Can I reformat and reinstall Win 98 with just the upgrade disc?

[Rick67]

I've got an old Sony P2 333 that came with Win 95 preinstalled. I eventually upgraded to Win 98. Now I want to reformat and do a clean install of Win 98. Can I do this with just the Win 98 upgrade disc or do I need to reformat and install Win 95 first then upgrade to Win 98? I would like to avoid using the Win 95 disc that came with the PC because most of the hardware has been changed and this disc with install drivers for the old hardware. What should I do? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

 

[Dan]

Format your drive and then start the install with your Win98 upgrade disc. When it asks for proof of a previous version of Windows, pop your Win95 CD in the drive and direct the installer to it. One other thought: I'm not sure how proprietary your Sony is. You may need the restore CD that originally came with it.

 

[Rick67]

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how to do a reformat? Thanks,

 

[SPB]

To format the drive you will need a "Start Up Disk". Pop that in and start up the computer, it will automatically boot from it (when asked if you want cdrom/no cdrom support chose no cdrom support) and eventually stop at a dos prompt. There you would type "fdisk" (yes minus the quotes) and hit enter. That would load the Fdisk program and give you like 4 or 5 options. The first option that you will need is the one for deleting the partition, press the corrisponding # and then you will be presented with a second options menu. In the second menu you will want the option to delet the "primary dos partition". After chosing the previously mentioned option you will be asked which partition you want to delete and it will already have one selected which is fine press enter. Then it wants to know the volume label which would be the name of the drive if you named it, leave it blank or type the name and press enter. Fdisk then asks you if you are sure and you need to press "y" and hit enter. It should automatically take you back to the main menu of fdisk at which point you simply chose option "one" all the way through to recreate a "primary dos partition" when asked if you wish to use the maximum space for the partition, well that one is up to you. After its created you have to reboot the system and again boot from that start up disk. At the dos prompt this time you will type "format c:" and press enter and sit back and relax while the drive is formated, prolly take half an hour. After the drive is formated take out the flopy disk and insert the cd then reboot and fallow Dan's instructions, should work fine.

 

[Rick67]

Thank you!

 

[Athlon4all]

Just a tip. If your Sony is very propriarity and 98 doesn't acccept the CD as proof, then what you can do I believe is make a file called WIN.CNF on a floppy. It doesn't need to have anything in it, it just needs to be on a flioppy and then give it that floppy when it asks for verification. It always worked in 95, and should work in 98 as well.

 

[Rick67]

Major problem! I made it to about 85% formated and then it stoped and said "Not Ready Format terminated". Can anyone explain what happened? I followed the instructions above step by step and everything seemed to be going smooth until now!

 

[Rick67]

I tried format c: again and it went all the way through this time. Now when I try and boot off the Win 98 upgrade disc it says invalid system disk replace the disk and then press any key. I think I really screwed this thing up now. Help!

 

[Rick67]

It won't boot off the Windows 98 Upgrade disc. I give up. Going to try using the Sony system recovery. I'll put 95 back on and then 98. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[mkinc]

Rick, when you type the command to format the hard drive, type "format C: /s" to load the system files and make it bootable to a dos prompt. Also after you format, restart it with the w98 boot disk in, and choose to load the cd rom drivers, enter the cd drive letter (usually E: the ramdrive created by the start up disk uses D: ), and type setup.exe. good luck, mk

 

[Rick67]

Thanks mkinc!

 

[fluxcapacitorMB]

Rick, not to complicate things for you, but there is a better way to install than off the cd. Once you are formattted, get to the command prompt in DOS. You'll be at A:\. Type "c:". Now you be in your C drive. Type "md win98". This will create a folder called win98. Now, w/ the win98 cd in the cd drive, go to to your cd drive (i.e. if its drive F then type "f:"). Now the command prompt says F:\. Type cd\win98. Now it should say F:\win98. Now type "copy *.* c:\win98". Now it will copy all 98 files from F:\win98 to C:\win98. When its finished, it will say 98 files copied. Now go to the c drive (c🙂. Now go back to the win98 directory (cd\win98). Now you're at c:\win98. Now all you have to do is type "setup", pull out the win98 CD and let setup complete off of the HD. The benefits to this are mainly that, once win98 installed, whenever it would normally ask for your CD, it will instead copy any necessary files right from c:\win98. Also, installing off the HD is WAAYY faster than a cd drive.

 

[Rick67]

Thanks flux I'll try that!

 

[GroundedSailor]

I second fluxcapacitorMB's idea, which is what I've done everytime I loaded Win98SE. The other advantage is that whenever you install hardware or change your hardware settings, install some programs etc. you do not need to insert the Windows CD as win98 can find what it needs on the HD itself.

Good luck!