Laptop WinME being downgraded to 98SE problem

[MoonMan]

Hi, I'm trying to downgrade this shitty (and old) Dell laptop to Win 98SE from Win Me for a friend. Basically because the system itself has had the operating system for far too long (anytime is too much time with Win Me), and I really reeaallly would rather not reinstall a fresh copy of Win Me when 98SE would just be more stable on this system.

Problem is, I keep getting messages that I can't. When I tried to install with the computer already booted up, it gave me a message saying setup was disabled because I had a newer version.. and when I tried to boot from the CD, the setup stopped me at some point and said it was unable to install because of a newer version.

Should I just get a cheap Linux distro to wipe the harddrive and reformat? How can I navigate around this problem and continue with the installation? Thanks.

[MoonMan]

I just remembered the fdisk command to delete and remake the partitions, and now it's telling me in the setup that it cannot install because an error was detected while formatting the primary hard disk partition! And that's it!

I need help, lol.

[tackdaddy]

maybe a win98se boot disk would help.

[hawkburn]

Hmm I couldn't tell you as to why the downgrade isn't working. All I could suggest is that instead of 98SE you "upgrade" to 2000. 2000 is a stable environment, and there would be no "cannot downgrade" problems. Also.. 2000 is as easy to come by as 98SE ;) 2000 will also be more compatible, as XP and vista were written on top of 2000, basically (although MS will never admit it truly)

[bobhss]

After you use fdisk you need to use format. I'm not sure what you are booting off of, so you might have to add format.com to the boot disk if it's a floppy. If you've already fdisk'd and wanted to upgrade you may be in hot water. Find a way to fix the master boot record.

[MoonMan]

No boot disk, I was using Win98SE's fdisk. So far, it seems pretty fucked. Right now I'm downloading Win2k in hopes that it will be the magic cure to my fucked up partitions, but I'm also downloading some Linux distros to use to clean up the partition table. That worked for me a long time ago using Mandrake (which is now Mandriva or some shit), so I'm hoping the same is true now.

I already tried Knoppix and it seemed to get through the setup process, but then the laptop screen goes nuts and it looks like a broken tv. I can see the cursor and move it, but the rest is just jumbled colors. I feel like this laptop is fucked, but I'm not going to stop trying.

[Feather]

Download a copy of ultimate boot disk and use it to clean the drive and repartition. then use a win98 start up disk to format and put system files on the win98se disk to install

[MoonMan]

I couldn't get Win98 SE to fix the tables and kept getting really scary errors (that made me think the harddrive was fucked), and the WinME copy wasn't bootable... soo I tried Windows 2000 pro. I should have done that at the start since I have had such good luck with it in the past, and it works perfectly now.

Had to hunt down video and sound drivers but it was well worth the trouble.

Thanks for the replies.

[Auggie2k]

Hmm I couldn't tell you as to why the downgrade isn't working. All I could suggest is that instead of 98SE you "upgrade" to 2000. 2000 is a stable environment, and there would be no "cannot downgrade" problems. Also.. 2000 is as easy to come by as 98SE ;) 2000 will also be more compatible, as XP and vista were written on top of 2000, basically (although MS will never admit it truly)TOTALLY agree! Downgrading from the likes of XP to 2000 is ok because it's more modern and Plug and Play is in use but doing it from ME (the nightmare) to 98SE won't work... i've went through this before. Windows 2000 is a great program, performance like XP and the lightness of 98SE.