Booting my PC

[Guest]

I have had a PC in storage for a few years. I broke it out and have been
trying to upgrade it to XP Home. It now has WIN 98 on it. I've tried
repartitioning the HD and have also formatted it twice. When I go to
reinstall WIN 98 it tells me that there is already an OS on the system. Then
it tells me something about compressed drives possibly being on the system.
My question is how do I completely erase the HD or atleast the compressed
files so that I can upgrade my PC. I have gotten two error codes....OD
0437:000083ED and OE 015f:BFFB8BD3. The second one is the one I get most
of the time. Out of the last 4 attempts at starting my PC the second one is
the only one. The PC does let me start in Safe Mode, but I don't have any
internet access. I'm stuck. My last resort is going out to buy a new HD.
Thanks for whatever help you can give me.

 

[DL]

Some older PC's, with old bios would only recognise hd's up to a certain
size. HD manu produced utilities to enable larger hd's to be used
(NB large may mean 10gb)
Are you sure the rest of the HW will run winxp?
eg you need 512mb ram for a meaningfull experience, and its possible niether
your bios or mobo will support this
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have had a PC in storage for a few years. I broke it out and have been
trying to upgrade it to XP Home. It now has WIN 98 on it. I've tried
repartitioning the HD and have also formatted it twice. When I go to
reinstall WIN 98 it tells me that there is already an OS on the system.

That would probably indicate an OEM version of Win98, where it won't install
except clean or some sort of straight 98 reinstall. If you've installed any
other OS, it will not proceed.

Then
it tells me something about compressed drives possibly being on the system.
My question is how do I completely erase the HD or atleast the compressed
files so that I can upgrade my PC.

First, you do not have to install Win98 to install an upgrade version of XP
Home. Boot from the XP CD, delete and re-create partitions, and format
the disk. This will effectively wipe it.

You will be asked to insert the qualification CD, which is your Win9x CD.
If it likes the disk, it will ask for the XP CD again and the install will
proceed without ever installing 98.

I have gotten two error codes....OD
0437:000083ED and OE 015f:BFFB8BD3. The second one is the one I get most
of the time. Out of the last 4 attempts at starting my PC the second one is
the only one. The PC does let me start in Safe Mode, but I don't have any
internet access. I'm stuck. My last resort is going out to buy a new HD.
Thanks for whatever help you can give me.

Don't install 98 first. It's an unnecessary waste of time if your goal is
an XP install.

HTH
-pk