Erase hard disk (wipe clean) and drivers

WHats up, peeps?

How do I wipe my hard disk clean and how do I find the drivers I need (thats inside my computer) to re-install. Is there a step by step site for a guy who may be a "hooked On Phonics" type?

Thanks In Advance

 

to start from scratch. you basically need in hand a Win 98 startup disk (which you can create it from the control panel), an original version of Windows 98, and all the driver CD's of your devices such as sound card, video card, printer etc. If you do not have any of these drivers, check from the device manager (right click on my computer and select propeties in the desktop) check the name of your device you have from there and download it's driver from the net.

After that, make sure you make a good backup of all your data files (don't forget your Address Book, and your Favourites/Bookmarks).

Once you have all the above mentioned disks in hand, bootup with the startup disk, and run FDisk, delete all you current partition/s starting from the logical ones and create a new one. After that reboot the PC again from the startup disk and format your newly created partition by typing Format C: /s.

After this step, you are now ready to start installing your operating system. Boot again with the startup disk, change the drive to your CD-Rom drive (maybe D: or E: ) and type setup to start the Win 98 installation process. After that you can install all of your drivers.

Note that this is just a brief explanation; if you search on google there are plenty of more tutorials in details.

 

You could use a program like WinDriversBackup to copy the driver files for you, so you can transfer onto a floppy.

 

Thanks for the help. I will let you know what happens.

As for teh backup, I have my favorites and bookmarks done. All the other files, (gifs, jpgs, etc) can be deleted. Is theer anything within teh operating system I need to backup?

I mean, personal stuff is done. Besides that, I dont need anything.

 

what you should backup unless you have their CD's are the setups of any additional software which you may have installed. For example any utilities/applications which you download from the net.

Good Luck !

 

Thanks, bro!

 

what you should backup unless you have their CD's are the setups of any additional software which you may have installed. For example any utilities/applications which you download from the net.

A just as good ( or maybe even better ) thing to do is to have more than one partiton and put all downloaded things someplace other than the C: drive.

Everything I download is always saved to my H: drive.. That way I have no worry about losing things If I do every have to format.

Also MOST things are also on CDs just in case

BillyBob

 

Okay. Heh eh.

How do I create another partition on my drive to move the files? Dont wanna sound pesterous but I want ot do this right.

 

If the C: drive occupies the entire drive, I could only recommend Partition Magic. Use of this program would require windows to be installed. It would resize the Primary Partition, then create the Extended and the Logical Partition(s) needed

The other method would be to use Fdisk to delete the Primary partition, then create a new one of a smaller size. Then create an Extended Partition, then create a Logical Partition(s) inside the Extended. Reboot, then format the drives. This method would delete everything on the drive, not quite what you want, since you are trying to save the drivers.