My wife's girlfriend had a computer built for her and since then has had nothing but trouble with it. First off the person that built it does not live around here anymore, so she can't go back on him. The main problem is when she starts her comp. it shows 2 OS's one is Window's XP Home and one is Windows 98 she has to pick one and hit the F1 key to get into her destop. She can not get into 98 at all because of missing file's but he has most of her harddrive allocated to the 98 partition. My question is if I reinstall Windows XP for her will it wipe out both OS's and only have one partition because that is what she wants, I also believe that she needs her Motherboard CD so that after I reinstall Windows I would have to reinstall the disc for her motherboard is that correct. Any help would be appreciated

Doing a Clean Install of XP choosing a single partition will wipe the drive, yes.

Here is a good guide: http://michaelstevenstech.com/index.html

As mentioned in the above link you should be prepared to install SP2 if you don't create a slipstreamed XP SP2 disk.
There are instructions how to do this above plus a guide to the neccessary tools.
We have done this many times & it is quite easy providing you have a CD burner.

As to the motherboard issue I am not sure. I would think the board would be fine as is.
In the event you need to reinstall the driver package it would preceed the installation of XP.

Hope this helps.

Thanks jephree I was hoping as much, one more question if you dont mind I noticed on the link you sent me too that if I wanted to put it all on one partition it would only let me use 32 gigs, she has a 40 gig HD how would I be able to use the whole HD then. I think that is what the other guy did, when he got to that part he didn't know what to do, because they are broken into 32 gigs Windows 98 and Windows XP 8 gigs.


Again thanks for the reply the link helped greatly

If there is 32gb alloacted to 98 and 8gb to XP then there are two separate partions on the hard disk.

When you come to re-install XP you'll be given the option to either -

install on the select partion (press enter)
delete the partion (press d)
create a partion (press c, but only if there is some free space to create one)
quiz (F3)

Note: these options will be given to you after you have been shown the Terms and Conditions of Microsoft (press F8 to agree) and once its checks for any other copys / installiotns of anyother microsoft products (press either enter or esc to install a new copy)


To get XP to use the full disk you will have to delete both partions (some combiation of enter and L will accept and delete the partions one at a time).
Once this is done, then you will see the whole disk -

C:\ unpartioned <RAW> - or something to that effect


press either press enter to install XP or c to create the partion and then install XP, either way you need to format the partion in NTFS (quick) as its more stable, easier to search with file recovery programs and is easier to defrag

Hope this helps



Regards
_____
Meck