I have a Dell laptop that was running an early version of Windows but it recently crashed due to some problem in the registry. It seems that the drivers for most of the devices on this computer are now barebones giving me 800x600 with almost no color depth in addition to no longer having access to the sound card. Short of contacting Dell, is there a way I can run some program on my computer to find out which devices I have so I can download the appropriate drivers and get my computer working again.
I have my computer up and running with Windows 2000 at the moment which is how I’m able to get online from my normal internet connection.
Plus, I know I’m jumping ahead, how do I get rid of the old version so I don’t have it dual booting? I want to keep Windows 2000.
ARGHHHHH I wrote you a reply and the freakin’ hamsters ate it!
RE: the drivers - go to the dell website. http://www.dell.com/ and click on the Support link up the top. Provided you have the model number of your notebook it will give you all the drivers you need. There is undoubtedly software out there that will tell you what you have in your system, but for the purposes of getting you back up and running, I suggest just going to the dell site.
The other question - how to get rid of your old windows.
There may be a listing in the Add/Remove Programs section in the Control Panel. If not, you can simply delete the old Windows folder.
As to how to remove it from the OS list when your system boots, there are two things you can do. Firstly you can change the timeout so it only asks you for 1 second before booting straight into win2k. Do this by right-clicking My Computer, go to Properties, then Advanced. Click on the startup/recovery button and go from there.
You may also choose to mess about with the BOOT.INI file, in which you will find entries similar to:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=“Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect
Get rid of the entry you don’t want and reboot. My recommendation is the first approach as editing the BOOT.INI file requires messing with a system file and you may end up breaking it.
As usual, all disclaimers apply, if you kill your system it aint my fault etc etc
Max 
PS Sorry for the terseness of my response. My original reply was far more eloquent! Damn those hamsters.
Well I found the driver CD for my laptop in the boxes. Hooray for being a packrat and getting the computer back up and running.