For people who are really keen on getting the most out of their used laptop I’ve included some more advanced information.

Used laptops and ACPI bios

Laptops and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) capability. If you have at least a Pentium II laptop it should be ACPI compliant. This means Windows XP should detect and automatically configure some low level power management options. This will include battery management so you can see the level of power remaining.

It will allow you to shut the laptop down in time to prevent the battery from totally discharging. Laptop batteries can be permanently damaged from a total discharge so it’s a great feature to have enabled.

The problem is that some older laptops that were sold with Windows 95 or Windows 98 did not come with an ACPI bios. The good news is that any laptop that’s compatible with Windows 2000 will have an ACPI bios so if your laptop was sold without Windows 2000 there should be a bios update on the manufacturer’s web site.

Along with the bios update you should download all the Windows 2000 drivers for your used laptop. Windows 2000 drivers should work fine under XP.

This kind of support is the reason why I recommend you buy a used laptop from a big name manufacturer such as HP, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba or IBM.

Getting things up and running

Simply download the bios update and put it on a floppy disk, you then boot the laptop using the disk and the bios update will proceed automatically. Don’t update the bios until you’re completely ready to install Windows XP or 2000. Otherwise download the old bios as well so you can return to the old bios should you want to return to Windows 98.

The drivers (for graphics chip, sound chip and touchpad) should be put on a CD. You’ll need them after you’ve installed Windows XP and have booted for the first time.

Windows XP will detect the devices and ask for the drivers you simply have to identify the CD ROM drive (or where ever you put them) and Windows will install and reboot with your device enabled.