W98 to XP Pro Upgrade (Hard Drive Issue)

[Paul49]

I have an old PIII system running W98 that I plan to upgrade to XP using a new MB, etc. It currently has a PCI Promise Controller running RAID 1 setup on a pair of 40GB WD drives. I seem to remember some problems in the past when trying to re-use larger drives which were initially configured running on a W98 system without losing all the data on them. As I recall, there is some issue with how XP deals with a drive previously setup with W98 (especially larger than 6? GB). Don't know whether this would be a problem with the Promise card however...

Before I get into trouble with this, I would appreciate any advice on how to avoid losing all my data (even if i back up the whole drive, I would rather just get XP to see it without having to go through the process of imaging and restoring, etc., etc.) Anyway, i'd like a checklist of things to do to get from my W98 FAT32 to a NTFS setup on XP in a minimum hassle factor...

Any comments would be greatly appreciated....

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[linney]

It wouldn't hurt to read these.

HOW TO: Prepare to Upgrade Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition to Windows XP(Q316639)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q316/6/39.asp

Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314463

Another thing you could do is borrow a XP setup CD (if you don't have one) and run the Compatibility Checking program from the CD.

 

[Paul49]

Thanks - yes useful data here, though my situation is a bit unique, as I am not exactly "upgrading" my computer since I am installing a new MB and CPU - just need to be able to "drop in" my existing HDDs and/or move the Programs and data over without losing anything important. My feeling is that I would be better off if I could do a clean install of Xp, rather than upgrading from W98...
maybe it would make sense to image the HD and use one of the 2 RAID-1 HDs as a &quot;New&quot; HDD, install XP, pull everything over from the other Drive then redo the RAID config... <??>