disk boot failure

disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter

ok, here it goes.... came into work today and computer says disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter
I tried everything to fix this prob. but nothing worked! when i tried using a boot disk, it says win98 detected that drive c does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition(which it did just an hour before)...reasons: 1) drive needs to be partitioned 2)third party disk partition ect ect 3) virus!!!!! I tried booting with a virus boot but it cant find a target... I opened the comp and switched cables, i even put another Hard drive...but it had the same error message., i went all the way to putting a new motherboard( but the same processor), but same message...i ended up with the same processor on a new motherboard with the same hard drive and with new cables... but the same error appears..... HELP? what am I missing here? what do i need to do?

 

You've made so many changes it's hard to know where to start or wut will work.

Referencing the orginal setup - HDD, mainboard, etc., before the changes, you'd boot with a Windows 98 Startup disk in the [A] drive and type, c: /s, or, sys c:, at the [A] prompt and strike the Enter key. Then remove the Startup disk and hold down Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

A new HDD must be partitioned with fdisk then formatted all with a Startup Disk/OS installed or you will get a non-system disk error, so you may have got the same message with good new, good hardware. You made too many changes too fast.

Post back here. My ISP's email will be down all of today but will receive notification asa soon as it's back up.