Well Pimps, This Dell Dimension 8100 that my father has at his office has caused him to fly into a rage. This week has been an exercise in frustration for both him and myself. Yesterday it took me 12 times to get it running. I am pretty sure that Windoze ME is the problem, but I haven't ruled out bad power or a flakey hard drive either. I want to format and re-install windows (most likely 98), but before I blow away the HDD, I want to know if the good folks at Dell have booby trapped this thing. If I format and get windows installed, will it work without any problem or will I cursing? Also, If the HDD is starting to kaff, cand I just pop in any old drive or are Dell drive proprietary?

If anyone can think of any other "challenges" I may encounter, please let me know, before the old man's rage escalates into something worse.......

The three things propreitary in dells are:
Power Supply
Motherboard
front access panel (if applicable)

You can reinstall any OS fine; I did it on an 8200 for a friend ( who now has a custom rig thanks to me ) anyway yes the drives are standard interchangeable

i have a dimension 8100

altho i never experienced any probs with ME u can still format and install xp or 98 it should work fine.i installed xp and it runs fine now

i had a dimension 4450 and it has crashed 6 or 7 times in the first year which i've owned it. the computer wasn't my choice to buy ( my dad's choice ). i wanted a falcon northwest or to build my own but unfortunately my dad had never heard of good ol falcon nw and he didn't trust my far superior computer skill so builing one was outa the question. dell are the biggest piece of junk and never buy one again. we have to bring dell down. format the hdd and and that should work for the time being.

Thank's guys. This is going to be too much fun!