Let's just hope your computer is able to boot from CD.
I have no idea how old your computer are but if you're still running Windows 98 well...
Btw, a format does not remove the information on the hard drive. It's very easy to get most of it back after you format the drive. But do back up! SHould you however forget something, it's probably not lost to you. [img]smile.gif[/img]
And I'd spring for a clean win 2000 install instead, but hey that's just me.