The easiest way to uninstall XP is to use a 98/98SE emergency boot disk
(EBD).
1) Insure your BIOS is set to boot from the floppy first (only attempts it
if floppy in drive).
2) insert 98SE EBD floppy and reboot pc
3) Choose CD-ROM support when prompted, wait for it to load, done when you
see "A:\" and a blinking cursor.
4) put a known "something on it" cd in your cd drive and at the "A:\" prompt
type "dir e:\" and see if you get a list of files on the cd. Note the "e:\"
where E: is the cd drive may not be correct drive letter. Basically use the
letter that's one after what the cd drive was in XP, e.g. if it was D it'll
be E. This is done solely to insure you can run a setup program off the cd
after the hard disk is wiped out. If you cannot see a listing of files off a
cd, you won't be able to run any subsequent setup program so you must STOP
here until this is solved.
Assuming all's well ...
5) still at the A:\ prompt type "fdisk" (no qutoes). Say Yes to "Support
large hard disks" Inside fdisk, erase any and all partitions and then (most
people have only the one partition on the one hard disk) create a new
partition using the entire disk. Then exit fdisk. System may want to reboot,
if so let it using the floppy as before.
6) back at the A:\ prompt type "format c:\ /s" to format the hard disk (I
believe you can skip this step, Windows setup will do it for you, but I like
to do it anyway).
7) type "e:\setup" to start (presumably an earlier version of) Window's
setup program.
One last note, this wipes the hard disk clean so unless your "to be
installed Windows" is full retail, first check what you might need in the
way of "prove of prior version ownership" before going too far. Also note
OEM versions have different rules than upgrade version which have different
rules than full retail regarding what it'll allow and may demand as proof.
