I recently was handed down a computer, with Windows 98 on it. What's the easiest way to clean the disk?

Question

I was recently handed down a desktop computer, with Windows 98 on it. What's the easiest and cheapest way to clean the disk, to start from new?

Answer 1

If you have the windows 98 cd, i would just reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows - of course all programs would also be lost.

You might just want to delete everything in my documents and uninstall any programs you wont be using.

If this is your first computer -do not go with a linux distribution which would be a free operating system.

Answer 2

It depends if you want to keep windows 98 on it if yes go to add remove and un install any program you do not want. if you want to install windows xp just insert the installation cd and follow it will format the hard drive and install by itself.

Answer 3

well, if you have the original windows disks, then you could use them to reformat and reinstall.

or, if there is a recovery cd or partition, you can use that to restore the computer to its original state.

keep in mind that either way, you will then need to d/l and install all updates and service packs that are available to get the system current.

if you don't have Windows disks, then you will need to do the cleanup manually.  go into add/remove programs and uninstall all programs you don't want/need.  then open MyDocuments and delete all the user files/pics/music contained there.

finally, download CleanUp! (from Steven Gould) and use it to delete all temporary files, history, bookmarks, etc.

Answer 4

on  windows 98 do start with dos the type fdisk and follow the steps

Answer 5

by reformatting it, if you have a Windows XP CD or vista then you can reformat before installing windows.

Answer 6

right click on partation and select format ... but dont format the c partation and the partaion where os is loaded