I have windows 98 and i tried installing windows xp and then my comp stopped working. I get the message that my himem.sys is missing. I dont have a starup disk but looking for one. Do you think that a bootup disk will help me in this situation. I tired looking for the file but coouldnt find it. I also noticed that alot of memory was being used. Can anyone help... please let me know...iam a student and neeed this computer up and running. thanks

not real positive on this but if oyu want to go back to window 98 that im gettign at seems that more than likely your msdos.sys is destroyed and if your windowxp is in same directory as 98 the c:\windows it would have rewrite some of the files to 98 thus ending its life. then again xp seems to have a fancier install directory than the 9x's maybe it didnt hurt it but more than likely it did my xp i had had a bad problem about formating to ntfs which 98 will not run on.good luck

Perhaps clarify first: How did you set about installing XP? And to where on the drive did you wish to put it? Were you hoping for a dual-boot? Depending on the above info depends on how might you proceed next... bootdisk.com has assorted bootdisks; look for the '98SE with CDROM drivers file. Download that file to a hard-drive. Run/execute the file (it is usually a self-extracting file) and extract to a floppy; use "that" floppy. If you were going for a dual-boot... then the neccessary boot/start-up files for '98 will (all things beng equal...) still be there intact. XP (immediately it starts to install) creates a botsect.dos using the '98 original boot-files/mbr info; the actual boot-files files remain intact. All that is required to restore access/boot is to reset the mbr (now the XP version) to '98 is a simple: boot with a '98 boot-disk and run/type the command: sys c: and press Enter. Remove the floppy and reboot - again - to '98 only. "Usually" very wise to first ensure a given system is truly OK for XP - before you start out on the install path...; also to have to hand all required drivers etc. for the basic system...

Re last para #2. This is the sort of reason that info such as CPU/RAM is requested on this forum. Best to provide the info and let the forum decide whether or not it is applicable. DerekW