My WinXP Pro Experience

[Valek]

First off Here are my System Specs:

Asus A7V Rev. 1.04, Bios 1008
AMD 1.2 Ghz Not O/C'd
1GB Crucial PC133 SDRAM
30 GB Seagate Barracuda ATA100
Swiftech MC462OA HSF
Enermax 431W PS
Leadtek Winfast GeForce3
Creative SB Live X-Gamer 5.1

The First time I installed XP I "THOUGHT" that, according to the options I chose, that it was going to reformat the HD and do a fresh install of XP, getting rid of 98 and converting to NTFS. Wrongo!! It basically half-a**ed upgraded my system to XP. All of the files and folders from 98 were still there but now unaccessible through my start menu unless I reinstalled them over the existing ones. Finally, having gotten tired of that, I decided to say screw it and put 98 back in. I guess I love the familiarity of 98 and at least having SOME idea of what I am doing (Granted that is not good since I am studying for my MCSE). Eventually the XP bug got to me again and this time I thought since it is ONLY going to let me upgrade and not do a fresh install I would at least start with a fresh install of 98 to upgrade from. No Problem. Everything went fine...UNTIL the first time I tried to upgrade the drivers for my SBLive card with "WinXP" drivers from Creative. Well, don't you know after they installed that the machine hung when trying to reboot...had to hit my reset button to start the rebot process...BAD Move...But the only one I had...Now XP no longer recognized my ATA 100 HDD...told me that there was a boot disk failure. Soooo I hadto go into my case, swap over my HDD to the Primary 66 controller. I was able to boot then, went to the system restore thinking that it was a problem with the drivers, restored the system, and swapped my HDD back to the ATA100 controller. Machine booted normally. No more problems with it for a day or two UNTIL I tried to install the drivers for my Iomega Zip250 ATAPI. Yes, the Drivers were the ones from Iomega, specified for WinXP.....What happened? Repeat of above, except this time, after I switched to my ATA66 controller, I could POST and got to the boot Screen and no matter what option I chose..Boot Normally, Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, I would get to the WINXP Logo Screen and it would hang and would not boot. So, of course, what did I do...I used the trusty fix all command...Format C: My problem disappeared and I now have Win98 back on my machine, but I am disappointed in myself for not being able to figure out the problem (1), for giving up so quickly (2), for depending on my Machine so much that I can't have it down for days trying to figure out a problem I have no idea where to start figuring from. The ONLY thing I can think of is that Both of the driver files were .exe files. I did not update them or rather TRY updating them by going to device manager and choosing update driver. Maybe that was my problem but if so then WHY? Hell, I don't even know why I bothered....XP dad drivers for all of my cards and peripherals, but I wanted the manufacturer's drivers. I don't think that there is an error in that logic. Anyway, any ideas? Any solid truths? I am beginning to think that I should just leave XP alone and stick with the security blanket of 98.

[DaveJH]

I too tried to upgrade Win98 to XP. 1st attempt all went well, but I had deleted SB Live cos XP did not support it other than generic drivers.
When I couldnt get modem working and a couple of other bits I restored to Win98 - smooth as anything. Retrived XP drivers for missing items and tried again a few days later. Upgrade went fine except for modem - which I needed following day to dial in to work! So restored 98 again. Everything fine UNTIL I tried to reinstall SB Live drivers. Whole thing hung. Couldnt do anything. BSOD everytime. In the end I gave up, bought new HDD and did clean install of XP. Everything perfect & have not looked back.Stable as a rock and fast too.
Still waiting for Creative to provide proper XP drivers. Is it just me or does their customer support seem a bit slack?
Anyway give XP a go. Clean install only though, and make sure u have XP drivers for everything!
Good luck.