Dwayne Burbridge wrote: . Is there any place that provides specific instructions (ie what > needs to be on bootable floppy other than cd drivers etc, what order to > doo things, > and I'm sure there are a number of avoidable traps? Also, can I buy the > Win98 upgrade and insert my 95 cd when it asks or do I need the full > version of 98 as it will be a clean install? Does the upgrade include > the bootable floppy? This is off the cuff, but hopefully it will be not too confusing: If you can find a Windows 98 boot floppy (comes with full version, not with upgrade) it will load the CD drivers (it's a godsend of a universal CD-enabling rescue disk). *Usually that is* ...unless it's an older machine with the CD-ROM attached to an interface card instead of directly to the motherboard or chained with the hard drive. In that case you'll have to make an older boot disk with CD drivers or copy over the Win98 folder from a Jaz driver to the newly formatted hard drive (using Iomega's DOS guest.exe) and install from the hard drive. The upgrade will ask for the 95 CD or Windows 3.1 floppies (a really long cumbersome floppy shuffle if you go the 3.1 route). An install using the Win98 folder (about 110 megs) copied from a Jaz drive will let you redirect that upgrade query to a folder on the Jaz cartridge to see the Win95 folder files (about 79 megs for the B version) and that will satisfy the upgrade version quickly. I frequently use the Jaz drive with the Traveler parallel port connectors on machines with no CD-ROM drive and no SCSI card. Ahead of time I have copied on a CD-enabled machine the Win98 and Win95 install folders from their CDs to a Jaz disk. I always copy (even if the CD drive is working) the .CAB files folder from the Windows CD to the newly formatted hard drive and install from the hard drive. I make a directory and subdirectory using DOS commands: MD C:\Windows <enter> and MD C:\Windows\Cabs <enter>) and then copy the cab files to that subdirectory: Copy E:\Win98\*.* C:\windows\cabs <enter> The Win98 boot floppy will create a Ramdisk drive letter so don't confused if you see a D letter for it (or lower on the alphabet if you have multiple physical drives). Change directory and run setup: CD C:\Windows\Cabs <enter> and Setup <enter> Early in the installation Windows will suggest you install to C:\Windows.000 BE SURE and click the Other circle and backspace out the .000 at the next screen so it installs properly to C:\Windows. It thinks you already have a Windows installation since it detects the directory you created. You could avoid this slight misunderstanding by placing the .CAB files in a folder on the new drive other then layered under Windows, but that is a good safe place for those files to reside instead on in the root directory. Most factory installed machines will have their .CAB files layered even farther for safekeeping (C:\Windows\Options\Cabs). Why install from the hard drive instead of from the CD? Well it is about twice as fast for one thing and the other reason is that your .CAB files will always be available for a driver or Windows component update or a refresher reinstall. If your hard drive is small do it anyway for the speed factor and then later delete that .CAB folder. A big hard drive should contain the .CAB files. If they are not there on a Windows machine with a large hard drive copy them from the CD and do a Registry edit to redirect the SourcePath to the newly created .CABs folder. Of course don't forget with your new hard drive you will have to do two things before formatting and installing Windows. You will need to autodetect the drive in the Setup and then boot with a Win98 floppy and run Fdisk.exe to create the partition (or multiple partitions if you wish) and make it active. New drives MUST have fdisk done on them...older drives can be merely formatted if that is your preference. The fdisk.exe file is on the Win98 floppy and the command at the A: prompt is simply: FDISK <enter> Be aware Fdisk is a utility that blows out all data and if you run it also on the older drive the data will be removed if you use that fdisk menu option. On a system with more than one physical drive FDISK has a 5th menu item at the main screen in which it asks you which drive you want to look at for consideration of the fdisk options. Fdisk is a little coarse and you may fumble around a bit, but you'll get the hang of it. After using fdisk you must reboot before formatting the drives and EACH drive letter must be formatted individually. Hope that helps, Russell Smith Edtech Consultant, Journalist Region 14 Education Service Center Abilene, Texas http://camalott.com/~rssmith mailto:[log in to unmask] Better Schools Build Better Communities! PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download visit our download web page at: http://nospin.com/pc/files.html