600X 2645 5EG OS upgrade using Win XP upgrade

[andy264]

Is it possible to upgrade using just the XP upgrade disk? At present Win 98se is installed and the C:drive is 2GB but shows insufficient space to install XP. The D: drive has approx 9GB space. I only have the Recovery CD to install W98se. Can I remove the partition and re-install W98se before attempting to install XP upgrade. Thanks for any help.

[GomJabbar]

You can choose to do a clean install when upgrading. I have also read that you can put in the older Windows CD when the upgrade is looking for the previous version of Windows - I have not tried this.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ ... atrix.mspx

[440roadrunner]

I don't think you can do this "directly" that is with only the recovery CD, but there ""is"" possibly a workaround, and it will entail a little "work."

What you basically need to do is build your own Winhoed98 install CD, or at least get the cab files and setup.exe "somewhere" that you can access them. I'm pretty sure you can't do it from the recovery Cd.

Here's what you do, and I assume you have a CD burner. Assuming you have at least a basic, working, Windows 98 installation on the Thinkpad, find and make sure you have the '98 .cab files (\options\cabs)?

Then, either by networking the machine or by removing the hard drive, and slaving it into your desktop, copy the cab files "somewhere." I also copy the \command files, and any other "handy" stuff on the hard drive.

Now, using a standard Winhoed98 startup floppy for a "boot image" burn yourself a bootable CD and put all those files on there.

It might actually be a good idea to test it, and you should be able to do an actuall "clean" installation with the result. (to test)

You do NOT have to install Winhozed98 FIRST. You can (assuming the CD works) start "clean" with an XP upgrade, and just jam the 'ol 98 cd in there.

Recovery CD's. Ain't they wonnerful?

It's been awhile since I used a '98 recovery CD, and I don't remember that it gives you an option for partioning. If it does, you could do a recovery, and just leave a small, 200mb or so partition. (d:) Then, after recovering, assuming this works, copy your .cab files over to the D: partition, and then do a clean install using the XP upgrade. You can then point the installer to D: for the "proof files."

If I get time, I'll do a little experimentation with this.

[BillD]

You can do a clean install of XP with just a previous version of a Windows OS CD.. I'm not sure if this will work with a recovery disk,but it definately works with any Win OS CD.. So if you can beg or borrow a Win95 or 98 CD or whatever from a friend you're good to go..

When you load your XP upgrade CD if it dosn't 'see' a preivious version of Windows on the HDD it will ask you to remove the XP CD from the drive and put in a previous Win OS CD..Once it sees this CD you can put the XP CD back in the drive and you're good to go...

[serverbook]

make sure you have 2x partitions ,leave 98 as is,upgrade from within windows 98,use manual intstall and select to upgrade via loading xp to the d drive,that way you can have duall boot option,thus if not happy with xp you can wipe it off d drive and revert back to just w98 in c drive
this is superior to what microsoft implies (period).
besides win xp is absolute codswallop for dos programs,
by having 98 on its own allows one to utilised dos properly,unlike pathedic
xp dos interpretations.