Win98 install over XP? HELP!!!

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

During my recent 6 month hospitalization, I was given an approximately 10 year old Dell laptop that had essentially never been used. When I got home, I installed XP over Win2000 and immediately turned the machine into a slow clunker. It only has 256 megs of RAM. I just obtained a never registered copy of Win 98. I can't seem to get it to format the hard drive and install over the XP. The XP disc was never registered either and it has timed out on me. When I try to boot from HD I get a message that says OS Not Found. What do I need to do here? Thanks in advance for any help.
P.S. when I try to boot from CD drive I get a message that essentially tells I can't do it.

 

[ddarlak]

i'm assuming you have a floppy A: drive, you need to make a MSDOS system disk.

then format the HD,

then install win 98

 

[mikey-Oh]

change the boot order in the bios to check the cdrom first, should give you the option for install while booting

 

[RMXGRAPHIX]

http://www.wikihow.com/Format-the-C-Drive-on-a-Windows-XP-SP2


or if you can get to the msdos prompt type in c://format c

It can be a pita if you dont have the oem disk I use to have an adapter from the smaller lap top hard drive to an desk top pc hard drive an all you have to do is plug it in on your desk top and right click and format ......I hope this helps

 

[ddarlak]

ntfs is what's stopping you, you need the HD formatted fat32

windows 98 doesn't autoboot setup like XP, or at least i never had an auto boot installation CD

you need a floppy system disk, boot to that, format c:

 

[jiarby]

I can email you an executable Win98 Boot disk image... the one that came with Win98 originally. You can pop in a blank floppy and use this image file to recreate the original Win 98 boot floppy.

THEN, you use the fdisk command to delete the NTFS partition, create a new partition, and format it Fat32. It's been a while... but I think the Win98 install routine will do all that for you during the install process.

 

[mikey-Oh]

I can email you an executable Win98 Boot disk image... the one that came with Win98 originally. You can pop in a blank floppy and use this image file to recreate the original Win 98 boot floppy.

THEN, you use the fdisk command to delete the NTFS partition, create a new partition, and format it Fat32. It's been a while... but I think the Win98 install routine will do all that for you during the install process.

this, i was thinkin of winXP

 

[tcorn1965]

Arlo,
I am guessing since it is a 10 yr old system it has a floppy drive. Go here http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Click on this (Windows 98 SE OEM ) download and run program, it will tell you to insert a floppy disk (You will need an IBM formatted one)
It will write the needed files to floppy.

This is important, as you'll need access to your CD-ROM drive to do a new Windows98 install.
Once the boot disk is created, test it to see if you can access your CD-ROM drive. To do this reboot the machine with the floppy disk in the floppy drive and when the machine restarts choose "Start with CD-ROM support".
At the prompt type d: and hit the Enter key. If the machine responds with D:\> you are in business.
Next type "format c:" without the quotes (and hit ENTER).
The C: drive (main hard drive) will then be wiped clean.
Once the reformat is finished put your Windows CD-ROM disk in the CD-ROM drive, and type "D:\setup" without the quotes at the prompt (and hit ENTER).

Hope this helps,
Terry

​

 

[round man]

ddarlak is correct ,...win 98 will only use fat32 whereas win xp uses ntfs ,....you need to partition and format the drive when you install win 98 ,..it should be an option in the install,...

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

I would wipe the computer clean with.. Acronis Wipe Drive ...install what ever windows wanted

 

[ddarlak]

,..it should be an option in the install,...

i think that is an XP innovation, i think 98 is old school do it yourself....

 

[round man]

I would download a copy of super fdisk then and use that to partition and format the drive,..http://www.ptdd.com/manual2.htm

 

[ddarlak]

too funny, we've been back and forth and arlo probably trashed this thing weeks ago....