After installing Windows XP, how do I revert back to Windows 98?

[Comp625]

Hey guys, I have a friend whose computer is running Windows XP but he HATES it. He has a basic 40gb hard drive but it's already in NTFS. How do I uninstall Windows XP and throw Windows 98/98 SE on there since that's what he is most comfortable with.

I don't have a 2nd hard drive to work with, in this case. And my goal is to convert the drive to FAT16/FAT32 but how? Thanks in advance!

 

[Bozono]

I could be wrong but I'm fairly certain the only method is a reformat at fresh install. I don't think you can go back to FAT from NTFS while keeping your files intact.

 

[MrChad]

What specifically does he hate about XP?

 

[Harvey]

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files.

Here are two easy steps toward different solutions:

1. To re-install Win 98 SE, he has to remove the NTFS partion. Download DELPART.EXE. It's a genuine Microsoft program that was included in Windows NT 3.1 and buried ever since.

Just copy the program to a bootable floppy, boot up, and run it. It will wipe any partion from a hard drive. You can then start with a Win 98 SE disk, run FDISK, and set the drive up as a FAT16 or FAT32 drive.

Don't forget to back up any files he wants to save. Once you run DELPART, there won't be anything left.

2. Horsepower is imporant to run XP, in both CPU speed and RAM, and it requires a much larger hard drive. If the CPU is under 1 GHz, especially if it's a Celeron, he's right to go back to 98 SE. XP is a dog on slower machines with insufficient RAM.

If his machine is old enough that it came with a 40 GB drive, it probably uses SDRAM. I wouldn't think of running XP with less than 512 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR RAM. If he needs more RAM, he should consider getting a new machine.

To make Win XP a more enjoyable, especially while getting comfortable with it, start by buying a much larger drive. If you live in a city that has a Fry's Electronics, every few weeks, they have great specials on drives. For example, two weeks ago, they had 120 GB Western Digital ATA 100 drives for $19.95 after rebate.

Don't buy too large a drive. The original version of FDISK in Win 98 can only deal with drives up to 64 GB. You'll need the updated version of FDISK to handle larger drives, and it's still limited to 137 GB.

 

[wiin]

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files

I have Xp running in a 30gig(3gig free) and 6gig hd and I am having no problem at all.🙂

 

[CTho9305]

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files.

XP isn't *that* big. At about 1.5GB, I wouldn't expect its size to be a serious concern (esp. given the large HD).

2. Horsepower is imporant to run XP, in both CPU speed and RAM, and it requires a much larger hard drive. If the CPU is under 1 GHz, especially if it's a Celeron, he's right to go back to 98 SE. XP is a dog on slower machines with insufficient RAM.

Are you nuts? When XP came out, a 1GHz system was pretty fast. I ran it for years on a 700MHz Athlon. I run it now on a 433MHz Celeron-based laptop because it's so much more reliable than Win98. It's fine for web surfing, office tasks, etc. Of couse I don't play games on it, but it's not painful to use.

If his machine is old enough that it came with a 40 GB drive, it probably uses SDRAM. I wouldn't think of running XP with less than 512 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR RAM. If he needs more RAM, he should consider getting a new machine.

:Q 512MB? I ran it with 128MB on my Athlon 700 for about a year before I needed to move to 256MB, and that was because of some other applications I was using. My 433MHz celeron has 160MB ram in it, and it doesn't hit the swapfile that I've noticed.

 

[doc2345]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files.

XP isn't *that* big. At about 1.5GB, I wouldn't expect its size to be a serious concern (esp. given the large HD).

2. Horsepower is imporant to run XP, in both CPU speed and RAM, and it requires a much larger hard drive. If the CPU is under 1 GHz, especially if it's a Celeron, he's right to go back to 98 SE. XP is a dog on slower machines with insufficient RAM.

Are you nuts? When XP came out, a 1GHz system was pretty fast. I ran it for years on a 700MHz Athlon. I run it now on a 433MHz Celeron-based laptop because it's so much more reliable than Win98. It's fine for web surfing, office tasks, etc. Of couse I don't play games on it, but it's not painful to use.

If his machine is old enough that it came with a 40 GB drive, it probably uses SDRAM. I wouldn't think of running XP with less than 512 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR RAM. If he needs more RAM, he should consider getting a new machine.

:Q 512MB? I ran it with 128MB on my Athlon 700 for about a year before I needed to move to 256MB, and that was because of some other applications I was using. My 433MHz celeron has 160MB ram in it, and it doesn't hit the swapfile that I've noticed.

Well, isn't this a slam at Harvey...... You obviously have no conception of how pc's run today nor have any problem displaying your ignorance..... So carry on! 🙂

Edit: That's not a tech hat I see in your avatar is it? Scary......

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: doc2345

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files.

XP isn't *that* big. At about 1.5GB, I wouldn't expect its size to be a serious concern (esp. given the large HD).

2. Horsepower is imporant to run XP, in both CPU speed and RAM, and it requires a much larger hard drive. If the CPU is under 1 GHz, especially if it's a Celeron, he's right to go back to 98 SE. XP is a dog on slower machines with insufficient RAM.

Are you nuts? When XP came out, a 1GHz system was pretty fast. I ran it for years on a 700MHz Athlon. I run it now on a 433MHz Celeron-based laptop because it's so much more reliable than Win98. It's fine for web surfing, office tasks, etc. Of couse I don't play games on it, but it's not painful to use.

If his machine is old enough that it came with a 40 GB drive, it probably uses SDRAM. I wouldn't think of running XP with less than 512 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR RAM. If he needs more RAM, he should consider getting a new machine.

:Q 512MB? I ran it with 128MB on my Athlon 700 for about a year before I needed to move to 256MB, and that was because of some other applications I was using. My 433MHz celeron has 160MB ram in it, and it doesn't hit the swapfile that I've noticed.

Well, isn't this a slam at Harvey...... You obviously have no conception of how pc's run today nor have any problem displaying your ignorance..... So carry on! 🙂

Edit: That's not a tech hat I see in your avatar is it? Scary......

English translation please?

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: doc2345

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Your friend is right to hate XP if all he has is a 40 GB HD. That's barely enough for 98 SE, once he starts using some larger apps and creating larger files, especially video, graphics and sound files.

XP isn't *that* big. At about 1.5GB, I wouldn't expect its size to be a serious concern (esp. given the large HD).

2. Horsepower is imporant to run XP, in both CPU speed and RAM, and it requires a much larger hard drive. If the CPU is under 1 GHz, especially if it's a Celeron, he's right to go back to 98 SE. XP is a dog on slower machines with insufficient RAM.

Are you nuts? When XP came out, a 1GHz system was pretty fast. I ran it for years on a 700MHz Athlon. I run it now on a 433MHz Celeron-based laptop because it's so much more reliable than Win98. It's fine for web surfing, office tasks, etc. Of couse I don't play games on it, but it's not painful to use.

If his machine is old enough that it came with a 40 GB drive, it probably uses SDRAM. I wouldn't think of running XP with less than 512 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR RAM. If he needs more RAM, he should consider getting a new machine.

:Q 512MB? I ran it with 128MB on my Athlon 700 for about a year before I needed to move to 256MB, and that was because of some other applications I was using. My 433MHz celeron has 160MB ram in it, and it doesn't hit the swapfile that I've noticed.

Well, isn't this a slam at Harvey...... You obviously have no conception of how pc's run today nor have any problem displaying your ignorance..... So carry on! 🙂

Edit: That's not a tech hat I see in your avatar is it? Scary......

English translation please?

"CTho is stupid because he doesn't mind using stuff slower than omg-teh-l33t hardware, and doesn't follow my definition of a game being playable only if it works at 1600x1200, 4x FSAA, 100fps, or a browser being usable only if you can open 500 windows of flash and java games."?

I'm pretty curious how PCs run today if what I know is "no conception" of how they run.

 

[Sukhoi]

This man has no clue of how a PC works, especially the processor part.

 

[Mattnum25]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
This man has no clue of how a PC works, especially the processor part.

Yea, seriously...I mean, four architectural registers? What the hell is he thinking!

 

[earthman]

Windows XP works acceptably at 400mhz with 128 megs of RAM. You won't be playing DOOM 3 with it, but you can certainly surf and do word processing, etc.

 

[Link19]

Disable all the bloated gadgets and Windows XP is plenty fast even on slow old systems. Also, switch it back to the classic interface, and then your friend should like it just fine.

 

[billandopus]

Originally posted by: Link19
Disable all the bloated gadgets and Windows XP is plenty fast even on slow old systems. Also, switch it back to the classic interface, and then your friend should like it just fine.

This and earthman's advice hits the topic right on the head.

I had XP Pro running on a 400mhz machine with 384mb of pc100 ram for a long time. It worked fine.

Granted, i'm not a gamer ... but for surfing the web and basic stuff it was fine, if a little slow.

 

[manly]

First off, going back to Windows 9x is insanity.

A 40GB hard drive is plenty for Windows XP. Many new laptops still ship with that standard, and they often even carve about about 5GB for a restore partition. 🙁 You don't need much processing speed for Windows XP, but adequate memory sure helps. Although SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR SDRAM, you'll occasionally see cost-effective deals on 256MB DIMMs. Heck, I'm sure they're available in the FS/FT forum at a reasonable price, much less than the cost of a new computer.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Link19
Disable all the bloated gadgets and Windows XP is plenty fast even on slow old systems. Also, switch it back to the classic interface, and then your friend should like it just fine.

XP tends to work fine enough on older systems by just going to System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance, Swttings, then just setting it to "Best performance".

Just about the first thing I do on any machine since that blue crap annoys the hell out of me 🙂

And Harvey, no offense, but your conception of what it takes to run XP is a tad slanted, unless my sarcasm meter is broken 🙂

Oh and Crucial isn't horribly expensive, like $65 for 256 MB of RAM, not cheap, but for an old computer more than 256 MB would most likely be a waste anyway.

 

[imported_Phil]

I run Server 2003 6-month-trial (and have run XP) on my Celeron 400 with 320MB RAM at home, and it runs fine, absolutely fine.

Get a decent, 7200rpm hard disk, and plenty of RAM and just about anything will run XP.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: doc2345
Well, isn't this a slam at Harvey...... You obviously have no conception of how pc's run today nor have any problem displaying your ignorance..... So carry on! 🙂

Edit: That's not a tech hat I see in your avatar is it? Scary......

You obviously need to stay in school.

 

[sandorski]

If someone was willing to pay me enough money, I'd go back to Win98, but until then WinXP is the best Windows OS ever and I would only go back for a Classic games machine that used outdated hardware such as a SQ2500 sound card or 3dfx based video card.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
"CTho is stupid because he doesn't mind using stuff slower than omg-teh-l33t hardware, and doesn't follow my definition of a game being playable only if it works at 1600x1200, 4x FSAA, 100fps, or a browser being usable only if you can open 500 windows of flash and java games."?

I'm pretty curious how PCs run today if what I know is "no conception" of how they run.

Does me using machines much slower than the specs you listed make me seem like someone from the stone age?

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: CTho9305
"CTho is stupid because he doesn't mind using stuff slower than omg-teh-l33t hardware, and doesn't follow my definition of a game being playable only if it works at 1600x1200, 4x FSAA, 100fps, or a browser being usable only if you can open 500 windows of flash and java games."?

I'm pretty curious how PCs run today if what I know is "no conception" of how they run.

Does me using machines much slower than the specs you listed make me seem like someone from the stone age?

You're definitely a 1337 caveman if you're running Windows XP Punchcard Edition.

 

[Shawn]

I have XP running on a P2 266MHz laptop with a 2GB hard drive and it works just fine. I got a wireless card for it and my mom uses it for internet and e-mail. I had to disable most all of the services though, but I don't see any problem with having XP be fully functional on a faster computer.