About Me

As a DIY PC enthusiast, I have built and upgraded many PCs for myself, family and friends. In the process of doing so, I have had to trawl for a lot of information from the internet, buying and reading PC magazines and DIY books on PC building.

Having spent many frustrating hours on the internet, searching for answers as and when I ran into problems (once I accidentally formatted my C: drive and learnt a lot about recovery painful though that was), I built up my PC knowledge on both Hardware and Software.

I am still learning and have a long way to go. I would certainly not call myself an expert. However, I am now more confident than I used to be.

I have set up this website so that I can share this knowledge with others. This is my way of giving back to the www what I learned from it.

I hope that visitors to this website will benefit from the information I have put here.

Prepare your hard drive to install Windows 98 / re-install Windows 98

Do you want to prepare a hard drive for installing / re-installing Windows 98?
If you do, then look at this fdisk and format procedure. You can use the same procedure to prepare your hard drive to install other OS'es also.

Fdisk and Format Procedure for Windows 98

Ready to Install Windows 98 SE and its Updates?

You have prepared (fdisk and format) your hard drive and are now ready to install Windows 98. This step by step procedure will help you do it.

Procedure to Install Windows 98 SE and its updates

Get updates for your OS from Windows Update to your Local Hard Drive

Well you don't have to.

You can download all the required updates in one go onto a local hard drive. If you have a CD writer you can also secure the updates by burning them onto a CD. Even better it does NOT even have to be the OS you are running at present.

Note:
There can be a large amount of updates for your OS. For example there is over 100 MB of downloads available for Windows 98. So if you have a slow link (56k modem) it may take you a while to get it all.

Interested? Then follow this procedure:

How to get updates for your OS from Windows Update to your local hard drive

Ranish Partition Manager (RPM)

You can also prepare a hard drive for installing / re-installing Windows using Ranish Partition Manager (RPM).

I find RPM useful in some instances. RPM also presents a very good visual view of your partitions which I find very useful. You can even save your partition information to a file just in case you have an accident with your hard drive. It has always puzzled me that there is no defined procedure written for RPM in order to properly use it for partitioning and formatting a hard drive. So I decided to write one. Here it is.

Partition and Format using Ranish Partition Manager

Windows XP Professional - Disk Management

Do you want to know how to add and configure a new hard drive in Windows XP?
Here is small guide that shows you how you could do it.
You can also use it to manage existing hard drives (e.g. delete and reconfigure hard drive partitions).

Windows XP Professional - Disk Management.html

Working with Large Hard Drives (Barriers and Limits)

There are issues that you need to be aware of. If you have large sized hard drives, then you need to know how to overcome the limits that you encounter. The key hard drive size limits that you need to be aware of are: 8 GB, 64 GB, 127 GB, and 137 GB. The 127 GB and the 137 GB limit are the most difficult ones to overcome. If you are using hard drive/s greater than 127 GB then you need to be fully aware of all the issues so that you make the right decisions on how to proceed. Get this right and you will avoid problems later. To know more about these issues look here.

Working with Large sized Hard Drives, especially 127 GB or bigger

Partition Removal

If you try to delete an extended partition while it has Non-DOS Logical Drives, you will get an error message saying you must delete logical drives first.

However, when you try to delete the Non-DOS Logical Drive it will say no logical Drive found and all the logical drives have been deleted. Frustrating isn't it ?

Do you want to be able to delete partitions that stubbornly refuse to be deleted ?
Then read how you can do it here.

Partition Removal Information

Dual Boot / Triple Boot Procedure

The following procedures show you how to install Win98SE, WinXP Pro, and Linux in a triple boot configuration.
If you only want to dual boot Win98SE and WinXP, then skip part 3 of the procedure.

Triple Boot Procedure using 1 hard drive
Triple Boot Procedure using 2 hard drives

Dual Boot: Add Win98SE to WinXP

You have a Windows XP Installation using the NTFS file system and you decide to add Windows 98SE as a second OS in a dual boot configuration.

Normal procedure for dual booting Windows Operating Systems is to Install the earlier Operating System first. In this case it is not possible without a re-install of WinXP which you may not wish to do for all the obvious reasons.

A further complication may be that the Windows XP is using the NTFS file system and hence not normally accessible to Windows 98SE.

The following procedure shows you how you can achieve this.

Dual-Boot - Add Win98SE to WinXP

Dual Boot: Add WinXP to WinXP

You have a Windows XP Installation and you decide to add a second (or additional) copy of Windows XP in a dual (or multi) boot Configuration. However you installed them seperately and now wish to put them together in a dual (or multi) boot configuration.

Alternatively, you have a dual (or multi) boot already set up with two or more copies of Windows XP installed and as a result of re-installing one of them, you loose the ability to boot into the other/s.

The following procedure shows you how you can repair your dual (or multi) boot system.

Dual-Boot - Add WinXP to WinXP

Repair Dual Boot / Triple Boot

Lost your boot menu following re-install of Windows 98? Here is how you can restore your boot options.

Repair dual or multiple boot after re-installing win98

Dual Boot Removal Procedures

You have a dual boot system with Win9x(95/98/ME) and WinXP(XP/2k/NT). Do you want to remove either Win9x or WinXP from your dual boot system ? Do you want to remove WinXP and Install Win9x ? Here is how you can do it.

Dual-Boot remove Win9x or WinXP

You have a dual boot system with Windows and Linux. Do you want to remove Windows and Leave Linux ? Do you want to remove Linux and Leave Windows ? Here is how you can do it.

Dual-Boot remove Linux or Windows

BOOT.INI Files

Have you seen your boot.ini file? Have you wondered at what it all means ? Do you want to be able to add/delete OS options to/from the boot menu ? Do you want to be able to temporarily hide OS options so that they are not selectable ? You can read all about it here (also includes working examples of boot.ini files).

All you ever wanted to know about boot.ini files

Windows Drive Letter Assignments

Did you know that different versions of Windows assign drive letters differently?

I did some investigations into how drive letters are assigned by different versions of windows. While doing that I collected all related URLs on the subject and put them in one file. If you are trying to understand the mysteries of windows drive letter assignments, you could start here.

Collection of URLs on Drive Letter Assignments in Windows

Linux Partitioning and Hard Drive Numbering

Do you want to know how Linux designates hard drives and partitions?
Here is some information on Linux partitioning and numbering schemes.

Linux Partitioning and Hard Drive Numbering

The PC Boot Process (Windows and Linux)

It also details "The effect of re-installing Windows or Linux on the Master Boot Record (MBR)"

The PC Boot Process - Windows and Linux