Required Items: Windows 98 boot diskette, and(prefered)/ or Windows Recovery Diskette in some cases. 1 Blank formatted Diskette ( to make a Windows Boot Disk during installation) , a CD with Windows Restore CD from the maker of your computer provided you have not changed the motherboard, or if you have, a Full Install CD of the desired Windows version. ( not upgrade CD unless you have a prior version of Windows CD to work from and install first or some say you can use the first diskette of the Windows 3.1 diskettes for this purpose also). ( Extra Strength Aspirin also recommended if this is your first time doing this..)

Reinstalling Windows from scratch can be a problem to say the least. Since it is not something most people do on a day to day basis and even software people tend to avoid doing this due to the time and work it takes to fully restore everything it is often confusing at best to get Windows back into operation. Here are some basic things to try to do and guilds to get you going.

First if at all possible get a Windows Boot Diskette (Win95/98) or Recovery Diskette (2000, ME, XP ) made. If you are using Windows 2000, ME, or XP it is not a bad idea to have a Windows 98 boot diskette if you can get a hold of one also with the CD ROM driver support included. If for example you totally loose your hard drive due to a failure it may be needed to get you to the point where you can reinstall Windows. You can obtain the files to make such a Diskette( www.user-friendly.net or My Zip Downloads Page ) here.

The next major pitfall is usually the confusion over the types of Windows CD's available. Most major computer makers supply their machines with what is called a Restore CD. These generally speaking are only useful for the system that they were included with or others from the same company build about the same time. Or to put it another way you will likely be very disappointed if you replace the motherboard on your Pentium 2 – 233mhz system with a newer Pentium 4 -1.6ghz motherboard-processor and expect to use your copy of Windows 98 for you Compaq Presario for an operating system. Usually you will get an error message from Windows saying it is searching for drivers for the new hardware it has found and that will be as far as you will get. If you have a Windows 98 restore or full install CD you may be able to recover this at that point. Other options generally are pretty hit and miss.

Real live Microsoft Windows upgrade CD's will usually require a prior version of Windows in some form to be found for the upgrade CD to work. If you do not have some trace of Windows on the hard drive it will generally suggest you need the full install CD.

The best option if possible is to obtain a copy of a full install if you are upgrading hardware. From what I have seen personally if you are going to do a hard drive clean install you will need to have a Windows 98 boot diskette if at all possible to get the CD ROM to work and start the Windows Install process even in this case.

To start the install from a totally clean ( new ) hard drive or to add partitions to the hard drive this is the starting point. After your Plug n Play BIOS has found the evidence of the hard drive insert your Windows 98 boot up diskette. The diskette should come up and ask if you wish to install CD ROM support. ( for the first few steps in this you usually do not need it but it makes little difference if you say yes or no. ). After this you should see an A:\> prompt usually or it may be A:> depending on the batch file on the diskette. If the screen shows C:\> or C:> you would wish to type A: then hit enter. Type the following command FDISK. This should start a partitioning program know as FIXED DISK. Depending on the age of the system in question, it may ask if you wish to enable large drive support or if your FDISK does not seem to allow for partitions over 2GB it may be necessary to obtain a FLASH BIOS update for the motherboard in use on your system if possible. Consult the maker of your motherboard for details on how to obtain and install such updates to your system as it is beyond the scope of this article to fully cover that subject given the countless makes and models of motherboards available. Even so you may find a program such as PC Audit by Belarc useful to determine the motherboard maker before you proceed to format if possible. If it is a old drive you wish to totally clear you would select remove existing DOS Partition. If it is a new or you have already removed the old DOS partition you can then select Create a DOS pirating. Depending on the size of the disk being used, you may wish to establish several partitions. Generally speaking 10 to 15 GB is about as large as you would wish to make partitions in most cases. If you hope to dual boot, or use two or more operating systems you would wish to provide additional partitions at this point as it is the best time to do so without possibility of data loss.

What is a partition and why do I want them? Basically partitions are Logical divisions of the physical hard drive. The simply means that the one physical hard drive and be divided up so it functions in most every way as two or more drives. This is not to say if you have a complete failure on the physical drive C it would not also be the case for all the other logical drives on that physical drive. As a rule if one logical drive fails the rest of the logical drives on the same physical drive are also at best suspect or ready to also have problems. However if you have more than one logical drive it is very possible to provide simple back up of important files and even run two or more operating systems on the same physically drive. The access to the files in some cases is limited but you do not need a separate physical drive to run say two different versions of Windows or Windows and Linux or whatever other pair of operating systems. Since Windows is in use on about 95% or more of the personal computers most of the instructions will be for that operating system. Also keep in mind FDISK displays in Megabytes. So if you have a 20 GB hard drive, it will be shown as 20,000 MB of space.

Once you have established to partitions to your satisfaction, we are to the point if moving onto the next step. If you have not go the sizes you wish please repeat the FDISK command as needed until you do so. It is not possible to change the partition sizes on the drive after you install data on it without loss unless you use software designed for the purpose of moving partitions around like Partition Magic While this is an excellent program it is not required if you are doing a full install and take the time to get your partitions set up correctly before installing any operating systems.

The next step is at the A:> or A:\> is to type FORMAT C: or FORMAT C: /s to install DOS system files, or FORMAT C: /u to format and totally remove old format information ( useful in some cases after virus infection ) or both FORMAT C:/u/s ....

Keep in mind if you have more than one partition you would need to format each partition you plan on installing Windows on or some Windows install CD's may read the drive as not there or report invalid media type. Once done reboot the computer and install CD ROM support this time at boot up.

Place CD ROM in the CD drive and then depending on the driver installed ( generally it is Drive E or F but it does depend somewhat on how many partitions are found by the system BIOS when it reboots ) so note the CD ROM driver installed on the screen. If the CD does not autostart when you type the drive letter such as E: then hit enter, you may have to type SETUP at which point Windows should start asking the questions it needs to ask to install the Windows version on the CD on your machine.

You will need such things as your product license / code number during this process in most cases. You may also be asked to make a Windows Boot Diskette or Recovery diskette for the Windows version being installed. You should have a new Diskette for this purpose ( ideally formatted already )

If you wish to set up dual boot operating systems you may wish to consult this page ( Dual Boot Page ) on my website.

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