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Going from 98SE to XP, using an XP full version, will I, or will I not, lose the data on my hard drive?

I've never installed a new OS, and the only times I've had to reinstall 98 are when I used a quick restore disk to clean up my HD.

If you do an "upgrade install", you won't lose your data. However, I don't recommend doing an "upgrade" because this just causes XP to have problems (driver issues and stuff like that). I'm not sure if doing a "clean install" will leave your data intact or not. My recommendation is to back up your data onto CDs (or something else is fine, too) and then do a "clean install" of WinXP.

BTW, in case you are wondering how you can know whether or not you're doing a "clean install" or an "upgrade install", those are both options which Windows gives you when you start the installation process.

StarKnightGoku wrote:Going from 98SE to XP, using an XP full version, will I, or will I not, lose the data on my hard drive?

I've never installed a new OS, and the only times I've had to reinstall 98 are when I used a quick restore disk to clean up my HD.

CDRecorder wrote:If you do an "upgrade install", you won't lose your data. However, I don't recommend doing an "upgrade" because this just causes XP to have problems (driver issues and stuff like that). I'm not sure if doing a "clean install" will leave your data intact or not. My recommendation is to back up your data onto CDs (or something else is fine, too) and then do a "clean install" of WinXP.

What he said.

Clean install will wipe everything clean. Back up your data, delete the existing partition, recreate it in its maximum size and do a full format in NTFS.

All of these options are available after you hit F8 @ the EULA (except the backing up the data part).

Upgrade installs always leave behind DLLs, reg keys etc... to cause problems. It will not be as stable as a clean install. Not to mention, if you're space constrained, it leaves a lot of stuff behind that needlessly takes up space.

Thanks guys

You're welcome.