Going from 98 to XP

I would make sure all of your hardware and software is compatible with XP PRIOR to installing it. It's kind of a bummer when nothing will work in XP due to old outdated hardware. Make sure you have the most current drivers prior to installing also.

I agree.............be sure to download all the latest drivers for your hardware after checking they are compatable with xp. There is an option on the xp disc, after some drivers have loaded, to partition and format your drive using the NTFS file system instead of FAT32. NTFS is supposed to be more secure than FAT32, but you can use either. If you are using FAT32 it might be a good idea just to fdisk it first removing the primary DOS partition, then create a new one before formatting the drive.

NTFS is more secure and also allows you to work with file sizes larger than 4gb (video editing maybe?)

you dont need switches. just boot from a floppy or from the install cd and type format c: when you are on either an a: or D: prompt.

I personally would fdisk and repartition also though as suggested above to make it a true clean install.

And be sure you have a good amount of memory. XP doesn't perform very well with 128 mb or less of RAM though MS suggests 64 mb in the minimum and 128 mb is recommended. I'd suggest a bare minimum of 256 mb. Personally I've found 512 mb to be the perfect amount for almost any installations I've encountered.

And you can get Microsoft's "Upgrade Advisor" here. That will attempt to tell you if your going to have any compatibility issues if you install XP.