Bootdiscs&reformatting

Yep ,its me again!
I went on www.bootdisc.com but couldn't find where the boot disks were..but it was almost like jargon to me so I probably missed it!
Also how do I actually reformat? I followed the instructions that someone gave me in a link (thank you very much) but it doesn't actually say what to do..it gives you info on what to save and stff but not to actually do the reformating part!

I'd go HERE for a boot disk. (The folks at bootdisc appear to have gone out of business.)

There is some good basic information on reformatting HERE .

That said, reformatting is not for the faint of heart or for those who with only a casual interest or a shallow background in system operations. Once the process begins, everything, as in EVERYTHING, is wiped from the hard drive. The computer becomes a piece of sculpture until brought back to life by the re-installation of its operating system. And, of course, all of its other programs.

Might be an idea to look through some of the less-technical books on computers (the Dummies series is quite good) before jumping into one of the most radical things one can do to a system.

Yeah, everything doesn't work properly and i want to get everything off of my computer and start again and i assume this is the only way?

Are you reformatting your Win 98 computer?
Is it 98 or 98SE?
Bootdisk.com seems to have different downloads for 98 and 98SE, though I'm not sure it matters for your purposes.
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

After you download one and put it on a floppy, make sure it works before formatting. You should be able to access your CD drive using the bootdisk.

To format, boot of the floppy and type
FORMAT C:
at the prompt. It will probably ask you if you really want to do this, so type Y and Enter for yes. To access the CD drive, type the drive letter followed by a colon and enter it. If the boot disk has created a Ramdrive, your CD drive letter will probably be one letter higher than what it usually is (unless the computer is an HP or something and usually has the drive letter as M: ). If your drive letter is usually D:, it may end up being E: when you boot off the boot disk.
To install Windows, access the CD drive, type
SETUP
and enter it. It should prompt you.

I assume you've saved everything you need that is on your C: drive.

Best to get a Windows 95, 98, ME Startup Disk / Universal Boot Disk. One can be had from Ebay for less than $10.

It allows you to bootup to DOS with access to your CD-ROM drive which you will need to load up your operating system and easy managing of reformatting of the hard drive.

There is a site called Madboot, I find their boot disks very good, they have it for almost all Os. Once you have that and make sure it works it will prepair you HD to receive the OS.

Right, I have all the information off of my computer and i have the boot disc so how do i actually reformatt? do i need to go into command prompt or something?

If you have a Western Digital or Maxtor harddrive there may be an easier way to do a format. Until recently I had never done one with a boot disk and I'm not sure I could properly tell you how. I can stumble through the process on my own but not familiar enough with it to try to describe it to you. One thing I will say, though. You will need to know how to go into the BIOS and tell the computer to boot to a floppy and you need to be able to tell it to boot to a CD disk.

Put the floppy in the drive and reboot the computer.
If the floppy boots off the boot disk, you'll get the command prompt. If it doesn't, you may have to go into the BIOS and change the boot order.

But once you've booted off the boot disk, just type
FORMAT C:

It will ask you are you sure. Type Y for yes and it will get started.

When it's done, put the Windows CD in your CD drive, change to your CD drive - for example use the line
CD E:

Type DIR to check the files on the drive. If you are on the right drive, you should see things like the setup program and a Win 98 directory listed.

Type SETUP at the prompt to start installing Windows.