i got a new ancient laptop:
Win 98 SE
16 mb RAM
SVGA Video
pentium 1 unknown SPEED.....(can't find it anywhere)
1.3 GB hdd

the file system on the hard drive is FAT16 or fat or something. it's really annoying with the tiny amount of space and there is an option in disk cleanup to upgrade to FAT32. should i? will i need to reinstall everything? will it screw it up completely?
Wow...that's daring of you. Why did you get the laptop? I wouldn't touch something like that with a 10 ft pole. Fat32 would just be another format of how the hard drive stores things. I don't know if it would free up any space, but even if it did, it wouldn't be anything considerable. If i were you I'd just not worrry about it and give that sucker a one-way ticket into the garbage dumpster. It might just end up bringing you more frustration than its worth.A conversion to FAT 32 with that machine could take days!

I see no advantage in doing that.hope the laptop was for free as it is not worth $2, but the replies are right, fat 32 will not give you anymore ROOM. you can either fit the lapy with a larger hard drive or if you have USB port? buy a external drive with drivers.

and YES you would have to reinstall, but at least you could customise the instalation and only install what you need. good luck from faywardIt should be FAT32 formatted and 1.3Gig is ample to run Win98 and quite a few programs. It's the 16M RAM that's the problem.

Aida32 will reveal all where hardware is concerned.