Step-by-Step for erasing and reinstalling Windows 98SE

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Anonymous

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I want to erase my hard drive using this and then reinstall Windows 98SE.

But I read that you cannot just use DBAN to erase the hard drive and then put in the 98SE boot disk and reinstall, you also have to format or use fdisk or something. I am not very technical and could you please give me a step-by-step for wiping and reinstalling Windows 98SE???

It would be very much appreciated.
 
Anonymous said:
I want to erase my hard drive using this and then reinstall Windows 98SE.

But I read that you cannot just use DBAN to erase the hard drive and then put in the 98SE boot disk and reinstall, you also have to format or use fdisk or something. I am not very technical and could you please give me a step-by-step for wiping and reinstalling Windows 98SE???

It would be very much appreciated.

*** *** ***

When you "wipe" a hard drive, not only does the info (programs. data, etc.) head for the "bit-bucket", so does the partition information. Before you can do anything with the drive, you have to re-partition it. The program for that is "FDISK.EXE". It's on the boot floppy you created when you installed the OS (you did make one, didn't you?). If you don't have a boot floppy, make one before you do anything else.
Go to START > SETTINGS > CONTROL PANEL > ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS > STARTUP DISK > CREATE and make one. Have 1 (one) blank floppy ready.

Wipe the hard drive.

Boot from the floppy. type "FDISK" at the prompt. You will be presented with a list of options. You'll be interested in the one that references setting the primary partition. There are a LOT of ways to partition a hard drive. I'm going to speak of one only! Use all (100%) of the drive when asked.
There are more steps but I can't remember them all. Just the "gist".

Now format the drive. After formatting, you should be able to reinstall your software.

Mike

P.S. You could also purchase a copy of "Partition Magic" and let that program worry about all the small details for you...just read the manual first!
 
Once you wipe your hard drive with Boot and Nuke all you need to do is insert the Windows 98SE CD in your CD-ROM, turn off your PC, turn it back on and boot from CD-ROM and the setup will format it for you. There is no need to use a boot floppy to fdisk.
 
Thank you for the info. By the way, when I normally reinstall Windows, I just restart the computer with the 98SE setup disc in the disc drive, no floppy in the drive.

Just a question, is the "Eraser" program as good as this one for doing the same job? http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
 
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