I NEED some help with a 'Format' !!!!!

This thread may very well be moved but this forum seemed right to me at the time.

Some background: The other day a life-long friend of my wife called and asked for some computer help. My wife instantly volunteered my 'services(?)' since I'm the household "xspurt "!! I wasn't at home to decline, obtw.

At any rate, yesterday she showed up with a 'new-to-her' computer that was/is trashed!!! As far as I can tell this box is a 3 year old Acer with a new Maxtor 10 Gig hard drive in it. When she bought it, it had WinME installed. She found that, after about 3 weeks of using(?) it, she wanted to go back to something she knew & understood (Win98). Another friend of hers offered to put his copy of Win98SE in it for her. His copy of Win98SE was from his 2 year old Gateway restoration disks.

After he 'formatted' her computer, he found out that his copy of Win98SE would "only work on a Gateway computer" and he couldn't install his copy on her Acer. Read as: Now Dead Computer !!

She now has a computer that offers nothing but a DOS prompt (version 2. something, I think) and I am (being a Windows-baby) completely lost, to say the least.

Her original computer (5+ years old & long since gone) was also a Gateway that came with Win95 installed. She eventually upgraded to Win98 and she still has the original Win95 disk and the Win98 upgrade disk. What she is asking me to do is install Win95 and then use the Win98 upgrade disk to get her "back together ".

I, me, dummy-that-I-am, haven't a clue as to where to start !! HELP ME, BBSers get this lady back to having a usable computer. Any and ALL help will be GREATLY appreciated


Mike

(How do I manage to get myself into these Things ??)

 

You could look around on the 98 restore disk and see if the Win98 files are in a separate folder (cab files). If they are, you can probably run Win98 setup from the setup file in that folder.
If not, then you may have to install 95 first.

First, get a Win 98 boot disk. If you don't have one, go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and the tab at the top. Make one.
Boot the computer from the floppy, choosing "Start this computer with CD-ROM support ", or words to that effect.
Type: format C: at the prompt.
When formatting is done, type E: at the prompt. This should bring you to the CD. Type: setup and you are on your way.

 

Indutch,

You may find Joe Kramer tip's to be helpful in your battle. I suggest the upper left hand button that site's home page since it will describe how to do a clean install of Win98 and also has an aside about using an upgrade disk for that purpose. It provides several methods for satisfying the proof of previous purchase, so read it all carefully before proceeding. You can create a boot disk from that site if you like but the Win98 boot disk that Abraxas mentioned is all you really need.

Good luck.