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by jjohnson 1 view

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I have a Windows 95 machine that has a loads of old programs & data on it. I tried to upgrade it to win98 2nd edition. the problem is that i bought a full version of 98, not an upgrade. Evertime I try to load it, it give me a Message SU0168 error. It say's that i can only upgrade with the upgrade version of 98. I look on tech net for help, but found none and I can't afford to reformat the harddrive. Is there a work arround?

13 replies

by fossil

Do you have room to add a new HD? If so, that could allow you to save the data on your current drive (I assume that's why you say you can't afford to reformat the HD).
Try these steps:
1)Set your BIOS to try to boot from the CD first and let itboot comepletly.
2)Place the WIN98SE cd in the drive. If it autostarts, just close it.
3)Shutdown & power off
4)Power on & make sure it boots from the WIN98SE cd.

If (and only if) this is successful, shut down & power off. Install a New HD as the PRIMARY/MASTER/HD0 (you choose the term you like) and the existing drive as HD1. Now powerup. The BIOS will beep & complain about the new drive, but it should install okay and continue along to boot from the WIN98SE cd.

Keep in mind that this will change drive letter assignments though.

by jjohnson

This is for a client that knows nothing about Swopinh drives, also wouldnt the system default to the active drive, which is C:?

by Member 35711908

Boot to DOS using a Win98 Startup disk. Don't use a 95 one, since that won't load your CD drivers. In DOS, rename the win.ini and winver.exe (to win.old and winver.old or whatever else you like). You should then be able to run the upgrade off theCD

by paul majestic

Rename win.com to something like win.old, boot the computer via a boot disk with CDROM support and then run setup from the CD.

by kmerrillt

If you don't want to use '95 why not uninstall it and then just do a regular install of '98? This is not an upgrade but rather a full install.

by lo

Might admit you purchased the wrong version upgrade for 95 to 98 and go get the correct one. It is only $100 or so (maybe less now as Win2k, XP, etc. are out).

While that is a bit, it is probably faster easier and less work than other solutions. You can use the full version next time that is the correct solution (or put it up for auction, get 60-80% back probably).

You will spend more in time and hardware doing other solutions than getting the correct version (assuming one can still find a win95 to win98, hope so, I have a client that is in that situation, postponing the upgraded until ...).

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