Using win XP to clean a Win 98 Hard Drive

Would it be possible and safe to use a computer with Win XP system to virus clean a Win 98 system hard drive. The Win 98 hard drive would be in an external enclosure and NOT the boot drive.
Reason is to clean the 98 hard drive of viruses before upgrading to Win XP.

Thank you

 

oldbear,

If you set the drive as a slave, then thru the BIOS you can partition the drive.
This will remove all the files on it. Then once XP boots up you can use My Computer
to select the drive and Right Click and choose Format.

 

Right-click on My Computer and select Manage, open Disk Management. Either right-click on the drive or highlight it and go to Action -> All Tasks, you should be able to format it there, or delete and remake the partition if you want.

[sp3851, I think older computers had formatting functions in the BIOS, but I haven't seen them in recent computer BIOSes.]

I like to use the utilities offered at the hard disk drive manufacturer's website. I have occasionally had problems with making or formatting partitions, I then get the manufacturer's utilities and have always had complete success after using those.

Matt