reinstalling/formatting

blahblah

Hi,

my pc is ****ed and the fixblast thing didnt work,
i dunno whats wrong so i want to reinstall windows (98),


i have some stuff on it i want save but i could live without them,

so should i formatt and reinstall or reinstall windows without losing the files, (is this called a clean install)?????

has anyone got any advice onthe best way to approach this???


thanks

hertz

Well if its the blaster or welcha virus your trying to remove , they arent written for win 98!!! unless its something else.

I would back up what you can onto zip, cdr, but Sometimes your gonna lose stuff if you have a major problem like this. I would do a clean install and that is wipe your hard disc and then format it. The windows installation cd will offer to format it for you, thats recommended cos it formats it for you. Then reinstall windows. BUT make sure you have any install files for Drivers, programs etc. Usually windows wont need you to install most drivers like your cd rom etc, but things like graphics cards, printers, zip drives you will need driver software for.

DONT do a reinstall of windows or an upgrade, talking from experience. Problems can occur later on when if you do this.
If you have a second hard disc that is not affected you could transfer any files over to that.

Goodluck

Hertz

vibe666

when you say ****ed, how do you mean?

it may be something that is easily fixable.

what happens when you try and boot up?

what errors are you getting, and what makes you think you have a virus?

don't do anything drastic until we know what we're dealing with. you're first format and re-install is never an easy process, and will probably take you a day or so to get everything back the way you want it. if it's not necessary then you might want to try other things first.

Capt'n Midnight

First go into control panel - system - device manage - and write down the names of your drivers ....

Also on the CD somewhere is a file called HWINFO - run it to see whe win9x calls the drivers.

If you are not formatting the drive, copy the Win98 folder from the CD to the HDD and restart in MSdos prompt
rename \windows *.old
rename \progra~1 *.old

Now switch off the computer and boot from the win98 CD (Clean boot) and sys C: (refrest the boot files) then CD \win98 and type SETUP /?
so you can turn off some junk
setup /im /is /iq

The point is to have the win98 folder on the HDD so you don't need to go rooting for the CD each time it looks for files...

Cake Fiend

Good points mentioned above - especially the fact that you probably don't need to reinstall windows if you put in a bit of work to solve the problem.

However, I think it's good practice to have a nice fresh installation of 98 ever once in a while, and this could be the perfect opportunity. Pretty much anything important has already been said above, but just to recap:

Step 1: Back up anything irreplaceable
Step 2: Make sure you have all the drivers you need, preferably tested. Especially modem/TA/NIC card drivers - at least if you have them, you can download anything else you need.
Step 3: I personally like to format for a clean install, but don't bother if you'd prefer not to have to format. If you don't mind it, boot off the Win98 CD, 'boot computer with CD-ROM support', format, copy the contents of the 'Win98' directory from the CD to the hard drive and install from the hard drive copy.
Step 4: Reinstall drivers, apps, windows updates, etc.
Step 5: Phone your father's brother and tell him his new name is Robert.

There's a bit of a convention to copy the cab files (contents of the Win98 directory) to 'C:\windows\options\cabs', but it's certainly not necessary (what can I say, I'm traditional).

As long as you've made sure to know what you're doing, you shouldn't have any serious problems.