hello every one, If I install a new motherboard in my old gateway can I use fdisk/mbr to get the thing to boot?

No. You will need drivers for the motherboard and any other hardware that was changed.

I just don't want to format and reinstall, the computer works fine i just want to upgrade not rebuild, know what I mean? If I use fdisk/mbr will the computer boot? So I "can" install drivers.

You can boot from a win98 startup floppy to install windows. If you want to boot from the hard drive, boot up the floppy and type sys c: Typing fdisk /mbr `might' be necesssary, but probably not.

Assuming the HD is identifed the same in cmos on both motherboards--usually as AUTO--you won't have to do anything to get it to boot. However, once windows begins to load it will begin to detect the new motherboard hardware. For this reason some people remove those settings from the registry before the transfer. To do this run 'regedit' and delete the 'Enum' key under Hkey_Local_Machine. I've transferred drives both with and without removing that key and been successful. Another thing that may happen is that when windows detects the new hardware it may ask you to insert the 98 cd. However if it hasn't installed the IDE controller drivers it won't recognize the cdrom. So the other drivers won't load until the cdrom is recognized. To get around this you can create a folder on the HD before transferring containing the contents of the win98 folder on the 98 cd--if one is not there already. Then when it asks for the 98 cd click OK. It will say it can't find the file it's looking for and ask where to look for it. Then browse to the folder you created with the cab files and it will find what it needs there.