Windows 98se how do I format for fresh start ???

My pc was infected with a virus ( yaha ) months ago and
have 3dll files corrupted or missing. Shutting down and
performance sluggish. Was advised to format my hard drive
and reload everything. I have saved all my essential files
on my laptop. So now need to format my main pc, How do I
do that please??
Secondly would it be ok to put XP instead of the original
98se onto home pc? It has speed -1500ghz & 60gb h/d?
many thanks Steve

Your cpu and hdd is okay for XP; but you'll want at least
256mb ram, preferably 512 for xp if you plan on doing
anything interesting with it.

As to reformat; you'll need a start up stiffy disk, you'll
start up your computer (with the disk), and then at the
dos prompt type

format c: /q

the computer will ask you if you are sure; best make sure
^_^ then just confirm it and everything and wait till its
done; then reinstall windows.

make sure your start up stiff has cd rom drivers so that
you can access the Win98 cd in dos to install windows.

my start up disk (original windows 95 one ) boots up
normally and automatically starts the setup of the cd;
otherwise when the stiffy is done booting and the computer
is waiting for you at the dos prompt and you see something
like

a:\

then type d:\ (if d: is the cd drive) and then just type

setup

Hope this helps ~_^

"Steve" wrote in news:227e01c4ad37$36cf0540
:

My pc was infected with a virus ( yaha ) months ago and
have 3dll files corrupted or missing. Shutting down and
performance sluggish. Was advised to format my hard drive
and reload everything. I have saved all my essential files
on my laptop. So now need to format my main pc, How do I
do that please??

Boot from CD, choose 'boot to command prompt'.
At A:\ type
format c: enter

Then reboot (Ctrl-Alt-Del), choose 'Windows setup'.
That should do.

When you've lost your product key, get it from your installation before
formatting:
Open regedit, find
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\ CurrentVersion
\\Productkey


Secondly would it be ok to put XP instead of the original
98se onto home pc? It has speed -1500ghz & 60gb h/d?
many thanks Steve


Legally no, unless you've got a license.
Technically yes, when you've got enough ram. =256MB, =512 would be
better.

"Steve" wrote:

My pc was infected with a virus ( yaha ) months ago and
have 3dll files corrupted or missing. Shutting down and
performance sluggish. Was advised to format my hard drive
and reload everything. I have saved all my essential files
on my laptop. So now need to format my main pc, How do I
do that please??
Secondly would it be ok to put XP instead of the original
98se onto home pc? It has speed -1500ghz & 60gb h/d?
many thanks Steve

Give me more system configuration info.

O_O never occured to me that win98se cd was bootable... I
guess my computer really is ancient for a 6yr old pc...

"Steve" wrote:

My pc was infected with a virus ( yaha ) months ago and
have 3dll files corrupted or missing. Shutting down and
performance sluggish. Was advised to format my hard drive
and reload everything. I have saved all my essential files
on my laptop. So now need to format my main pc, How do I
do that please??
Secondly would it be ok to put XP instead of the original
98se onto home pc? It has speed -1500ghz & 60gb h/d?
many thanks Steve

Note bthat formatting might break your hard disk.
Also, you need to locate the setup.exe file cuz D:\setup might not launch it.

"Travis Swift" wrote in
:

O_O never occured to me that win98se cd was bootable... I
guess my computer really is ancient for a 6yr old pc...

It's a great feature. Especially when you've got no floppydrive :-)

"Steve" wrote in message
...
My pc was infected with a virus ( yaha ) months ago and
have 3dll files corrupted or missing. Shutting down and
performance sluggish. Was advised to format my hard drive
and reload everything. I have saved all my essential files
on my laptop. So now need to format my main pc, How do I
do that please??
Secondly would it be ok to put XP instead of the original
98se onto home pc? It has speed -1500ghz & 60gb h/d?
many thanks Steve

Have you tried posting the missing dlls and any error messages to see
if you can fix the problem without formating?