Reinstalling win98 on a machine with a backup partition?

[jacatone]

My mom has an older Compaq running Win98. It never came with a reinstall disk but has this "backup" partition on D drive. I can't figure out how it works. I have a Win98 install disk with a working serial. Can I just wipe this HDD clean and do a fresh reinstall? If so, does anyone have a good link outlining the procedure? Thanks.

[allannabas]

you can just wipe the drive. with win 98 you'll need to create a startup disk. look for that option in the add/remove programs in the control panel, or get a boot image off of bootdisk.com. make the floppy and have it boot up the computer, escape to the command prompt,and use fdisk to wipe the drive. then go ahead and cleanly reinstall win 98.

[edit] www.blackviper.com has a reinstall guide for fdisk windows ME, it works the same for win98. also be sure to have drivers at hand, especially for the modem/NIC so you can connect to the internet to get any other drivers you might need

[glc]

A startup disk is not needed. Win98 CD's are bootable.

You are better off with trying to figure out how to use the backup partition - a lot of Compaqs have a proprietary diagnostic partition too, and a generic Win98 won't have all the proprietary drivers either.

[GaryRouth]

. . . and to get to all the information you need to make your decision, check on the computer for it's model #, then visit hp.com (Compaq is now owned by HP) and on the support webpages, search for your model #. The Recovery procedure is explained in a step-by-step tutorial - but you'll need to find the home page for your model so that you view the right one.

Is the computer a laptop or a desktop? If it's a desktop, you *might* be fine wiping the proprietary stuff and just using the drivers from the hp/compaq support sites along with your generic Win98se installation CD (in fact, on the 2nd Edition Cd, there are a good number of workable drivers, you might get lucky and have a few right there on the CD). If your mom's computer is a laptop, it's probably best to use the standard Compaq Recovery procedure, using the proprietary partition's stored information.
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Are you sure you need to reinstall? What symptoms are causing trouble with the machine?

Best of luck,
. . . Gary