A neighbor has a PC that has Windows XP installed. He installed an HP 9100 CD Burner in this machine, he has a NEC Scanner and a Lexmark printer. The CD burner will not work because the drivers are not compatible with XP. The scanner will not work because there are no drivers available for XP. The printer will not work because XP does not detect it and we can find no drivers for it. Instead of buying new hardware, he has decided to trash XP and install 98. He has a complete copy of Windows 95 and an upgrade of 98. He has loaded his business files from his original computer as well as a lot of other new software. Can Windows 98 be installed without losing the files on the hard drive? If it can please tell me how to do this. A backup to floppies is not and option and the CD burner does not work. He does have Partition Magic version 6, but has never used it.

No, you have to format the hard drive to go back to 98, meaning everything is erased. You can back up any personal documents and other files like installation programs to a removable disk or to another partition, but all programs will have to be reinstalled. Sorry to hear about the problems; most hardware works fine with XP but some companies like HP are really lame when it comes to keeping their products up to date. I would recommend updating, or buying, a good CD burning program. Don't try to use the one that comes with XP. Easy CD Creator and Nero are both good. You can download a free trial of Nero and it might detect your writer and work fine. Also if you will post your printer and scanner model numbers someone might know of some drivers for them.

I need de drivers for a CARDREADER SAFEWAY for Windows XP, and I don't find, please help me!!

I have the same CD Burner and it works fine with XP. The XP Burning software works fine as well as Nero. I have nero 5.5.7.2. Be very wary of Easy CD version 5.01 or earlier. It can absolutely scramble your CD drivers.

I have the same HP CD burner and also just upgraded to XP. I went to HP's website and ordered an installation CD compatible with XP. You'd think they would provide a free download, but you have to order and pay (about $10.00). Took only a few days to get, and CD burner is now working fine.

Thanks a million. We have ordered the $10.00 upgrade from HP for the burner. Downloaded a driver for the Lexmark printer even though it has not been approved by Microsoft and the printer is now working. However the NEC scanner is still not working. It is a ReadyScan 636i. We cannot locate a driver that the system will recognize. Downloaded two that people said should work but we could not get them to work. These two drivers are for Windows 2000. Maybe we just do not know how to do it.