>Hi. I plan to reformat my hard drive on my Win98 notebook and install XP Prof. Q: how do you do the "reformat" part?
>
>Thanks, Randy

Hi Randy,

I never had a chance to install XP on notebook. But like every other Windows system, this is what I always do when I want to install a new system.

1. Prepare one floopy and create it for boot system, make sure it is clean from virus. If you have an XP-CD with boot system don't use it, it will take a lot slower if you install Windows using boot from CD !!

2. Create config.sys & autoexec.bat that at least configured to load Memory Management driver (HIMEM & EMM), CD-ROM driver and SmartDrv

3. If you have a specific hardware that you want to use it for Windows, prepare the floopy for that driver.

4. Make a plan for how many partition do you want to create on your HD. Base on my experienced, for Win9X/ME/W2K I always create one more partition (FAT partition with 8K - 32K per cluster depends on your HD & the controller speed) so Windows can put it Swap file in that partition. This will help windows performance & make sure your windows always run smooth. But I never had a chance to play around with XP yet. So to make it safe, you better make that partition as an NTFS.

5. Backup all your file / document.

6. Boot from your floopy.

7. At first boot, bypass the configuration. Run FDISK. Clean your HD by deleting all the partition you have (logical and physical), this will make your HD like a brand new one. Create partitions as you planned, and make one of the partition as an active partition for boot. Usually this will be a C drive.

8. Reboot the computer with your floopy still in the drive. Bypass the configuration again, and format all the partitions you have created.

9. Reboot the computer again with your Boot floopy, this time let the configuration works. Or if you format your C drive with /S copy your config.sys & autoexec.bat to your C and boot from it. Then put your Windows CD in your CD-ROM.

10. Ready to install a new system.

Looks like it takes you a lot of work, but this is what I always do and everytime I install a new systems, the Windows will be ready in just about half an hour or even less for a faster machine :)

HTH