reinstall windows 98se without cd

i'm getting a new comouter soon but i'm wanting to keep my old one. i want to give it a complete restart as over the years it has degraded and became infected with so much crap my idiot brother has tried to instal. but my parents gave away the installation discs for windows 98se and disc 1 of the works suite. is there any way to reinstall windows without this disc? the works suite isn't as important but if there's a way to reinstall that it would be nice. windows 98se is the main thing i want to keep though. eveything else has to go.

If you're getting a new computer and want to use Windows, go for XPee. I mean, I seriously don't see any point in installing 98 (SE or not) on a new machine, except enjoying fighting to get drivers to work properly (USB, USB 2.0), lack of support in new programs, complete lack of security updates (MS stopped supporting 98 a while ago).

And to answer your question, you need the 98se disc to install it, it doesn't exist in thin air for you to install :p And since you won't find it in stores...
Same goes for Works. Get OpenOffice.org instead, anyway.

okay so can you give me a step by step process on how to reformat my hard drive and replace 98 with xp?

1. Boot to DOS using a Win 98 Boot Disk. (If you don't have one goto, Start > Control Panel > Add Remove Programs. Either the middle or far right tab will say something like, Create Boot Disk.)
2. At the DOS prompt type format c: and press enter. confirm by pressing Y.
3. When thats done remove the floppy disk and insert your Windows XP CD and restart the system by pressing CTRL, ALT and Delete.
*4. Follow the on screen instructions to install WinXP.

* You'll need to change your boot priority in the BIOS if your system isn't set to boot from CDROM before the hard drive. I can't tell you exactly how to do that as every BIOS is layed out differently.

To enter the BIOS you'll need to press a certain key on the POST screen. (The black screen with all the white text which appears when you first turn on your PC.) It's usually F1, F2 or delete.

Once in the BIOS you need to look for the boot priority settings and change CDROM to the first boot device. Once done save the changes and exit.

Oh, wait, you're going to be using the old one, or the new one?

You don't need to bother make the floppy disk and format before using the WinXP CD, since the WinXP installation will format it for you if you want, just start off with the CD :p

okay so what would happen say if my new computer never came with the xp disc as i have been told might happen?

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Originally Posted by Cloud No.9

okay so what would happen say if my new computer never came with the xp disc as i have been told might happen?

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Then your f***ed. :D

Very few PC's will come with a CD containing the OS. There usually incorperated into the system recovery. Of course there are other way's to aquire Windows. :eek: :rolleyes2

and what are these other ways?

and so if i can't reinstall any os on my old computer how am i supposed to purge the blighted thing?

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Originally Posted by Cloud No.9

and what are these other ways?

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Mostly illegal ways.

so how would i purge the system without the reformat-reinstall method?

Open Office has the only word processing program worse than Word Perfect.

Umm, you can get an illegal crack of it via a torrent or P2P program...that is, if you don't mind doing such.

Other than that, you need the CD.

just a quick word.

98 isn't that bad, I much prefer it over xp.. infact I have more trouble with xp then 98.. prolly cause I am used to 98 so meh... I don't need my hand held all the way through so 98 is fine for me, and then I can play all the DOS games I want.

as for the CD, yeah.. you may have to get a cracked one, or try and find one on ebay(doubt it but.. they supposedly have everything) or at a garage sell.

But just go with what is easiest to get, 98, XP, no major difference between them though I find 98 freindlier.

98 and XP couldn't be much more different, actually - they're even built upon completely different architectures (98 belongs to 9x, XP belongs to NT). You can disable a lot of the new features and friendly help crap in XP (true, it's a hassle at the start, but worth it in the long run if you don't like them, and it only needs to be done once on a new installation), and XP is more stable and secure. As Endless said in his first post, there's very little reason to use Win98 now.

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Originally Posted by ShunNakamura

just a quick word.

98 isn't that bad, I much prefer it over xp.. infact I have more trouble with xp then 98.. prolly cause I am used to 98 so meh... I don't need my hand held all the way through so 98 is fine for me, and then I can play all the DOS games I want.

as for the CD, yeah.. you may have to get a cracked one, or try and find one on ebay(doubt it but.. they supposedly have everything) or at a garage sell.

But just go with what is easiest to get, 98, XP, no major difference between them though I find 98 freindlier.

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Umm, have you used XP for more than 5 minutes? O___o

(because you're...welll...completely wrong, no offense)

i managed to get a copy of the 98 cd.

so can someone give me a very simple step by step solution to refomatting the hard drive and reinstalling windows from start to finish.

also is there another way of purging the disk without reformatting?

A brand new computer will always come with a back-up disc. But it doesn't JUST have the OS on it most of the time. It usually comes with extra programs such as IE, Windows media player, Acrobat reader stuff like that. Programs which they think you will need on the computer. If it doesn't come with a back up cd then you will have to complain, and they will send out another one. The only way you wouldn't get a back up cd is if you created a computer yourself with your own parts. Then you'd have to buy the OS disc itself.

i now longer need the OS disk. I just need a how-to step by step thing now.

If you want to format your hard drive then I recommend using Killdisk first. It will write 0s to your HD so nothing at all will linger behind. It is what I use on all my computers from 98-XP whenever I do a reformat. You just need to create a boot floppy and put killdisk on it(instructions come with the program).

I usually just download it from www.download.com

After that is done then you can put the 98 disc in the CD Drive and restart your CPU.

It is pretty self explainitory once it gets going...to get it going turn the CPU on. If it does not auto load then you will need to change your boot sequence in the BIOS. You should just need to hit F12 or Del or F10 or something like that. It should be on the first screen you ever seen when your CPU boots up. Someone else could probably give a more detailed explaination of what to do when in the BIOS but lets hope it doesn't come to that.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1M

Adjust blocksize for performance reasons :p

Even better than all 0's, use if=/dev/urandom and run the command several times, it obfuscates the data on the disk even more beyond repair than plain zeroing :D


I personally think zeroing the disk is overkill in the first place though if all you're gonna do is reformat - unless something is malfunctioning, it doesn't matter if any data is lingering behind because it will not exist as far as the new filesystem from formatting will be concerned :p

I know but I say "Why the hell not? Its just another 15-20 minutes. I will just be safe and blow the whole thing up." :D