How do I uninstall OEM Windows 98 SE?

I have a 5 year old HP Pavilion with factory installed Windows 98 SE. I want to uninstall the Operating system completely leaving me with a clean HD. I have looked all over that computer and can find no way to do this. Does a factory installed OS have to stay there forever???
TIA for any help...

 

This should probably be in the Win98 forum but here goes ........... Using your current Win98system, make a Win98 floppy boot disk. Then shut down your machine, put in the floppy and restart it. Let the machine boot from the floppy and when you finally get to an A prompt, type FDISK and hit enter. Then follow the menu to delete any partitions on the machine. Check for both DOS and non-DOS partitions. Then make one new DOS partition and make it active if you ever want to use it as a system drive (again, follow the menus). When complete, exit FDISK and turn off your machine. Now, you have no more operating system on the drive. Note: your drive will still have to be formatted to use it.

 

Is a Win98 floppy boot disk the same as an emergency boot disk?

 

I made the disk, but not one of the options you suggest are even present and there was nothing to delete.
There was no option to format the disk either...
The operating system is still present and still not able to be removed. There must be a way to get it off but the FDISK with the floppy did not work at all.

 

None of the options suggested by Rockster are present! There is nothing to delete.I clicked 'yes' and the screen that came up did not present anything at all that could be deleted. Nothing.

Why do I have to use a floppy disk for this anyway? Booting into DOS gives me the same results when I type FDISK.

(I know nothing about DOS but I followed what was on the screen after I typed FDISK...it gave me NO options to delete anything.)
How would I tell it to uninstall the OS? How would I tell it to format the disk??

 

The options you talk about are not present. It gives me no options to delete anything. The one thing it had to delete had no such partition. The only other option was to create a partition but the partition was already created and had no option to delete it.

Could this be because it is an OEM and was preinstalled on the computer?
Maybe the only solution is to remove the HD and throw it away??
The CD that came with it will not just format but also reinstalls the original factory OEM Windows....no choice to just format it.

 

Did you set the Bios to boot from the floppy drive first?

 

You haven't said what you are going to do after you remove the partition. If you are planning on installing Win XP, you may find you will need to purchase the Win XP recovery disks for it from HP.

PS There may be "hidden" partition. It is marked as Hidden from the OS (a recovery partition). Try using the drive setup utilities from the manufacturer of the HDD.

 

No, I don't know anything about the BIOS or how to do anything with it.. But it read the floppy anyway. FDISK had the choices that were numbered, but did not have anything to delete.

 

OK Yankee .........

I'm not trying to argue with you but there most definately is going to be a partition (or two) that can be removed if that drive has Windows 98 on it. And, as Matt referenced, there is, more likely than not, a hidden partition which should also be visible (and removable) in FDISK.



Christer's step #6 should take care of things quit nicely. Please confirm you have run this and then try to boot to the hard drive.

 

I am not arguing...I am just telling you what is on and, not on, the FDISK. I cannot argue because I don't know what anyone is talking about. If it is hidden, I do not know where it is hidden.
It gives me no opportunity to delete anything except a partition that it says does not exist when I try to delete it.
I haven't had a chance yet to try Christer's suggestion. I downloaded the two things to a floppy and will try later today.
This is all very strange to me and I am just trying to follow it.
I am not that knowledgeable.

 

[



Christer's step #6 should take care of things quit nicely. Please confirm you have run this and then try to boot to the hard drive.[/QUOTE]

PS: How could I boot to the Hard Drive if I was able to uninstall Windows? What would it boot to if there is nothing there?

 

It will boot to nothing. You will receive an operating system not found warning. At this point you will need to reinstall an operating system.

 

I give up!
I tried DELPART and it did give me an opportunity to delete the partition, BUT, there was no way to click the OK! For some reason the cursor was not present. I tried another mouse and there still was no cursor present to click the OK.
I typed Del and another menu came up with another OK, and no way to click on it.
I guess that maybe the computer does not want to uninstall an OEM OS...?

Thanks for all the help...the only thing to do is throw out the HD.

 

Pardon me for butting in here, but if you boot with a dos disk that you created in windows 98, you are not in windows and there is no mouse.
After you boot up and type FDISK you have to hit enter.
After you get the menu, you have to type the appropriate number ( 1 to 4 I believe ) To delete the partitions. If you have a menu, you have to use the arrow keys to go from 1 to the next up and down. You also might get a confirm popup asking if you really want to do this. You then use the left-right arrow key to switch between yes and no or you might have to type Y for yes or N for no and hit enter.
Hope I could help you.
Sven

 

Thank you for your patience but I am afflicted with Technological Senility! I know nothing. I have been fooling around with this thing and just guessing. I sent the Delpart to My Documents from the floppy. (The computer is not connected to the 'net.)
Then I clicked on it and was able to delete the partition. When I start up now, I get 'No operating system found', so it must have worked.
But, when I type FORMAT C:, I get 'Format not supported on drive C.
You said, "Create a C, make it active and format it." I have no idea what you mean by that! You assume that I know about these things and I know nothing about it...I deleted the OS by a few hours of guessing, but I have no idea of what to guess at to create a C:

Older than dirt and twice as dumb!!