Reinstalling windows 98, but keeping existing drivers / software setup 2

[Psyke]

Hi guys.

I'm going to do a reinstall of a friends machine soon, and instead of wiping the whole HardDrive clean, and reinstalling 98 from scratch is there a way to keep the existing drivers / software and JUST reinstall the O/S only?

And by doing this will it help performance?
Or should i just wipe the drive and start clean and reinstall everything after a clean install?

Any replies are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[edfair]

A clean install is usually best. An overlay install will resolve some problems with the worst case result leading to a clean install.

Because of the way things load it is possible that an overlay may make things worse. And another overlay might be needed. I have taken 4 reinstalls (my worst) on top of each other to resolve issues created by the previous one.

You might want to put the install stuff on the hard drive, that speeds things up. Look in the FAQs for guidance.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[torturedmind]

i agree with sir ed as i am experiencing this now. in order to save time (i thought i could) i just did an overlay install of my win98se box to keep all existing software, settings and everything in the soup. but as a result, some of my anime movies won't play properly (kinda jumpy) and i cant burn them that way onto my cd's. now am planning to do a clean install this weekend to resolve everything.

hope this helps. peace

kilroy
philippines

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."

 

[edfair]

If you do a clean install, how about documenting the install steps so you can do it the same way tne next time. Much easier if you have known good steps rather than reinventing the stuff each time.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[BIS]

Before reinstalling you could grab all your existing drivers with something like

http://www.driverguidetoolkit.com/

This way at least you will be sure you have the drivers...

 

[torturedmind]

good point sir ed!

kilroy
philippines

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."