Upgrading memory for Vista to work?
 

Hi. I have a friend with a Dell Dimension 3000. 2.6 Ghz: 512 MB RAM.

He originally had XP installed, but he recently installed a copy of Vista Ultimate on his computer (it was a preinstalled OEM copy). It worked fine the first few times but, yesterday, when he started it, it said:

Primary Drive Not Found
Secondary Drive Not Found

Press F1 to continue, press F2 to run the setup utility

Nothing happens when you press F1. It just stays on that screen. Does my friend need to upgrade his memory for Vista to work?

F1 F2 is the BIOS giving you the choices, not Windows. Looks like the computer is not seeing the hard drive(s). Hit F2, check the hard drive settings, and boot priority options. Power off and back on, if it still persists, you may have a bad or loose hard drive cable, or the hard drive may have died.

Vista minimum requirements.
* 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1 GB of system memory
* 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
* Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
o WDDM Driver
o 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
o Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
o 32 bits per pixel
* DVD-ROM drive
* Audio Output
* Internet access (fees may apply)
Windows Vista: Recommended System Requirements

Personally I recommend at least 2GB RAM for Vista.