Dave & jboy thanks. Ha! I'm reading all I can about what you all post to others and me so I can eventually FDisk, Reformat and put Win98SE on again. This is an old computer given to me. It was an office computer so there was much garbage on it but with Mesich's Delindex.bat and some other Utilities I cleaned it up a little. I copied all my Drivers onto floppies (only 42) then I'm going to eventually follow up on my plan. I don't want to get stuck in the middle of it so I'm being patient, reading what you all post as help to other people and I'm close. I appreciate this computer.net so I try to read some every day. It's great to see the care you guys take in giving advice. Thanks again. Manuel Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

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Manuel I like your attitude about things. Most of the problems dealt with here could be avoided if folks would think a little more before acting. When you finally do reinstall windows you may be pleasantly surprised. If the hardware was in existance when win 98 was released then there is a good possibility all the hardware will be configured automatically. You are wise to prepare for the worst anyway.

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OtheHill, my patience is thanks to reading you folks here. You all are careful w/other people's computers. These computers are still a bit like "magic" boxes to me in the enormous amount of things they do to operate - they write logs while operating & mystify me by using no printer. This computer is about 9 years old and still going so I want to keep it that way. Thanks to all of you answering people here. You can see I get excited still when I see some message I don't understand. I'm grateful for the expertise & advice. Manuel Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

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Ok, well it's good that you are checking everything out before proceeding - we get a lot of problem posts where it turns out there is a problem with the floppy or CD drive, bad bootdisk or (even) the wrong CD. Although some believe otherwise, formatting isn't really a normal part of Windows maintenance - the old saying: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is quite applicable. Still, if you are properly prepared, it should go pretty smoothly. On an older machine with older components for sure, Windows will likely recognize & install the appropriate drivers on its own (except for maybe modems or ISA/non-PNP hardware) Depending on the drivers, it might not be enough just to have copies on diskettes - some need to be run from their own setup (it varies) They are pretty miraculous devices Braccae tuae aperiuntur

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Yeah, the basic stuff you're wanting to do is not a big deal. You've got an older machine you can experiment with in that you can always start over. I personally have never backed up any drivers before reformatting. At most I might check in device manager before formatting to see how they are identified there. Some drivers are more difficult to find than others, but I've always been able to locate what I need on the internet.

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jboy, DAVEINCAPS, OtheHill, thanks alot for the posts. When I can't get online to read various newspapers once in a while I'm not a good camper about it so I'm going to be patient. One of the things I'm concerned about is I don't know if the previous owner ever had Win95 as primary OS then updated it to Win98SE. I'm not certain what problems that would present me if true. I'm almost ready though. Thanks for your concerns & expertise on this board. You guys pull a lot of people out of confusion. Manuel Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

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