This thread is mainly a plea for assistance to the members of this forums, if the moderator wants to move this to the proper forum feel free and I apologize for its improper placement.
With that aside, my situation is this. My friend's brother dumped his spyware riddden, haven of fragmented and missing Windows files laptop on me with the intention of paying me 20 dollars to get it running properly. He said he doesn't mind if I format the hard drive and reinstall Windows...the whole nine yars. However there is one problem. This laptop does not have a floppy drive!
Here are my questions. Can I even reformat Windows 98 without a boot disc in the FLOPPY drive? Seeing as the Windows 98SE disc itself must be in the CD drive to initiate a format, I cannot burn the boot disc files onto a CD since it obviously is lacking dual CD drives.
Also, how do I know which drivers I need to back up and put back on once, if ever, I successfully format? In Device Manager Windows states that the provider, and location, of most of the key drivers (Motherboard, Sound, Gfx Card) are located in WINDOWS, and supplied by Windows? Do I need to back these up? Will Windows atuomatically replace them?
Thanks a MILLION for any help you might be able to give me! After all, I need 20 bucks!
With that aside, my situation is this. My friend's brother dumped his spyware riddden, haven of fragmented and missing Windows files laptop on me with the intention of paying me 20 dollars to get it running properly. He said he doesn't mind if I format the hard drive and reinstall Windows...the whole nine yars. However there is one problem. This laptop does not have a floppy drive!
Here are my questions. Can I even reformat Windows 98 without a boot disc in the FLOPPY drive? Seeing as the Windows 98SE disc itself must be in the CD drive to initiate a format, I cannot burn the boot disc files onto a CD since it obviously is lacking dual CD drives.
Also, how do I know which drivers I need to back up and put back on once, if ever, I successfully format? In Device Manager Windows states that the provider, and location, of most of the key drivers (Motherboard, Sound, Gfx Card) are located in WINDOWS, and supplied by Windows? Do I need to back these up? Will Windows atuomatically replace them?
Thanks a MILLION for any help you might be able to give me! After all, I need 20 bucks!