Upgrading and reformatting win98se.

[johnnr892]

Hi, my windows 98 has gone crazy again for the last time. I want to reformat the hardrive and install windows xp. At the moment i dont have the knowledge of how to format a hardrive and install windows xp. Would anyone be so kind as to give me an idea of how i would do that and what things i would need apart from obviously a copy of win xp. Could someone tell me how to format a hardrive because i don't want to go down to my local computer shop and shell out £40 everytime i need to format again. Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated and would save me a lot of money. Thanks, John.

[Nomadd]

I would've thought the WinXP CD when you boot from it (assuming your pc supports this) would do the format for you (i.e. the installer whould take you through an upgrade install). If not, just get a basic DOS diskette with the format command copied to it. Also get fdisk on their if you are thinking of reorganising the disk.

I'd suggest doing a little bit of reading up before you do this. It's OK wanting to save £40, but you've got to put some effort in to make that saving worthwhile. Start with the microsoft site, it should have plenty of info on upgrading from 98 to XP.

Nomadd

[streetster]

ok, you have both a windows 98 and windows xp cd...

hopefully this will be reasonably simple to understand

formatting

first make sure your computer is set to boot from the cd, and make sure the windows 98 cd is in the drive...
it'll ask if you wish to boot from CD-ROM or Harddrive, choose CD-ROM. then choose the option to 'Start computer with CD-ROM support')
it'll do some stuff, then leave you are a 'A:\>' prompt. type the following:

d: [enter] (assuming d: is your cd drive)
cd\win98 [enter]
format c: [enter]

obviously dont type [enter] just hit the enter button... k then it'll ask if you wish to erase all data on the nonremovable device, hit the Y button and away it goes...

once done it'll ask for a 11digit volume label, either leave this blank or type something useful like WinXP...

installing windows xp

ok, if you get a windows xp cd which boots, just whack that in the drive, reboot your machine and follow all the menus til youve installed it... otherwise you have to do the following

1. boot computer with 98 cd, start with cd-rom support...
2. at 'A:\>' prompt type:

d: [enter]
cd\win98 [enter]
smartdrv [enter]
cd\ [enter]

3. then insert your windows XP cd, and type the following (it should be at a 'D:\>' prompt now, if not, type cd\ and hit enter)

cd i386 [enter]
winnt [enter]

.... and that'll start the xp installation, just plow your way through and you're done....

thats from going from 98->nothing->xp, if you want to just do an upgrade i think you can prolly do it from windows, but ive never done one so i dont know

hope this helps

[directhex]

you can "just upgrade" 98 -> xp, kezzer, but it's kinda heavily broken if you do

[streetster]

why kezzer he's not posted in this thread

[directhex]

i didn't bother scolling up to check who posted.

i think i had duck tape on the brain

sorry streetster

[streetster]

no need to apologise guess its one of those days eh

[johnnr892]

The problem is, when the man at my local shop installed windows 98 he used(i think) a copied win 98 disk to install it and never gave us the disk or he used a normal win98 disk never gave it too us. Maybe he's conned me so i have to go to him everytime i want to format the hardrive. Is there anyway to format the hardrive without the win98 disk and just using a new win xp disk. Thanks, john
P.S is using the copied win98 and not giving it too me after, is that illegal?

[Tifosi]

Yep, to format the hard drive boot into MSDOS (i think you may need to press F8 during boot to access MSDOS) and at the command prompt type:
format c:

(make sure c: is the drive you want to format). Then put in your XP disk and it will convert the partition from FAT to NTFS if you request.

If you paid for Windows 98 and he didn't give you a disk or a backup/restore CD then he has conned you.

If he has used a copy of Windows without an official license for your machine then its an illegal copy.

[nichomach]

edit: YOU DO NOT need to format your hard disk prior to the XP install.

Boot from the Windows XP CD. You can choose to delete the existing partition, create a new one and format it from there during the XP setup. Be advised; if you want to do this, either get a Windows 98 CD (or later) CD from somewhere if you buy an upgrade copy of XP, or just buy a new full copy of XP.

[streetster]

btw Atcapollo, your sig pic is almost 2x the height sigs are meant to be

[directhex]

if you don't have a windows 98 license (a cd key on a manual or key stuck to the case) then yes, it's illegal.

you can do formatting & installing entirely by booting the xp cd - you'll get to the following screen:



select a partition, press the deletey button, (d), then hit enter on the unformatted space

[johnnr892]

if i was going to buy a copy of win xp it would be about £60 or about £160. I dont understand the difference between the two. It's just one says OEM. What does OEM mean and why is it less expensive?

[nichomach]

Ah...OEM means "Original Equipment Manufacturer". It's the disk plus a license certificate rather than the full retailed boxed product, and there are conditions attached to its sale. It must be sold with a piece of hardware which is essential to the running of a computer (examples are motherboards, CPUs, hard disks, maybe a couple of other bits), and be used with that piece of hardware, in order to have been legally sold. If you fancy a bigger hard disk or a secondary one, now's the time.

It's really packaged that way for systems builders to be able to provide the same OS at a lower cost with the systems they sell.

[johnnr892]

Ok, so i would need to buy a full retail £150 pound one unless i bought a hardrive. I didn't think xp was that expensive.

[nichomach]

Erm. Assuming that the OEM restriction is being enforced, you could go to CPU City, buy yourself a £60 OEM copy of XP Home and a £35 Maxtor hard disk. There's nothing stopping you installing XP on the disk you already have and keeping the Maxtor as a slave or for backups or whatever...

So long as the license is sold with a piece of qualifying hardware it's been legally sold.