Metropol

Whenever I startup my laptop (a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop running Windows XP), the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics card is always unrecognised. I get the following message:

"No ATI graphics driver is installed, or the ATI drive is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for your ATI hardware."

And the display is always stuck on 1152 x 864 and cannot be changed, due to not having "administrative rights". When I uninstall (in Device Manager) and then re-install the graphics card (Add Hardware), only then does the correct dual monitors picture appear, and even then sometimes this doesn't work and leaves me with the "administrative rights" message and the 1152 x 864 display. I have to go through this process everytime I reboot the laptop after shut down.

Does anyone know how to get it to recognise the graphics card properly at startup?

Anyone got any idea? I've seen something called Driver Cleaner, but I don't really want to pay for it to have to sort it out because there should be an easier way.

Probably not much help, but I had a sound card that exhibited similar symptoms for a while, in that it never came up on a boot and you had to disable it and enable it again to get it going.

I never found a proper cause for the problem, but after I pulled all the cards out and reseated them to sort out something else, the sound card problem went away.

I did wonder if I should try taking the card out, but then it might get incredibly fiddly and I would do more harm than good. I'm pinning my hopes on getting an external hard drive for Christmas, so I can then back up everything to that and do a new install. It's horrible having a C: drive and an F: drive on an already unreliable laptop.