Help Me Format

Hey guys,
got a 1.7ghz with 256mb mem and its running win xp , its not the oem its the upgrade from 98. how do i format the whole hd ? i cant even get the set up on , the os i wanna put on is 98 as i run out of xp licences and dont have cd handy , can anybody help me ?soon as i get to install screen i shud be ok

go to your bios and put ur cdrom as the first boot device. then restart. a message will appear that says "press any key to boot from cd". Hit any key. and that should start the setup from the cd for you.

tried

i tried that.... ill try again now

It's possible the drive was formatted in NTFS. If this is the case, you'll have to use "FDISK" to delete the partition, and make a new one. You should then be able to format the drive normally. If you don't have a boot disk to do this from, post again, and I'll explain how to do it from the CD.

yeah. CrystalMethod has the right idea. running from a boot device (floopy preferable) you need to delete the primary partition, format, and create a new partition. then run the OS setup from the CD. after you have 98 installed, you can do your upgrade back to XP if you want.

If you don't have a windows 98 start up disk(which has fdisk and other tools), you can download it here:

http://bootdisk.com/

erm i got win xp pro do i format by using a boot disk ?

If you intend on installing windows 98, you need to use a boot disk. If you intend on installing windows xp, you simply boot from the windows xp cd. It doesn't matter if you only have the upgrade version, as it is identical to the full version except the software searches for an upgrade qualifying product such as windows 98. You don't have to have win 98 installed to be able to install windows xp upgrade version. Just boot from the xp cd and at some point it will say "no qualifying product found." At that point, insert the 98 cd and hit the browse button to point it to the 98 cd. It will then read the 98 cd to verify that you have an upgrade qualifying product, then you can remove the 98 cd and continue installing xp. Your original post said you ran out of xp licenses and you want to install 98, in which case all you have to do is boot from the 98 boot disk, remove active partition, re-create partition, then use fdisk to format the partition. Then you install windows 98 on the newly created and formated partition.

...yeah, boot with the '98 bootdisk, start with "fdisk" at the A: prompt, reboot, create a partition/partitions which can be changed later with XP, set one active, reboot and start installing XP/98, you'll have a fresh HDD...

Brundle Fly said:

...yeah, boot with the '98 bootdisk, start with "fdisk" at the A: prompt, reboot, create a partition/partitions which can be changed later with XP, set one active, reboot and start installing XP/98, you'll have a fresh HDD...

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Actually, you only have to delete the partitions. If the boot order is set to boot from CD before the hard drive, XP should automatically boot, and start into the setup. Saves you an extra step in the setup. But, both ways will work just fine.

I am going to be upgrade the kids computer with a new Mother Board and Processor. They are running Windows XP Pro Sp2. Is there anyway I can avoid re-installing windows after the up-grade? If not is there any way I can back-up the drive and restore the back up after the re-install of Windows?

You should obviously backup anything you want to keep prior to do anything, just to be on the safe side. Insert your windows xp cd and shut down the system. Then, change out the components you want. When you turn the machine back on, hit the delete button to get into the BIOS and go through each and every setting to make sure it is correct and set the boot order so that the cd rom is the first boot device. The next step is to save changes and continue to boot, booting from the windows xp cd. It will then list several options. Select the option for "Repair Installation." After that it should be fine. The reason it is necessary to do this because a different chipset requires different drivers and different irq allocation etc.

Prot said:

You should obviously backup anything you want to keep prior to do anything, just to be on the safe side. Insert your windows xp cd and shut down the system. Then, change out the components you want. When you turn the machine back on, hit the delete button to get into the BIOS and go through each and every setting to make sure it is correct and set the boot order so that the cd rom is the first boot device. The next step is to save changes and continue to boot, booting from the windows xp cd. It will then list several options. Select the option for "Repair Installation." After that it should be fine. The reason it is necessary to do this because a different chipset requires different drivers and different irq allocation etc.

Click to expand...

That is what I did my last upgrade to my machine. Only it when I hit repair, it took me to what looked like a DOS screen called repair console. Which then proceeded to do nothing, where upon I entered help and it gave me a list of files, not unlike doing a "dir" in DOS. At which time made a Margarita.... gave up and just reinstalled XP...Thoughts. BTW the Margarita worked fine.