If the machine is still under warranty you may have problems changing from
Vista to XP; this may invalidate your PC warranty. Therefore, i suggest you
ask your pc manufacturer if you can actually 'downgrade' before commencing.
Assuming all is well with the PC manufacturer, you can actually reformat the
drive using a windows 98 startup disk; try
www.bootdisk.com to download a
free copy. Obviously you will need to copy the windows 98 startup files to a
bootable floppy, so i hope your machine has a floppy disk drive?
As Og has already pointed out in his post, you don't need to install windows
98 first, you can install the XP upgrade and it will ask you to insert the
Windows 98 CD as confirmation tat you are entitiled to an upgrade to XP.
As i have said youcan use a windows 98 startup disk to format the hard
drive, alternatively you can select the option to format the drive when you
install the Windows XP upgrade; you just need to ensure that XP is being
installed on the C: drive in order to overwrite the Vista files and remember
you must boot from the XP CD for install, don't try installing from within
windows otherwise you just end up with two operating system or an error
message telling you that you are installing an older version over a new one.
At this stage the install will stop.
Check out these links on my website:
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_format_my_hard_drive_us.htm
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp.htm
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User
Web:
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org
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