delete XP

What I really want to do is delete WinXP and reinstall Win98.
I have been trying to use the Win98 Boot disk to format drive c:, or just delete WinXP. I am having no luck.

 

What happens when you try to use the win98 startup disk?

 

Run fdisk from the 98 floppy and delete all DOS and non-DOS partitions and logical drives.
Start the Windows 98 setup and it will take care of the rest.

 

You also need to do fdisk /mbr to replace the master boot record I think.

9X systems are set up there to look for IO.sys for startup information.

NT systems are set to look for NTLDR and don't deal with IO.sys.

As a result, I'm not sure 98 will boot up using the MBR from XP. I'd guess not.

Do be careful if your Hd has any sort of boot overlay though (Maxtor and some others even in fairly recent releases) because 9X will need it and XP didn't so it would likely be gone.

BTW - I'm more than a little out of my element here and all the above may be nonsense or not apply to your situation. I sent a post to Abraxas so he can check back and see if I am totally off base or if these are valid concerns.

 

AFAIK you are correct Newt.

When removing any OS, overlay, or software that works on the basis of hooking the Master Boot Record will need to have it restored from the built in backup copy stored automatically by DOS when the drive was first installed. There are several programs that use that method, among them are NT, XP, several boot managers, several drive overlays, and some disk recovery systems such as GoBack.

Fdisk does not normally do this except when mounting a new drive that has no Master Boot Record. You need to force it by running the /mbr switch when you are repartitioning a drive that has already been in service.