My harddrive where i had WindowsXP installed crashed, now I have to re-install XP on my second harddrive. The problem is that it's a NTFS drive and I have WindowsXP upgrade so that I would have to install Windows98 first. However Windows98 won't recognize NTFS and want's to re-format it to FAT32. Any suggestions or do I have to buy a new harddrive and do a clean install of 98 & XP?

You don't need to install 98 first. Just change the boot order in your bios so that the boots from the cd first. Just have your Win98 cd handy because Xp's setup will ask for it so that it can verify that your eligible for the upgrade. Hope this helps, Sandman

Sandman is correct, even the upgrade version can be used for a clean install. You should always do this too because installing over an older OS causes all sorts of problems, as I guess you have discovered.

Thanks 4 the quick response guys, I'll try that when I get my PC back from maintenance later today. However Clark, it's not the OS upgrade install that was the problem, it's the 20GB IBM Deskstar that crapped out on me. I just hope it will survive long enough to copy some crucial files over to my 60GB Maxtor. PS. I probably have to buy a new HD anyway. I was saving up for a GeForce4 but now I guess that has to wait until christmas.

I wouldnt trash your hard drive just yet.. NTFS partitions arent seen by win98 and all of the old dos versions and if it is a hidden NTFS it will not be seen by just about everything,,, use fdisk and format to clear out NTFS partitions then reformat in fat32.. you just have to make boot disk and copy format to it.. or go to bootdisk.com You will have to recreate a primary partition.