Windows XP help!!! Save my life before I end it early!!!

[jaw2957]

This was the second time that I upgraded from win 98se to XP. I had a bad firewire hard drive and it could get recognized in xp, but not in 98. So I upgraded to xp and salvaged some files on the drive before I reformat it. Now I cannot get xp off of my machine. I try to do the uninstall through control panel, and it seems like it is doing something, but after about 30 seconds there is an exclamation point with an OK button in the window. When i hit it, it does nothing, and XP continues to run on my pc. I can't get it off!!! Is there any software I can download to help me. Doing a clean install of 98 se is not an option. I have 17 dvd movies on my drive, which are in the process of dvd to dvd-r. All have been reencoded, and they await burning!! Over a full weeks worth of work. I will gnaw off my arm before doing a clean install. Help me!!

[marsmayhem]

Try creating another partition on your drive with Partition Magic and put whatever OS you want there, and use Boot Magic to select your OS at startup.

[railer69]

well all I did when XP "confiscated" my system was to slave the hard drive and then wipe it clean

[sommersby]

Pick up another cheap hard drive used or from a show, you can pick up a 6 gig or so for around 15-20 bucks, put 98 on it and slave your current drive, then burn your movies, save whatever data you want and then wipe it clean. I keep a spare drive handy with a full operating system just for such an emergency.