the contact under this button?



How do I trash the Media Direct and the Restore Partitions?

You're right, Jenny - since I do want XP on this computer, I think I'd be (from what you told me so far) saving myself tons of trouble and frustration by deleting the Media Direct, the restore partition, and the Vista partition and merging all that empty space into 1 partition while leaving the Dell Diagnostics Partition alone - am I correct in thinking this?

Would I be better off keeping the Dell Diagnostics partition, or would it be wise to delete it?

Irridescent orange duct tape, super glue and removal of the contact! Problem solved.

Jenny, the link to the complete package of XP drivers takes me not to a direct XP driver download page for the M1530, but to more links and I don't know which link to click on.


Quoted from thread at notebook review - thread is now closed, so I can't quote/post in it asking for help.

What do I do now?

If you get rid of the Media Direct and Restore partitions, you don't have to worry about disabling the button. It just becomes a second On button and boots Windows because Windows is now the last partition on the drive.


Delete the partitions. You should be able to delete partitions when you boot off the XP CD.


I'd probably keep it, since it's handy to have if you ever suspect a hardware problem. But it's not absolutely necessary and it might be simpler for you just to delete every partition on the hard drive.


I'm not getting anything on that page.
You can try creating a new thread at Notebookreview and copy/paste relevant info from the old thread.

EDIT --

A Googles search for Udi_M1530_XP_Drivers.exe
produced this link
http://uploaded.to/file/yj08pw

Jenny, these downloads from that page you linked me to at notebookreview are no longer available from these links:



I was able to d/l nliteos,




but these links led me to pages that no longer had these XP drivers in question.

and -

Jenny, the link to the complete package of XP drivers takes me not to a direct XP driver download page for the M1530, but to more links and I don't know which link to click on.



Quoted from thread at notebook review - thread is now closed, so I can't quote/post in it asking for help.

What do I do now?

I think my EDIT didn't take until too late.
As I said,
A Googles search for Udi_M1530_XP_Drivers.exe
produced this link
http://uploaded.to/file/yj08pw

Ooops! I didn't see that! But I'm d/l from your previous link (didn't even know it existed - thought it was gone forever). Is this a pack that contains all of the XP drivers for the M1530?

Thank you so much, Jenny!