My Music won't work, also Version Query

Hmm_Messiah

Hi I got a Dell Deminsion 5150 with Media Center 2005.
two problems

1. have a remote etc and its fun but My Music will not recognise any songs !! , its now saying its got 147 unknown albums but will not play them. I had partitions one hard drive and called it M (multimedia) and the music is there.
I've also set up Windows media Player to create Music Library from there and that works. I also moved one album to my documentts to see would it play that - no luck, I've removed folders and added etc, shut down, restarted, but no luck.

the thing is if I go into artists it lists all the artists but not their alumbs or songs !! Help !

(lol was near tears last night becuase up to then was quite enjoying the novelty of a new pc )


2. I went on microsoft.com to download update and it would not run said " was not appropriate to the OS installed"
clicked my computer, says I've Windows XP, Media Centre 2002

On all my Dell notification it says MCE 2005. ?? Should I get onto Dell ??


3. Lastly, no disks were included, how hard is it to get them to forward the XP disks ? Can I insist ? and If I do get them can I just re-install Meadia Center rather than having to start from scratch again ??
Is there a way I can burn a copy /resource version of XP off the machine (which won't really help if there is a problem with this install I guess )


I really appreciate the help, Ok can I ask a 4th probably silly question ?
If I got an analogue tuner can i watch rte/tvs on the pc and get the portable out of the room (don't have digital tv) and if so are the USB tuners OK, or is a card better ?

8T8

1. What format is your music in MP3, AAC, OGG etc ?

2. The 2002 part refers to Windows XP, the "Media Center" component is the 2005 version so don't worry about that. All updates for the operating system can be acquired from windows update just use Internet Explorer to navigate to the site to download the updates for WinXP & MCE.

3. Not totally familiar with what Dell are doing at the moment in regards that I'm sure someone else here is but from what I recall in the event of no systems discs there is a hidden partition containing the image of the operating system. When you run Dell's restore program it accesses this hidden partition and restores the OS back to the computer.

Alternatively they used to ship a CD with had the image on it and basically did the above.

As for the actual install disc which would allow whats called a clean install I think you have to call Dell and they will send you the discs for a small fee or something like that.

If I got an analogue tuner can i watch rte/tvs on the pc and get the portable out of the room (don't have digital tv) and if so are the USB tuners OK, or is a card better ?

Yes, you can use MCE to watch TV, you need an MCE compliant tuner (not just any old one) the external ones are more expensive that the internal kind and the internal kind tend to offer the better picture quality as they can apply various filters to clean up the signal. If getting an internal card get an ATI 550 Pro it will give the best picture quality on an analog signal.

Hmm_Messiah

sorry, meant to say thanks for that

8T8

No worries