doing a clean install on my old computer

[Rob]

I got a new computer which is great but I want to keep my old computer around for the kids to play games on and use for schoolwork, etc. What I want to do with the old computer is delete the harddrive and reinstall the OS so everything thats old garbage is gone and I can start fresh again on it. The old computer is a HP Vectra with a think its a 75 mgz pentium overdrive cpu. 40 megs of ram 850 meg h.d. I have all the driver discks for the other hardware. The present OS is a windows 95 upgrade which I have the cd for I also have a windows 98 second edition cd that I bought for my new system. What i need to know is what the best way to purge the old puter and reinstall the OS. Also which windows version would work best with it.
thanks for any help and this is a great site too!

[Charles Kozierok]

Hi Rob, thanks for joining us!
First, be absolutely certain that you don't want anything that is currently on the drive. If that's the case, and you have all the drivers, and you are 100% certain that you don't want anything else off there...
You can simply boot from the boot disk for Windows 98, which should have come with the CD-ROM. From the A: prompt, format the C: drive, that will wipe everything off. (Be sure to do format c:/s and be sure you are booting from the Win98 boot floppy.) Then install Windows 98 and you should be good to go.
Be sure you want to do this, as you can't really undo it, and if you don't have the right boot floppy and CD-ROM you could get "stuck". Having another machine with the same version of Win98 around makes things easier of course. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif
With 40 MiB of RAM you should be OK to run Win98 on a P75. Won't be a speed demon but you knew that already. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Charles M. Kozierok ( ixlubb@PCGuide.com )
Webslave, The PC Guide (http://www.PCGuide.com)
Comprehensive PC Reference, Troubleshooting, Optimization and Buyer's Guides...

[shadowmonkx]

Yeah, I agree with ixl... but also note that you can FORMAT your drive, which will eliminate any residual files or whatnot left on the drive, and then install the OS. But, this is a bit more involved, so I wouldn't suggest doing so UNLESS you know exactly what you're doing (not that you can't learn or anything http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

Additionally, Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is coming out quite soon -- you may find it easier to just buy than that install Windows 98 (SE?) and then have to do all the bugfixes, upgrades, etc. A lot of reasons to go with Me, rather than 98.

...not that I'm a big, big fan or want to support Micropoop or anything... :P

-Just call me a monk in the shadows; shadowmonkx

[Paleo Pete]

Rob, good luck with the machine, here are a couple of links you might find useful.

Quick Guide to a Win98 Fresh Start (http://www.hardwarehell.com/fdisk.htm) has good info on the fdisk/format procedure, and if you only need to format, skip the fdisk part. In your case, fdisk wouldn't be absolutely necessary.

Bootdisk (http://www.bootdisk.com) is a good place to get a bootdisk for Windows or DOS, read their instructions, they are self extracting files, rather than actual bootdisks. You can also make a win98 bootdisk from any win95 or win98 machine by going to
Start\Settings\Control Panel\Add/Remove Programs and clicking the Startup Disk tab. To have CD ROM support, you'll need a win98 bootdisk. Otherwise, you have to already have DOS CD ROM drivers loaded.

Another point to consider, make sure you have the latest drivers, (yes, I realize you posted that you have drivers, but are they recent?) WinDrivers (http://www.windrivers.com) and WinFiles (http://www.winfiles.com) are the best two I know of.

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