[Solved] Another reformatting question or three

I'm getting ready to upgrade from 95 to 98, and I'd like to reformat my C drive before I do. My PC was made from recycled parts of friends' computers, so I don't have system information/drivers on a manufacturer's disk. Is there any way to know in advance if that's going to be a problem if I use a Windows 98 Second Ed. (full version) OEM CD that I bought on ebay? (It has a COA.) I've copied the contents of C onto my D drive, and made a boot disk. Thanks in advance!

 

Go to my web site, I have a section that tells you how to do a clean format starting at formatting the hard drive and step by step instructions.

http://www.rselby.com/Windows.html#13

 

You could run into drivers problems but you can resolve most of them by going to the makers website and downloading the drivers. I'd also suggest going into DeviceManager and writing down the make and model number of the modem, video card, sound card and network cards before you format so you'll know that info if or when you need to get the drivers. After a clean reinstall of Windows, some device makes and model numbers, especially onboard devices and older hardware, can't be detected by Windows and they only will show things like, "PCI Communications Device", "Standard PCI....", etc... requiring you to pull open the cover and look for numbers on the card themselves. Writing down the info ahead of time will prevent the need to do that in most cases.

Start>Settings>CP>System>DeviceManager.

To get the video card info click on the "+" next to "Display Adapters". The make and model number of your video card will appear underneath. Now do the same on the "+" next to "Modems", "Sound, Video and Games Controllers" and "Network Adapters".

Let us know how it went.

 

Thank you both very much. Bryan, the device manager lists my modem as a Lucent Win Modem without a specific model number. Will that be a problem? (Not sure if it matters, but it's an internal 56K modem that I expect to only be using for another week or two.)

 

If you run into problems getting device drivers, go to The Drivers Guide and do a search.

The information you will need for most drivers is the chipset name and number. Look at the card, usually the largest chip is the one you're looking for. You said your modem was a lucent...start with that first. Find the large chip with Lucent on it, then write down the numbers under it. Do the same for video, sound, etc! Get all of the drivers before reformating (save them to another disk) and when you do a fresh install, you should have everything you need right there!

 

What a great site, Randy -- Thanks much!

 

Bryan wrote:

>Let us know how it went.

Great -- Thanks so much for your help!

 

Thanks for the feedback. I will mark this thread solved.