How do I reinstall Win98SE?

[brockenspectre]

'morning - following many hours on the phone with my ISP it would appear that I need to reinstall Windows. I do have the Win98SE disk but just don't know how to do this.

Please would someone tell me what to do so that when I get home from work tonight I can hopefully get self back online via broadband! Thanks. :ok:

[criticalmass]

Place the Win 98SE boot floppy into your A drive and boot from it. When it boots, put your WIN 98SE CD-ROM into the drive and select install from CD-ROM. I'm not sure if Win 98SE offers a "repair existing installation" option, but if it does, select this rather than a full installation overwriting all old files. It might also be possible to just boot straight from the CD-ROM anyway. If so, do it.

I assume all your drives are already formatted. If this is the case, select the option "Do not allocate unallocated disk space" and allow the installation process to go through to completion.

Hope you backed up the really important stuff!

Once your OS is installed and the machine boots into it, get out your CD-ROMS with Windows updates, service packs etc and install them.
If you haven't got these on CD-ROM, then you'll need to download them from the Windows update website.

Make at least one Win 98SE boot floppy now, and put it somewhere safe!

Re-establish your internet access and make sure your anti-virus/spyware is activated. Log-in, download and install updates etc as required. I like to save the updates onto disk and install them later - that way I can archive them in case I need to do a full re-install.

Now restore all your important data files from whatever backup system you use. (I use the backup software once a week, but transfer changed files onto my notebook machine once a day).

At this stage you should be back to a reasonable Win 98SE system again. You may need to re-set your preferences for screen resolution, screen-savers etc.

98SE has a huge base of users (I really like it) but I am considering an upgrade to WIN 200 Pro, which I have on my notebook machine and which has been exceptionally stable. 98SE will be supported for only a few more years, according to Microsoft. Chances are you may be able to buy a full-install CD-ROM of Win 2000 Pro very cheaply. Worth considering.

Hope this helps. A clean install does get rid of a lot of junk that accumulates over the years.

I found I had to stop the installer from configuring unallocated disk space or else it failed to assign the CD drive as drive C and the installation aborted. This frustrated me for an hour or so. I have all SCSI drives in my system, perhaps the 98SE installer is really designed for IDE drives. I used FDISK to partition and format the drives before installing the OS. That may have upset the installer also.

[sky330]

Easy answer, put the first disk in the floppy, boot on it and follow instructions on screen :E

Less easy answer:
- Try first to make a backup of all you personal data, even of everything if you can.
You will NEVER EVER regret having backup more than needed, on the other hand.....
CHECK that the backup are working before erasing anything!!

- find the drivers for all your hardware.
Most important are the graphic card (working in 640x480 is annoying and some modern card does not work well with Win98 basic VGA driver), AND AND network/modem card.

If you network are working you will be able to find the missing driver and/or help on the internet.

- Any special hardware that is needed to start the computer (special disk drive, raid drivers,special mouse, keyboard,...). The rest is less important (sound,..), if needed you can find them on internet after install

- notes the parameters for your ISP, have all passwords handy (you have a backup of these, don't you....

- check any program installed that need a licence, if you have the licence and original disks, or check with the company how to move the programme from computer. Some shareware for instance, need a key that is based on the serial number of the program and if you have downloaded it from internet, you may end up with another serial number, see how you can keep your licence.

- have a look at the list of hardware installed, and software installed. Write/ print it.
So you can re-install everything afterwards and don't realized the day you need it right this minute, that you didn't re-install program X or not often used hardware Y.

You can do most of it even if your machine is not booting anymore by booting on the first disk of Win98 by refusing the install to go to DOS mode.

Hopes it helps

[Saab Dastard]

Do you connect to broadband via USB or Ethernet?

If it is the latter, I bet that all you have to do is remove TCP/IP protocol stack in Network Properties and re-install it.

Telewest screwed up my Win 98 SE PC when they tried to install my broadband a couple of years ago. Doing the above got it working again.

I can't give you a how-to, as I've upgraded said PC to run Win XP since.

[Mac the Knife]

All the above, plus

Avoid a lot of fiddling around and downloading from MS by using the UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 2.0.1 (Freeware) from http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

It contains all Windows98 SE updates from Windows Update site and more.

Installation order:
1 - Install Windows 98 SE
2 - Install IE 6.0 SP1.
3 - Install DirectX (9.0c).
4 - Install all latest drivers of your hardware
5 - Install MS Office.(And any other programs like norton/etc...)
6 - Install SE SP 2.0.
7 - Reboot.
8 - Install critical updates from WindowsUpdate(if there are any, unlikely)and update virus signatures and software.

--------------------
"Bother," said Pooh as he struggled with /etc/sendmail.cf, "it never does quite what I want. I wish Christopher Robin was here."

[Gertrude the Wombat]

following many hours on the phone with my ISP it would appear that I need to reinstall Windows Do you understand, and can you explain ,exactly why this needs to be done: what is broken, and what will reinstalling fix?

If not then it may not be a useful thing to do. It is, I am afraid, very commonplace indeed for "technical support" people to tell you to "reinstall Windows" just because it's the first thing on their script and it will get you to shut up and go away, usually for many hours. Getting the ISP's help desk PFY to stop parotting "reinstall Windows" and actually listen to you and actually believe you when you tell them that the problem is at their end does sometimes take a very very long time indeed, yes.

There are few problems for which "reinstalling Windows" is necessary, and even fewer for which it will actually work.

[boeingbus2002]

As mentioned by Gertrude, what is the reason for your reinstall?
I have been trying to reinstall too (see another post earlier) and it has since been a problem to fully complete the installation. I dont think its a full installation as original files remain,

If you need to backup files, i went into Safe mode...and type msconfig in the run section. Then from there, I got an option for selective startup or diagnostic startup. Cant remember which one i chose, however it did restart with many drivers enabled. (allowed me to copy all important files to cd).

Good luck

[None of the above]

Very useful site here:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

[brockenspectre]

'afternoon all - 1hr in to process and I am reformatted ... Win98 installed and darnit it, the CD I got with the flat screen apparently doesn't have drivers (pray I can get online and get em) and the same with the CD that came with my printer ... am installing AOL as I type and it is doing IE6 for me.

The reason for reformatting/reinstalling Win98 is that my pc wouldn't load the drivers for AOL correctly, just kept running in a loop. I have to say I can't fault the AOL tech help in Scotland (once I got to them) because they really did work with me for probably a total of 2hrs installing, reinstalling etc different aspects of connectivity).

Anyway, its done - my screen is a stupid 600x whatever but at least I still have the free dialup via ye ancient laptop!

All good experience, despite the occasional feeling that its all too horrible - AOL has just said that 16 colors (which I cannot change) doesn't give best performance ... like I don't know that??!! grrrrrrrrrrrr :ok:

and before I forget my manners entirely, THANK YOU all who have responded ... :)

[faq]

After the 98 floppy is installed and the computer turned on, if I remember correctly all that is displayed is a blank screen with a curser, it's up to you to type in the necessary (DOS?) commands to get the computer to boot from the CD, which has the win98 CD in it.

What is the command to do this?

How do you delete partitions, create partitions and format partitions when installing win98?

I have re-installed win98 a couple of times but always under the instruction of others, I didn’t really know what was going on, it would be nice to know.

Thanks

[Agent86]

There are times when Win98 just needs a refresh to get it back up and running.

Prcedure is

Boot to DOS mode ...Press F8 after system boots and BEFORE "Starting Windows98" comes up ..You need to get your timing right:D

Type CD WINDOWS "Enter"(changes directory to the Windows)
Type REN WIN.COM WIN.OLD (renames the win.com file to win.old)

Either reboot with your win98 floppy in A and the win98 CD in CD drive and select "run Windows setup from CD"

OR if your system is set to boot from CD just reboot with the windows98 cd in the drive and select "start computer from CD "

You can change the BIOS system boot sequence to A,CD,HD on most systems but each bios is different so I won't even attempt to describe how :rolleyes:
When Windows setup asks for the directory to install windows it MAY default to C:\Windows.001 Make sure you change it to C:\Windows (assuming that is where your original windows was...Otherwise step one wouldn't have worked)

After the appropriate wait (and numerous coffee/red wine/coke depending on your age :D ) your system will have retained all your drivers, installed programs, email settings, and sadly ALL the virii and spyware :*

Hope this helps

MAx

[faq]

Well yes and no thanks.

If I install or re-install win2000 or winxp, during the loading I can delete partitions, create partitions, format partitions. When I got a virus, I deleted the partition that the previous operating system was on. Created a new one the same size in the same place and then loaded winxp on to that. Which deletes all the drivers, viruses, left over files from software un-installations etc.

How do you do that process in win98?

I know this is maybe a brutal and uneducated way of fixing a problem, but for the relatively uninformed and un-trained, it works. If I loose my medical I’ll do an MCSE and learn to do it properly, but until then, info much appreciated.

Thanks

[None of the above]

www.driverguide.com is a very useful site.
You will need to register but worth the effort if you are still looking for one last driver to complete the job.

Alternatively, www.drivershq.com will scan your system and tell you which drivers are up to date and which are not. Admittedly this will be of limited use as it is really a taster for a 'paid for' version which will download and install the required drivers. However, it will save you trudging around a multiplicity of sites to see if you have the latest drivers.

If it hasn't already been mentioned, click on 'Windows Update' and see what that brings forth.

All the best,

N o t a.