I’m installing Windows XP this evening. I currently run Windows 98. As I understand it, my best bet would be to do a new install which would write over all my existing files. I have a number of files and programs that I don’t want to lose so I’m thinking I’d better back the whole thing up.
Any advice would be appreciated.
I did this over the holidays.
Easiest route:
Introducing a large new hard drive to your system is generally far easier, less annoying, and even less expensive, than mucking around with DVD or tape backups.
It’s cheapest and fastest to buy a bare hard drive, turn off and open your computer, and attach it directly to the system. You can, however, buy external powered hard drives in cases, which connect to USB, Firewire, or Ethernet inhterfacers, and do not require you to open your computer. They are more expensive.
Another thought… My limited experience of upgrading to XP from an earlier Windows, withouit clearing the hard drive, is that it was very easy to run into problems. It is faster and safer to wipe the drive and do a clean install of XP.
<< slight hijack >>
So can you transfter programs, such as MS Excel, or Dreamweaver, from old hard drive to new harddrive without needing the installation disk?
Wow, that probably sounds like a really dumb question, but maybe applicable to the OP.
Psssst… check out Step 7: Reinstall all your programs.
Back to the OP: There’s no real easy way to do this. No matter what you do, you’re stuck reinstalling any software you use, as well as backing up and restoring all the data. I’m long overdue for an OS refresh myself, but can’t bear the thought of reinstalling a gazillion different programs.
Actually, that is not a dumb question at all.
The way I did it, I had to reinstall all my programs from my original disks.
I believe there is software that will make a snapshot or image of the contents of the hard drive, then copy that onto a new hard drive. This is good if you simply want to replace the hard drive while maintaining the system software as it is.
What the OP describes is different: saving data before a major OS upgrade. Creating a disk image of the computer before the upgrade would only yield a replacement copy of the original OS imstallation.
However, after a Win98-to-XP upgrade, everything will be different, and all the programs will have to be reinstalled into the new OS. (There is a chance that some programs that work under 98 will not work under XP.)
Why not install a new and larger hard drive for WinXP?
Keep the expisting Win98 as the backup!
Yes. After a couple of years of experimentations, installing and uninstalling programs, etc, my Windows had become fragile and crashy. I was putting off the OS refresh as well. Then, a few days before Christmas, the system crashed and wouldn’t boot.
I was forced to take action. I went out and bought the hard drive. My friend and I managed to get my system up enough to copy my data out to the new hard drive, but no amount of tinkering would make it work well.
Eventually I bit the bullet, formatted C, reinstalled Windows XP, connected via high-speed to Windows Update, and spent the next four hours downloading and installing OS updates. 
Since then, I’ve been reinstalling programs, reloading data, and making sure they work, one by one.
There are also programs like Norton Ghost which can copy everything on a hard drive to another medium, including another hard drive. The contents of the drive are copied as an “image file”: Say you have the two hard drives in your computer as discussed above, you can create a bootable floppy using the Ghost program, then copy the contents of the 20-gig C: drive to the 75-gig E: drive as a file named “Backup.gho” (probably actually several “spanned” files). Then, if you decide you don’t like what you’ve done to your computer since creating “Backup.gho”, you boot from the floppy drive again and overwrite the entire contents of drive C: from “Backup.gho” on drive E: --be advised this will wipe out everything on drive C:, and should put it back exactly the way it was when you made “Backup.gho”, operating system, installed applications, files, drivers, etc.
Rather than what Sunspace suggested in post two, I’d set up the new hard drive with Windows XP, and then use the old drive as a secondary or slave drive. The new drive is almost certainly faster and possibly more reliable and this way absolutely now files will be missed in the process of moving them (since they’ll still be on the old drive).
I thought that was the idea. An OS upgrade shouldn’t–shouldn’t–wipe out your e-mails or your digital photos or your letters to Grandma, or even your word processing program, right? But, if the OS upgrade goes south, you can use a disk image of your pre-upgrade system you’ve got stashed on another hard drive as a great big “Undo” button and try again.
That’s a good idea, too. I did it my way because I needed the new drive to back up 160 gigs of video files, plus all my other data, while I completely rearranged the internal partitioning of the system (consolidate partitions of the boot drive, get the video data off a striped RAID array before decommisioning the array and using its hard drives as individual drives, etc).
And you can buy the cheaper internal hard drive and an external hard drive case. Install the drive in the case and you’ll have an external hard drive, often cheaper than buying an external hard drive on its own.
This is true. But we don’t know why the OP is upgrading. If it’s to escape from a mangled existing installation, as I needed to, having a copy of the existing installation won’t help. In that case, better to extract the data and settings and start afresh.
To clarify:
I am installing Windows XP because I am finding that I can’t run certain new programs on 98. I’m not really clear on the new OS install. Can I upgrade the O/S and keep all existing files and programs on my PC? Does the O/S upgrade automatically delete all existing files? I have a lot of data and programs on the PC, many of which I do not have installation disks for. I was hoping there was a way to back these up so that I could re-install them after the upgrade if necessary.
Please forgive my lack of computer saavy, but how does this work? Do I end up with two hard drives in one machine?
Yup.
One is still your C: drive - the drive the OS is on, and the one the computer boots from.
The other will show up as D: (or E: or F:, or whatever your next free drive letter is) and is usable just like it was a floppy disk or a CD drive or memory stick. Pretty simple, really.
You aren’t having any problems with your existing installation, other than not being able to run some newer programs on it?
This is where ‘ghosting’ a copy of your existing installation onto a new hard drive as backup, as MEBuckner mentioned, would be useful.
I know someone who upgraded from 98 to XP and chose the ‘upgrade existing installation’ option rather than ‘clean install’. He was never able to get the system working very well, and eventually wiped the drive and clean-installed. (Actually, after that, he ended up getting a new computer in a fit of rage… but I digress.)
During the upgrade, the installer made copies of existing ‘user settings’–all the user’s configurations and data as stored in the Microsoft-standard places like My Documents–and theoretically allowed one to back out and return to 98, but we never tried it.
It’s always a good idea to make an independed backup of your settings and data anyways, Just In Case.
Baileygrrrl,
I would first ask of how much computer experience you would hold towards the actual backing up of your system. If doing an upgrade of an older operating system, especially when switching your file system from FAT32/16 to NTFS, i would never upgrade, always do a clean install.(Most dramatic upgrades yield ugly results) I would burn off or transfer data which you would like to keep to another means of a backup, I.E another computer/device. If installing Windows XP and you would like to have a sure backup of your computer fully from time to time I would suggest you invest into some new equipment for sure integrity.
The program I suggest you learn if you would like a very compact form of your hard drive’s life would be Norton Ghost. It basicly takes an exact layout of your computer’s hard drive. It copys everything down to every program you install. The process is short or long depending on the medium you use to transfer your image to. DVDs usually span to 5 DVDs for a 20gig image of your hard drive. The image is calculated on the space used not the total capacity. There would probably be a few tools needed for this to actually happen, ill list the necessary tools.
First off you would most likely need a DVD Burner, External Hard Drive, or like device for a storage place for your image. I have actually experimented with my iPod for the destination device for this, though you would lose all songs placed on it, it would be one means of backup. Next you would need a Copy of Norton Ghost, i suggest 9.0 or later version. I believe it only costs around 49.99 or so. Also I would suggest reading the manuel that comes with the software. Depending on how you backup your hard drive would also depend on the hardware used. If you setup the Ghost Server(programs name) on a remote computer within your LAN I would suggest having nothing below a Switch/Router to practice this technique. Also you would need a Cross Over Cable to connect the two computers together. (mind you this is very basic information). This would be called Multi-Cast for Norton Ghost termonology. The Disk to Disk option uses your DVD Burner or another Hard Drive, I.E External or Internal Hard Drive for this step. You basicly point to which drive and make sure you have the right one or you will just overright your old hard drive,(messy situation). I recommend using different sizes usally bigger hard drive for the destination drive(one which holds the images) than the source hard drive(the one the o/s is located). Use this tool if you got some free time on your hands, but you’ll thank me in the end 
Techguy
Your applications are toast. Most applications that run on Win98 will not run on WinXP. Even if you could sort out all of the dll file dependencies and Registry entries, you’ll find that the dlls will be incompatible, leading to system instability, and XP’s registry (not to mention file structures and memory architecture) is significantly different than 98’s.
It would be easier to make a computer with items found in your refrigerator than it would be to attempt a manual reconstruction of an application and converting it to run in a completely different system.