Delete WinXP/Dual Boot? (winxp home)

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Hello
I have bought a notebook at auction from Compaq, and it has Win XP home as the OS. Drive C (25Gb) is formatted as NTFS and drive D (5Gb) has all the backup files and is formatted as FAT 32. There is no WinXP CD. (It’s all in D:).

Here’s the rub – on my present notebook, all my hardware( usb hub,modem,printer,scanner,camera, et al) and most of my software is Win98SE, and I am quite happy with it. How do I get rid of XP,(it doesn’t recognise my 98SE boot floppy to format the C drive or let me access the CD drive, by the way) and install my beloved 98SE on a FAT 32 on the C drive?

I would be happy to have a dual boot system, but the MS help pages are of no help.

Many thanks
Farside

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Being that the C drive is NTFS you are going to have to do a complete rebuild, including “Fdisk” and then a format. As you know you can NOT boot with a Windows 98 boot floppy because of the NTFS. Also you are going to have problems getting the driver for 98 to work that laptop, unless you got tha that OEM (CompaQ) for the copy of 98.

Have you tried to connect the printer , scanner and etc and installing the software that you have on the new machine?
You might be suprised as to what XP will do for you.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Hi
This is thrown in for what its worth. You can convert your NTFS to FAT32 using 3rd party software, such as Partiton Magic – worth having anyway. I was also under the impression you could do this from within XP, though never having used NTFS I do not know the procedure (if it exists).
You can dual boot, though its supposed to be easier if you install Win 9x before NT based OSs. The method for installing 98SE second is a bit long-winded, but it works. Trouble is, I can’t find where I saw the description. I’m sure somebody will know where it is.

Cheers

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Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I had gone through a list of my stuff and it all came back non-compatible. DaveA said try installing anyway, so I had a go. Despite some dire looking warnings and ‘don’t even think about doing that’ sort of stuff, I am now nearly there. XP looks alright, doesn’t it?

All that remains is my 4 port usb hub and Diamond modem (which is redundant now anyway). By the way, I am sending this on my ‘old’ computer before moving the new one into position:-)

Thanks once again for taking the time to answer my ?

Regards
Farside

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Remember that Windows XP has a Compatibility mode, that will allow one to run the program as if on a earlier OS. Right click the Icon and or Exe file, select Properties and then the “Compatibility” tabe

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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