OK, I think I’m going to try and tackle re-installing Windows 98SE this weekend. I’ve never done it before and I’m not quite sure of the details yet, there’s still research to be done.
Anyways, my question is how do all the techies here recommend tackling it? I am planning on buying a second HD. My Win98SE came preinstalled so I think the best I can hope for is installing from scratch and then reinstall the good programs one at a time. I have a CD-RW as well, but I just figured I’d copy my media files (MP3s, mpegs, jpegs, docs etc…) to the new HD and then remove it before reinstalling and reformatting the old HD. Then plugging the new HD back in and keeping the files there. IOW, all my media junk on one drive and all my programs and applications on the other.
So, considering I know just enough about computers to be really dangerous, how should I proceed? Am I completely high in thinking I’ll be able to access those files on the new HD after the reinstall? What do I need to do the reinstall, I assume theres a Windows boot disk with my crap, but I’ll have to look closer when I get home, I’m hoping I won’t need to “borrow” anyone’s full version CD-ROM. If I did get a full version before the install could I reinstall without losing all my files?
Finally, am I going to make myself computerless after attempting this?
here’s the way I do it when i don’t want to lose files. I used to work in tech support (it’s not just a job, it’s a really really shitty job), so I know it works and everything. go into your windows/command folder and copy ‘deltree.exe’ to your startup disk (you have one, don’t you?). reboot to that disk, and at the a:> type ‘deltree c:\windows’. It will ask if you’re sure, say yes. it will take a while to delete the windows folder and all folders underneath, but it will eventually come back to the a:>. after that, reinstall windows like normal. you will only lose your files if you have saved them under the windows folder for some reason. after you reinstall, you will want to install your drivers, and your applications in order to get desktop shortcuts and registry entries back, but you won’t lose any data. please let me know if any of that isn’t clear.
Tell Ghost to clone your original drive onto your new drive.
(Ghost takes care of partitioning and formatting your new drive.)
Remove your old hard drive.
Set your new hard drive to master.
That’s it!
When you reboot, your computer will be exactly as it was before you swapped drives, with all your programs, folders and files all present and correct just where you left them.
P.S. Ghost can create complete disk images that can be saved to CD-R etc, letting you restore your computer to the state it was in when you made the image. (Very handy if you’re struck by a virus or some other disaster, you can be up and running again within 10 minutes.)
TS, the general point is that I don’t want the system as it is now, its like a clusterfuck bomb went off in my registry. I’m reinstalling to fix all the problems I caused during my “learning curve”. I am not to worried about programs and such, just all the files I’ve accumulated over the last year (about 10 gig).
I need to skim my books and the original packaging to check and see what they provided for this occasion, so we’ll see how much support I’ll need. Just want to know if I’m overlooking a fundamental complication.
I’ve never had any problems with either SE or Millenium so far, all my installs have gone in very smoothly. But, considering I’m constantly tinkering with the system, I’ve gone so far as to reinstall several times.
Ghost could also be used to make the new HD a back up of the old (boot) drive, just in case everything does, in fact, go to hell in a handbasket. If you clone your boot drive onto the new HD, you’ll have a full and complete backup that you can stick back into the system with no loss of functionality. If you just save your data files (mp3, jpeg, etc.) you’re still going to lose all your application installations since you’re planning on wiping the drive clean and starting over. It’s just having an extra fail-safe option. Not only are you ‘backing up’ your data files, but also everything else, just in case.
Once you’ve backed up the boot drive, either by copying the data files or by cloning the drive, you can do as you suggested, wiping the boot drive and then reinstalling. Make sure… sure sure sure that you have a boot disk from your install of Win 98. you can creat one by going to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Software There will be a tab on there to create a boot disk.
And yes, you’ll almost certainly need a full version of either Win 98 to install. My copy of Win 98 SE is an ‘upgrade’ and I’m not even sure if they’re putting a full install version out.
You don’t need Ghost. Every HD I bought has software that can copy the old HD to the new one.
Why don’t you use that Omni? The new HD comes with instructions for ya. ITs what I do. Plop in the disk [didnt’ get a disk with you HD? its free on the manf site]. Run easy install. Its ready. Then you can copy the old HD to it if you want, which you should. ‘deltree windows’ is not recommended by me.
I *think * I’m with you on this one. Forget my own history with the drive for the moment (I think I can trace the original install back to DOS 5.0, if you count upgrades, disk copies and reinstalls…) what I basically want to do is start completely from scratch. Wipe it out, lobotomize it, if you will. I’ve had a myriad of minor inconveniences and a few major problems that I’d like to start with a clean slate. I have original CDs for Win 98, Office, hardware, etc., and all my docs ‘n’ such are safely on a CDR. It is time to start from scratch.
Is this why you are reluctant to use Ghost or deltree? If you are like me, you basically want to reformat and reinstall. Should be easy, but so far I’ve been too chickenshit to go ahead and take the plunge. Formatting / partitioning problems can be a bitch, as mouthbreather’s thread will demonstrate. (One thing to check before you go ahead – the drive / computer’s manufacturer. Compaq and Dell use proprietary crapola to make your life a nightmare.)
So, again, I think I am with you on this one. We want to start from scratch, loading just what we want now that we (sort of) know what were doing. Forget all the extra hoo-has lurking in the registry, just the facts! Am I close? It is a bit late right now, but when I get some things together, I’ll keep you posted, unless someone else here can help out better than I. Let me know when you’re going to do it too, for misery loves company. (Though I hope neither one of us is miserable!)
We got it to work tonight. I had never even thought of doing this before, but besides the fact that we had a different version of Win95 than the version the boot disk was created on, it wasn’t so bad. If I would have had the same version from the start, it would have been very simple.
I would say go for it.
Of course, now that I tell you that, your machine will probably catch on fire.
Yeah, basically I want to castrate the bastard and start from scratch. Most all my software was d/led and I have the CDs for just about everything else. I’d like to keep my files and shit somehow (not programs and applications). If i can get the OS to be plain ole Windows I’m happy.
I ended up grabbing a copy of Windows 98 on CD-Rom, and a copy of the Windows 98 SE upgrade CD-Rom. I’m thinking Win98SE upgrade has the full version, and a coworker asserted that it in fact did, but I have both just to be safe.
I could save all my MP3s etc. to CD-R but thats about 15 CDs I’d rather not waste and alot of time. I’m doing some reading up as we speak, might tackle it tonite. I’ll post any questions.
The win 98se upgrade CD will allow you to do a full wipe/install. I generally like to do that every 9 months or so to clean out all the crap I’ve accumulated on my C drive. I also have a D drive, so it’s pretty easy for me to back it up first and I also use my D drive to archive any setup.exe files I download.
Before you do your re-install I’d strongly suggest that you partition you hard drive.
In the future you can use this as the default directory for all your downloads and transfer all the stuff you really don’t want to lose onto it.
It will not help you this time but if things go pear shaped again it will be easier to recover.
One idea is to have two hard drives which mirror each other and are both fully bootable.You could set up a schedule to back up one from the other - say once a month or do it just before adding some new software.It may seem like overkill but when you have been throught the re-install/internet download cycle a few times it starts to make sense.
Drive mirror is a program that enables you to do this but its not that hard to do through task scheduler.
“One idea is to have two hard drives which mirror each other and are both fully bootable.You could
set up a schedule to back up one from the other”
Like a Raid array? they make such a gizmo for a personal PC too, cost around $200 for the card.
Omniscient, don’t you just hate it when people answer the question you didn’t ask instead of the question you did ask?
Maybe they think they have the right answer and you just did 't ask the right question
I have been doing the two drive thing for ages. There’s several ways to go about this but here’s what I do:
Disconnect old drive and connect new drive.
Install Windows, patches, browser, programs etc (this can take several days so I’ll do a few, disconnect this drive and connect the working one to continue work and later connect this one and continue installing)
Once the new drive has pretty much all the software in good working order, I connect the old drive as slave and copy all my data and other junk to the new drive.
At this point you are done but this is what I do next: afteer I am satisfied everything is fine I mirror copy the new installation to the slave disk and then disconnect the slave disk and put it elsewhere. This is my backup.
If your backup disk is inside your computer and connected, it is pretty much useless as a backup. If the computer is hit by lightning or stolen, both drives are lost. I always keep my backup drive elsewhere. Ocassionally I connect it (as slave, of course) and back up a few key folders.
I have found no better way of making backups. On the other hand I have never put the cover on my computer so the box is always open for me to tinker.
"At this point you are done but this is what I do next: afteer I am satisfied everything is fine I mirror
copy the new installation to the slave disk and then disconnect the slave disk and put it
elsewhere. This is my backup. "
I do that too. Mostly cause the new HD’s are so much bigger.
Anyway, the OP stated he wanted to reinstall Windows SE. That means uninstalling the old one & reinstall the same one. If he just wanted to install then he wouldn’t have said ‘reinstall’…
I hope he did alright cause I haven’t seen anymore posts from Omni…
Well, I’m running on the new OS, everything went fairly smoothly.
sailor, thanks for the advice, but I think my 'puter was already in shambles when you posted, lol.
Anyways, it didn’t end up being to tricky, just intimidating having to do things without the comfort of a GUI. What i did was buy a new 30 GB HD (yay!), install it using the included software, and it automatically formatted and copied the entire C: to it. I had a little trouble getting the jumpers set right on the original drive (damn factory installed shit with no manuals), but once i got that working and figured out the concept of a disk boot I was fine. Thanks to a couple of calls to a techie friend it was ok. So, now that I had the contents of C: copied to D:, I formatted the C: drive at the DOS prompt, and then installed Win98SE from the upgrade CD-Rom. Had to reinstall the drivers for all my devices, but that wasn’t to tricky. Eventually I copied the files a wanted to keep back to drive c:, and reformated D:. Then I organized the files where i wanted them and started installing all my software. I also decided to create a folder with all my install .exes like mentioned.
So, here I sit with a nice clean start menu and only the 6 programs or so that i actually use regularly. Much nicer and faster than before, I recommend it to everyone. Thanks all.
