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When I built my machine I put my DVD drive and my HD with Win98 on one IDE cable, and my CD-RW drive and second HD on the other IDE cable. It didn't cross my mind at the time that this would slow down games. Will it hurt anything if I switch the cables without uninstalling the drives?

For reference:
Current Setup:
1st Cable: DVD drive - master, HD with OS - slave
2nd Cable: CD-RW drive - master, 2nd HD - slave

Setup I want:
1st Cable: DVD drive - master, CD-RW drive - slave
2nd Cable: HD with Win98 - master, 2nd HD - slave

Can anyone forsee any problems with this?

Shouldn't hurt your games, the only thing I could think of it hurting would be links, cause odds are your drive letters will change.

Some advice: Upgrade to Win XP...98 is teh suck

Afrotect wrote:Some advice: Upgrade to Win XP...98 is teh suck

Yeah, tell me about it. But I'm King Cheapskate so I haven't yet. Follow-up questions with that, btw.

If I do switch to XP, do I need to format my HD and start clean?
If I reformat, will I have to buy the XP full version?
I haven't done much research on the differences between XP and 98, are the file systems different?

In short, what is the best way to go about upgrading from 98 to XP?

Odds are your pc is using the FAT or FAT32 file system, and 2000 and XP both are best run with NTFS.

Here's what I'd do: Pick up XP (Home or Professional), back up all your sensitive data and saves and such, then reformat your hd with xp on it. You even could move your sensitive data over to your other hd, then format the primary and re-install your games and such.

I didn't tell you this, but there are..."free" copies of XP out there if you have the means, I don't support pirating software, nor does BreakmanX.com, but there are people who do.

I am not responsible for your actions

wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more...

Can I buy just an upgrade version of XP, rather than a full version?

Please tell me I'm wrong, but to use an upgrade version of XP I'd have to install it on a hard drive that already had another Windows OS on it. For me that means that even if I reformat my HD, to install windows I'll still have to use a FAT or FAT32 partition to install 98 and then upgrade to XP. Right?

I wouldn't try to upgrade from 98 to XP, it'd probably have more problems than you could imagine. At my work (I do tech support, computer building / upgrading and the like) we have problems even upgrading 2000 to XP, so I'd say don't do it, just reformat.

Agreed. If you're going to go with XP, best to just wipe the hard drive and start fresh. Otherwise you'll make more trouble for yourself than you can possibly imagine. It gives Afro and I a headache.

Gotcha.

Thanks for the help, and keep up the good work on the website.

I always do

The cable switching should be fine. You might have to change a couple drive letters back if you want, but that's no big deal.

As for the OS issue, I'd definitelly go with XP. I used to be really hooked on 98 because everything ran on it, and after playing with Win 2000, games ran like ass for the most part. And after the complete nightmare from hell that was Windows Me...

XP is actually really nice though and there's a lot of differences than 98. One thing I really like about it is it does make installing stuff much easier. I don't have to fight and find drivers for everything unless to update them. It runs stable, and yes the file system is different. The only thing I can say about gaming is that it doesn't like to run some DOS games if you want to play them on occasion.

Also DON'T get an upgrade CD. I tried that way back in the day with upgrading from 3.1 to 95. Never again. It's a huge pain and you're just asking for trouble. My advice is to back everything you want up, and format the drive.

Also I'm a firm believer in partitions. If you don't have partitions right now, I'd do it when installing. I don't know how big your hard drive is, but it's proably the way to go. I for example just got a 120 GB drive. I set the C partition for 30 GB for Windows and basic programs. The rest is for everything else. This saves you if you ever mess up Windows. Then you can reformat the partition and still have all your important documents and such. After losing lots of stuff a while back, I've always done this from then on.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, it does.

I used the same logic you do with the partitioning, but I used a completely separate HD. I have 98 and most of my apps installed on the small HD and most of my other stuff on the big HD. That's how I got away with rebuilding my machine w/o backing up my gigs of music and videos. I just wiped the small HD and reinstalled 98 and my other software, then plugged the big HD in and voila'.

Am I right in assuming that if I wipe the small HD and put XP on it, I'll have to wipe the big one too and switch it to NTFS? It's FAT32 right now, like the small HD.

Ok, if I read that right, your OS is on the small HD. You'd reformat that and put XP on that. There is no OS on the big HD? Just files and stuff? If that's the case, then no, it's fine to leave that as Fat32 for now. It's not as secure as NTFS, but it works. If you ever want to reformat it in the future, I'd go NTFS. In fact one of my drives, my old media drive actually, is Fat32 still I believe.

The only other thing to watch for when having multiple drives is the jumpers, just that your OS drive is Primary master.

You can have windows change your drive from fat/fat32 to NTFS, it just takes some time depending on the size of the hard drive. Look that up

Afro, that is music to my ears.

You guys have sold me enough on XP to start shopping for online deals, so now I have another question. Hopefully it'll be the last, but don't count on it. Picking your collective brains has been extremely helpful.

I've pretty much decided on XP Home Edition, I can't see paying the extra money for the extra features in Professional that I probably won't use. My question is, should I buy a retail or an OEM copy?

I dont know a HELl of alot about the PC but what ive heard and is obvious for gaming you should get PRO fo sho!

Thats just my opinion!