Installing '98 on your new laptop would likely be problematic, if you even could get it to run. You don't need to do that if you just want to transfer files. The easiest thing to do is to network the two computers and move the files you want to transfer to a shared folder (or just share the entire drive) and then copy the files. Or you could use CD's, a thumbdrive, or upload the files to one of the many storage sites and then download them to the laptop.

As for "conversion" I'm not really sure what your concern is. There's the file system or how data is stored on the hard drive. '98 used a system called FAT while current versions of Windows use NTFS. Windows XP/Vista/7 can read a FAT drive (although I don't remember if '98 can read a NTFS drive). That all happens at the machine level anyway. Regardless of how you choose to transfer the data, Windows will be able to handle it.

I definitely would NOT put 98 on the new pc.

To transfer the files if you are not inclined to network them I would just pick up a good sized flash thumb drive, they are quite cheap these days, move/copy your files to it then copy them onto the new pc. This provides you with an added bonus of having your files stored on a flash drive in addition to your pc so should something happen to the pc you still have that back up of all of them on the thumb drive and it will be very easy to move them to yet another pc or hard drive in the future. I do this to all of my computers I keep one thumb drive with my most important stuff on a dedicated thumb drive as one of my sources of back up.
I buy Kingston 4 gig thumb drives at Big Lots all the time, and have seen them for good prices at walmart too.

Your files will be either text based or photo files you should not need to worry about any type of conversion.

I happened to think of something, since most pc's today readily use a usb flash drive as plug and play we tend to forget that when using an older os like 98 you may have to go to the manufacturers site and get a driver for it. The literature for the flash drive should have instructions for use with 98(all of the ones I purchased did mention it). Also you may have the older version of usb 1.1 on that pc which will be a slower transfer rate than the current 2.0.The flash drive will work with that it is backward compatible. Just depends on the pc and which version of 98.
How to Transfer Files to Another Computer Using a Flash Drive

On ebay you can find a device I like called a disk drive
'rack' or carrier. You put it in like a floppy drive, on
the other 1/2 you put in any disk drive. Then you
can plug in the disk like a floppy and run it anytime
you want to look at the drive. This could be something
for $14 that would help you to move files from old ,
hard drive, to a new one $60 for 750gb on amazon.

JDMADERA has the disk racks for serial (SATA or parallel)

or you can use an external hard drive, or any drive with
an external adapter $14.

I personally like the reasoning of buying a new drive to
put all my files on it. I get a new drive, I copy my
old files and test the new drive for a while before I
commit to it , and have the chance to sell my old drive
while having a backup.

Another idea:

If many files are text based then zip or RAR them and mail
them to yourself. Many mail sites accept 2mb up to 20mb
mail attachments. That might handle most of your
documents and that way you have them backed up. It's
a secondary backup.. you should still have them
somewhere else but one site I use has been good to me for
5 years, for free, holding 40mb of stuff.

I apoligize if I didn't answer your Q excactly. I'm in
a hurry and tried to offer what I could to what I thought
I saw in your post.. in a 30 second quick read.

Andre

you can also get an online storage facility to copy your files to and from there you can share them with any computer, I use Adrive which gives you 50Gig of space free. Again this leaves you with your files in another off site storage location should your pc fail.
http://www.adrive.com/

Thanks all. I need to think about all this as my mind is not up to speed with you young folk not to mention other stuff like never previously heard of flash drives and all the rest. Comes from being 82 going on to 83. Of perhaps living too much in the past.

Jim as Mike Kaiser suggests you could burn the data to CDs to copy over. This would do 2 things for you. It would create a back up so that if your computer ever fails you still have your data safe. Plus it would allow you to copy it to the new computer.

Right click on your Roses folder then click Properties to see how large the file is. A CD can hold 700 megabytes of data to give you an idea.

I'll try copying to a CD otherwise maybe a flash drive would work.

Flash drive is quick and easy, and online storage is also a great back up, I use (my drop box)