I suspect that you have 4Gb of RAM, not 400.

If you have XP Home it would be a good idea to upgrade to XP Pro. It's much more robust. It's a disk you run, and should be able to find online for a reasonable price.

You can always buy RAM online. Did you research at Dell and find only their prices for the system you owned? Places like Fry's, NewEgg, the old CompUSA, even, had it much less expensive.

Good luck. I agree, the external drive is a good idea. Or easier, after you get through to your files, get a disk enclosure and put the old hard drive into the box and plug it in to be an external drive. You will need to give yourself permission to access your old files, but that's not difficult.

SRS