I recently 'clean' installed Windows 2000 over my Win 98 Presario (5446).


I think what's happened (and remember, I'm a novice so don't s****** at my
thoughts) is that maybe I installed 4 new drivers over the top of
preinstalled compaq drivers that are still lurking and causing me
problems.
I should have removed a lot of stuff from my Win 98 before I 'clean
installed' Win 2K. I thought I'd done enough, as I had actually 'clean
installed' Win 98 using the Quick Restore CD before installing Win2k, so
basically anything left over was the bare minimum on a Compaq Win98
factory
state PC. I manually deleted the C:\Windows folder and removed Win 98
system files (like msdos.sys, config.sys etc), but I'm now realising I was
probably supposed to uninstall a bunch of drivers from device manager too.
I just assumed the 'clean install' or Win 2K would erase everything for
me.



HH is right that Compaq does not support 2k on this computer.
However, IMHO, 2k is way better than XP ever will be. Also, I belive
that 2K has more drivers available to it than XP, if only because its
been around longer. 2k also has better drivers for older hardware,
and runs better with slower processors and less RAM.

Now when you say clean install, that means installing an OS on a
freshly formatted hard drive. What you did was a messed up upgrade, a
virtual nightmare. Your best option at this point is to start all
over, fresh.

Step 1, format the hard drive. The Win2k CD will do this for you. At
the setup screen erase all partitions. Then format them with NTFS.

Step 2 Install 2K.

Step 3 Immeadiatly connect to the Internet and download all MS patches
and hotfixes.

There is no reason that 2k will not run perfectly fine on this
computer, with the OEM MS drivers from the install cd. If you wish,
use AIDA32 and where it points you to a chipsets manufactures website,
then download any updated drivers that might be available. Or don't,
if its working fine with out updating the drivers, then don't mess
with it. (I hardly ever update drivers)