yea i did all of that and it works fine. i kidna found out today that my teacher wiped teh harddrive so i will be needing the xp cd or dell cd of some sort. and with that i need the cd drive. and i found out why the primary harddrive some times was missing it was because i dind't screw in this blue plastic bar that kept the prongs in place. dind't know what it was for since i got it all pretty much disassembled. and i found out so now it stays in place. thanks for your help.