Upgrading Win98 to WinXP??

[Princess]

I tried to install Windows XP on my laptop thinking that it would just override Windows 98 which was installed on there...

It didnt.

I got a message about partitioned space or something, then it shut down....

now when i boot it up it tries to start in XP but doesnt do it properly and i have to tell it to start in 98 so i can use it...

i've been told that i need to remove 98 (obviously) in order to install XP but i have to first save the drivers for everything thats in the thing..

any thoughts??

[thingy]

What's the size of the hdd? Is it partitioned? What size is each drive if so? I can't think of any reason for an error due to "partitioned space", only "space" in general, in which case it shouldn't have installed.

It's not a requirement to remove 98 first, but clean installs are generally the best way to go. Drivers & other backups then become a huge issue though.

Go to the website for the laptop, download EVERY XP/2000 driver they have for it and put it on CD. If there's IDE drivers, put them on floppy disk as you'll probably need it during the install (ensure it's unzipped, too).

How far into the boot does it go? Do you get any error messages when booting?

[Princess]

It was a christmas present and i still am not privvy to information like the size of the hdd in it
(probly cause my dad doesnt know but thats a different story)

it starts to boot up, then asks which system i want to boot, i choose xp and it messes around and shuts down... i choose 98 and it boots fine no error messages....

finding the drivers is not a prob cause my sis has the same laptop and i can steal them from her... its the removing 98 thats getting me cause the unistall files arent there

[thingy]

Look on the bottom of the laptop, it will have make, model, serial etc. Use that to find the website where you can download everything you need.

As for HDD size, double click on "my computer", how many drives are HDD's. Right-click on them all and go to "properties" and then add up the sizes (tell us which ones and how many are HDD's too).

Uninstalling '98 is impossible. If you have an XP upgrade CD, that might be all you can do. If you have a full-install disk, then boot from it and tell it to delete all existing partitions, then create one the size of the entire disk and format it.

It's best to download drivers, that way you get the latest ones which contain bug fixes and will generally be faster. I usually create a "drivers" directory, then under that "bios", "audio", "video", "IDE", "motherboard", "network" etc, then populate as many of those dirs as I can. Extract each downloaded file into the directory, then burn it.

[RASPUTIN]

Post up the make/model of the laptop. Most likely you wont have to worry about drivers etc as XP has most of the or at least enough to get it connected to the net so you can download them.

Oh yeah you must have at least 128mb of memory or it will run like a dog under XP. 256 or higher is preferable.

[fearless13]

I think I am missing something. You want this laptop to be an XP machine yeah???

if so, boot off the xp cd, wipe the hd and install, install the winxp drivers (win 98 driver won't work anyway) and there you have it.

The only thing you should save off the drive first would be your personal files, (word documents, pron etc).

[svvampy]

If you only have a winXP upgrade CD, you still do a fresh install. During the install you'll be prompted to insert your old win98/winME/win2k CD and the install will go fine.