Wipe or Replace?

May 23, 2005 10:22 AM

I have a P-3 Dell desktop with Win98 that is a few years old and has been buggy of late, even with all the virus and adware scans I can do on it. I also have a laptop with XP and the XP install disks (I have reinstalled XP on this one). I feel like it's time to start fresh with the desktop, so my question is two-pronged: 1. Would it be easier to just buy a new hard drive (since a 20 gig one is relatively cheap) than to reformat the existing one and reinstall everything? 2. Would you reinstall Win98 or go with XP (assuming that it WOULD install on this box and I don't know any reason why it would not)?
posted by Danf to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

from a purely legal standpoint, I can't suggest putting XP on the machine, since you don't own a liscense for it.

That being said, what's the clock speed on that bad boy?
I just put XP on a 750Mhz with 256 MB of ram, and it's respectable, but not fast. You shouldn't have any major hardward driver issues with a dell machine. They're stuff is part of Microsoft's bread and butter, so it all plays togeter nicely.

Spring for the new hard drive...running out of room is a pain in the ass that's more than worth the $$ to avoid.
posted by cosmicbandito at 10:28 AM on May 23, 2005

1) Not really. If the original hard drive is fine, formatting and reinstalling it is not muh different than buying a new drive, installing it, and reinstalling the OS. I don't see a point in the latter, other than to buy a newer hard drive.

2) Go with XP. Install it and see how it runs. If it does OK, keep it installed. If it doesn't, you can always reinstall 98.
posted by nitsuj at 10:29 AM on May 23, 2005

I'm running XP on my P3 800 laptop and haven't had any problems.
posted by forallmankind at 10:31 AM on May 23, 2005

My understanding is that OEM XP install CDs vary with the partner, and can only be used with the corresponding hardware. You may not be able to use the XP CD you got with your laptop with the desktop (and if you did, you can expect it to balk at activation time.)

It's easier to install on an existing drive than to buy a new one and install it, but once it's installed there's no difference. But you should run diagnostics on your existing hard drive to see if it's the source of your problems (I recall there was an AskMe thread on hard drive diagnosis recently...)

If this computer's going to be on the Net, I can't recommend strongly enough against 98. It's a tough world out there, and you need an up-to-date OS.

XP should run just fine on a P3, but it might be a little pokey.

Before you invest a lot of time or money in upgrading this machine, be sure to look at Tech Bargains and Deal News -- you can get a Dell P4 2.8 GHz with XP pre-installed for under $400 -- that might be easier, depending on your priorities.

And I feel compelled to mention that Linux could be a free way to breathe new life into the hardware -- I recently went through an XP install and an Ubuntu Linux install, and Ubuntu was actually easier (not to say that everything else is as easy.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 11:01 AM on May 23, 2005

I'm running XP on my PII 400, and it's chugging along fine. I'd install XP, and get a new HD. It'll be worth it. I 20gig HDs are easily under 50, and I wouldn't be surprised if you can find it for under 30 with some digging.
posted by ruwan at 11:04 AM on May 23, 2005

Don't buy another hard drive, it will be more work for you. Just boot of the installation CD in and reformat your current drive. If you run out of space in the future, you can buy a second hard drive, install it along side your current hard drive and move all of your data files over to it. I really doubt you'll ever need more than 20G for your applications installs.

XP will run just fine if you have 256MB of memory- we had some PII 300Mhz machines with 128MB of RAM that we put XP on, and it ran pretty well for doing things like editing word documents and surfing the web. I would recommend at least 256MB though if you're going to be doing any multitasking.
posted by gus at 11:04 AM on May 23, 2005

You can disable a lot of crap that's on by default in WinXP. Blackviper had an *excellent* tweak/services guide, but is site's down.

Here are the archived copies of his super tweaks and SP1a services configurations and SP2 service configurations (if you want to go with SP2 - I'm still on SP1).

/P3 1.2ghz laptop w/ 256M ram runs WinXP just great (especially after the tweaks).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:29 AM on May 23, 2005

Try Knoppix. I really mean, try it - just boot off the CD and play with it. No install necessary.
posted by autojack at 11:39 AM on May 23, 2005

If you decide to replace the HD, roll back the hard drive's drivers before installing the new one.
posted by Kwantsar at 12:01 PM on May 23, 2005

I have a Dell P-III 450 and had similar problems with Win98. I installed Win2000 Pro and it is still running fine. You should be able to find legitimate copies of this relatively cheaply now.
posted by Yorrick at 3:32 PM on May 23, 2005

...but note that Win 2K goes unsupported at the end of June, and the next time a killer vulnerability is revealed, Microsoft's response can be exected to be "Gosh, you'd better upgrade to XP." I wouldn't consider starting to use Win 2K for a machine that was going to be on the Net (for the maintainability reason -- I consider a patched Win 2K to be generally adequate today, just totally inadequate as soon as the next problem is found.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 4:06 PM on May 23, 2005

I run XP Home SP2 on an elderly 266MHz HP desktop with 192MB RAM and it works just fine. I've seen it run like an absolute dog on machines with faster CPUs and 128MB RAM.

I would recommend buying a second hard disk (get a nice big one, with a nice big buffer - 200GB drives with 8MB buffers are cheap, cheap, cheap per gigabyte), install it alongside your existing drive. Make sure you have it hooked up with 80-way ATA cable, not 40-way, to get a decent transfer rate off it.

Create a 120GB partition at the start of the big drive and format it with FAT32 (use your existing Windows 98 FDISK and FORMAT commands for that). Use that partition for music and videos. Formatting a partition with FAT32 means you get no kind of security (access control) on it, but you can use it easily with Windows 98, XP and/or Linux. Keeping the partition size below 128GB and putting it at the start of the drive means you're less likely to run into trouble with some of Windows 98's large-drive access issues.

Next, create a 10GB partition (more than enough room for XP and a heap of software), and try your XP install on that, formatting it with NTFS along the way. Leave Windows 98 installed on your old drive, lest you have trouble with XP. You'll end up with a dual-boot machine.

Make another 10GB partiton and install a Linux on that.

You can figure out what to do with your leftover 60GB later.
posted by flabdablet at 5:33 PM on May 23, 2005

Zed_Lopez recommended against Win98, apparently citing security concerns. I'd like to counter with my personal opinion and experience. I still run Win98 on one of my machines at home with no issues. It gets quite a bit of use, including a lot of web surfing and downloading. True, any remaining unpatched vulnerabilities will remain that way (as well as any discovered in the future) because it's no longer supported. But since so many people have moved away from it, it's not as much of a target. Compare Windows to Macintosh, or Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox; the same can be said for XP and 98. In addition, keep in mind that safety and security (in relation to malware and exploits) is largely dependent on your activites, especially your online habits. I use a decent virus scanner, which I keep up to date, and good anti-spyware programs, which I also regularly update. I've found though, that I could do without them - I don't ever get viruses or malware in the first place. I use Firefox but still stay away from questionable sites. I have a router in place acting as a firewall. Not to brag, but I know what to do - and what not to do - to stay safe.

For an answer to your question: it's up to you. I have come to believe more and more lately that personal computing should be about what you want, and what you like. Just like when buying a car - even if you need a certain kind of car (a van for the kids, a truck for farm work), the style and feel of it is still a big part of the decision. If you love XP, and don't care one way or the other for 98, go with XP. (But buy another copy.) If you still enjoy 98, and/or have some programs that you use and enjoy, and work particularly well with 98, use 98. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here - you make the choice. It may help you to be more fully informed on pros and cons, and this sort of forum is a good place to hear those. Listen to those who sound like they know what they're talking about (that's all we have to go by here) and let that help guide you. But ultimately, it's your choice.
posted by attercoppe at 5:58 PM on May 23, 2005

Max out your RAM, seriously.

Oh, and don't take the "go for linux" posts seriously. If you just want it to work without spending weeks trying to compile the right kernel for your (sub-standard) drivers, Windows is far better than linux.
posted by krisjohn at 7:06 PM on May 23, 2005

And how long ago was that experience, krisjohn? Linux installation and automatic hardware recognition has come a long way in the past couple of years. Have you been within 10 feet of a current Suse, Linspire, Xandros, Ubuntu or Mandriva?

I've installed Ubuntu 5.04 on two machines. It automatically handled the graphics cards, ethernet on the motherboard (in one case), wireless card (the other), and sound cards, and, after installation, USB storage devices worked as expected. I did update the graphics drivers on one box (as I did after the XP install on the same box,) but there's not a kernel recompile in sight.

The user-friendly Linuxes have become perfectly practical if you just want it to work. (Some Linux distributions other than those mentioned above don't particularly have user-friendliness an a primary design goal. But judging Xandros by Gentoo would be silly.)(And I like Gentoo, it's just not for the "just want it to work" crowd.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:15 PM on May 24, 2005