Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

How do I uninstall windows xp and install windows 98SE? I know,why would I want to do that?
Well, its on an HP Pavilion Intel celeron 366MHZ 48mb sdram. I know,it can't be done. O yes it can, because I did it with some help from someone else. So now windows will not let me go back to 98. Just like it would not let me go to xp. So, what I want to know is how do I delete my hard drive and reinstall 98SE. Thanks.

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A few clarifying points and practical tips that explain what blocked the install and what to do next. was right to focus on boot order and partitioning, and 's floppy suggestion is the same route ultimately used successfully — the two things that usually trip people up are the disk format and how the DOS-based installer uses memory.

Windows 98SE cannot be installed onto an NTFS volume. If XP had the drive formatted as NTFS you must remove or reformat those partitions to FAT32 before a normal 98SE install will work, and that step destroys any data on the disk. Back up everything you want to keep to another machine or external media before touching partitions.

The “not enough memory” failures people report on very old boxes are often not about total RAM but about conventional (real‑mode) memory available to DOS drivers. A startup disk that loads lots of TSRs or heavy CD drivers can exhaust that area and make setup abort even though the machine has dozens of megabytes of RAM. The usual mitigation is a minimal boot environment that only provides the CD driver and the minimum memory managers; avoid extra drivers/TSRs until after setup finishes.

Other practical notes: collect network/video/chipset drivers for the HP model before wiping the disk (otherwise you may end up without network or proper display); verify any Win98 media is actually bootable by testing it on a second PC; and consider running Win98SE inside a virtual machine if the goal is experimentation—VMs avoid hardware, driver and media hassles and let you snapshot/restore quickly.

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Member Avatar for r220093

STEP 1
You need to make sure that you have the BIOS/Startup, so that the CDROM drives boots before the Hard Drive.

STEP 2
Assuming that your computer has already booted on you CD.

Choose: Boot From CD

STEP 3

- Start Computer Without CD-ROM Support

STEP 4
Partition your Hard drive using FDISK
Guide here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

STEP 5.
Type D:\win98\format C: (assuming your cd-rom is Drive d: )

Step 6
press Y to format hard disk

Step 7

Type D:\win98\setup

Step 8

Your Windows 98 installation should start.

Edited by r220093 because: n/a
Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

This will work if I could boot to my disk but I can't. I went to the bios and set the cd to start first. But it still won't.

Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

got the disk to boot but now it says I don't have but 48mb ram and most abort setup.

Member Avatar for Master Rattley

Why would you want windows 98???

Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

I have an old Hp Pavilion 366mhz 48mb ram that had 98 on it. Something to try things on. People said I could not install windows xp on 48mb ram. But I did it with some help from someone else. Windows xp will not let you install unless you have at least 64mb ram. Now I want to go back to 98. Theirs got to be a get around. Thanks for any help you can give. If I find out how I will let you know.

Member Avatar for Docktor D

Does your laptop have a 3.5"Floppy Drive, if it does get a Win98 startup disk and boot with this - have your Win98 CD in the drive it should serch for it and install
hopefully If you don't have a 3,5" fdd maybe someone you know has an external one you could use
Good Luck!

Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

I did boot to a floppy disk and typed at the a prompt "D:\setup" which should have started my windows 98 cd. but it said it was an invalid entry. Thanks

Member Avatar for daisysdaddy

Found a good floppy boot disk Booted up used the fdisk on floppy to partition. Then formatted the C drive then installed windows 98. Solved!!

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