Installing

First you must know if you have a windows xp upgrade or OEM version CD. If you are already lost then you should read the tip on installing/reinstalling windows 98 first. If it is an upgrade disk and you are wanting to reformat and start over, then you are going to have to reinstall windows 98 (or other windows operating system) first. In this case, do a "compact" install which will only install the necessary parts of windows. Then you can proceed with installation of the upgrade. If you have an OEM then you can simply install it by following the prompt. You will be asked if you want to use the REPAIR CONSOLE because this can actually repair system files, etc. For more information on this, you should visit the microsoft windows xp website.

One thing people overlook is the BIOS settings which you can not do in the case of installing software that uses the CD rom first. This means you will want to be sure you have the boot order set to "floppy", then "cd rom" then 'HDD'/EIDE'. You will recognize this problem if you are trying to start with a non formatted hard drive for example, whereas if you have the CD rom in (which would be bootable because it is the OEM). If you can not boot from CD rom then you should create a set of boot floppies at this WEBSITE. You will need 6 blank floppies for this.

As for worrying about the formatting and/or partitioning of the hard drive: if the reason you were reading this tip is because you have to reformat or you want to repartition your drive(s) then realize you will be asked during setup, which drive you want to install to and whether or not you want to reformat. If there is no partition made then that is ok as well, so long as the BIOS recognizes the hard drive, otherwise you will need to partition it which means using a disk partition software such as PARTITION MAGIC.