[Vaskez]

I wouldn't worry about it, with Windows installing from scratch is probably easier than upgrading. When you upgrade it asks you all sorts of questions like what file system you want and what old programs you want to use on the new operating system etc.
I haven't actually installed XP but I've upgraded to Windows 2000 from 98 then I've later created another partition and reinstalled 98 on it to run old DOS programs. The installation of 98 from scratch was much simpler than the upgrading...everything has instructions that a 6 year-old could understand. The installation fees charged by people are for customers who have no experience at all and are scared. Just the fact that you have been a member on this board shows you have at least some experience using PCs so I doubt very much that you need help. If you want to be really safe then just back up all data that you need then go to DOS prompt type "format c:" as people have said. Follow instructions. This will wipe your whole hard drive. Now boot from the CD as someone else said, setting the boot sequence first. Follow the on-screen instructions.
The NTFS file system that windows XP will offer you is best as it stores data more efficiently so uses up less hard disk space than the same data on a FAT32 partition. It also provides an indexing service allowing for faster searching. The only time you wouldn't want NTFS is if you had win 98 or older installed on another partition and you wanted it to see the NTFS partition, cos it can't.

If you want to mess around with partitions, more than one OS, then I suggest you get Partition Magic 7 which allows you to easily create/resize/move/delete partitions.

I can't give you any XP specific help cos I haven't bothered to install it yet. You say it's $200??! I'm glad I get it free from university....just haven't been bothered to get it yet. Can anyone give me any reason to install it instead of a Windows 2000/98 dual boot system?

[ 09-08-2002, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]