Help installing XP over Windows 98

[marvontherim]

I have a system with Windows 98 on it and I want to upgrade to XP pro.
My question is, do I just boot off of the XP cd and follow instructions for a new install? What happens to the old operating system? Is it over ridden? Is any data losted in the upgrade?
I have a full version of XP not the upgrade version.
Any help will be appreciated.

[bailey]

yes you just boot of the cd, it will detect that you have w98 and ask if you want a fresh install or a upgrade, choose upgrade and it will do it with no loss of data

[EzyStvy]

Is it over ridden->Yes.

But, have you done your homework? XP isn't fond of older hardware. Pop in the cd and run the Compatibility test...

[Statica]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Is it over ridden->Yes. But, have you done your homework? XP isn't fond of older hardware. Pop in the cd and run the Compatibility test...

Absolutely .. this step cannot be stressed enough, for the sake of your peace of mind boot to your windows 98 CD as you normally would and then put in the XP CD, it will have an option of checking compatibility.

And please don't trust us or XP, in stating that you wont lose anything .. backup your valuable data. Under normal circumstances there should be no loss in data, but if something goes wrong you might have to try other things...

[marvontherim]

Thanks all, good info.
I followed the instruction to check for compatability and another screen comes up and talks about downloading dynamic update files.
It gives me two options:
Yes,get updated files from web site or
No skip this step and continue installing windows
If I say yes it seems to download updated files and returns me to the same Dynamic update screen with the same two options.
I'm not sure about the other option because it says it will continue installing windows. I was under the inpression I was just checking for compatability.
???

[bailey]

yes it did just that, it checked you system, if your not useing any dynamic disk drives you probly dont need that stuff,
I would say yes to continue the instalation, if that is what you want to do.

[Statica]

Dynamic update is NOTHING to do with dynamic disks, I certainly hope you havent gone ahead with the installation without running the compatibility advisor.

What dynamic update does: Your copy of XP that resides on a CD comes with a list of hardware that is known to be compatible with the OS. As new h/w comes out and as XP undergoes more testing, there are more compatible hardware (or incompatible h/w & s/w) that becomes known. Updating this list, gets the list from the MS website and gives you the most updated compatibility list.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...wsxp_sg_ua.asp is a good resource.

[bailey]

ok, I made a mistake, I was wrong and am very sorry for it,

I felt that with the system in his sig is of a new enough system that it would be perfectly ok to do the install, there is nothing I could see that could possibly be any sort of a problem.

also I must admit, I have never needed to run that compatibility check on any system I have installed xp on, and I also have never had any problems with it,
so my post was based on my experience alone.
sorry if I caused any problems.

[marvontherim]

Thank you all so much.
I did select the "skip step" option and it did give me a compatability result.
Possable conflect with printer, AVG, Logic Cam and some others. It dosn't seem like anything big maybe some driver updates needed. In reading some info on the web it is suggested that I flash my mobo first. So I spent the morning looking for my mobo id upgrade with no success. I have the mobo specs but can't find the corresponding BIOS update. AMI mobo AMD 751 chipset.
Also I wanted to backup all data and it seems that I need a large number of disks to do that. Am I doing something wrong with back up?

[patrickt]

Personally, I would never put WindowsXP over Windows98. IMHO, too much garbage is left on the drive from Windows98. I would back up my data and do a clean install.

[marvontherim]

patrickt
I tend to agree. I will just do a new build. the system is a IBM 5 years old . Nothing to salvage.
Can you clarify my backup question.
Thanks

[patrickt]

I assume you're just backing up data but that can take a lot of disks. For me, I have two hard drives, they're relatively cheap, so I dump my data to my second hard drive and reinstall on the system drive. Actually, I leave 95% of my data on the second hard drive.

[marvontherim]

I don't have a second driver on that computer. It's only a 20gb but still it's a ton of disks or CD's.
The install of XP only effects the main system drive so I can see where a second drive would be beneficial.

[ITlover]

The other of installing winXP, If you have a backup of win98 in your computer, you can just restart your computer in ms-dos mode ,as soon as you arrive on dos prompt, go to the drive where the backup of win98 is available, from their, format the c drive, and after that restart your computer and then boot from XP cd.

This is how I have installed winxp.

Regards,