Reinstaling Win 98

[Buddy21972]

Ok, i got win xp for an old computer and i tried installing and somthing went wrong the setup wont complete and win 98 is gone. does anyone know how to reinstall win98? i have the cd.

 

[Davey7549]

Buddy21972
At this point you will not be able to do a reinstall of 98 it will have to be a new install. What 98 CD do you have? Is it a recovery CD,
Upgrade CD, or a complete copy of Win98?
Dave

 

[gwm0522]

If you have a Win 98 boot disk, boot the computer with it and even if you have an upgrade version of Win 98, you can do an install from it. If it is an upgrade, you will need the Win 95 CD for the new OS to verify from. If you don't have a boot disk, you should be able to download boot files from the net, maybe someone can tell us where. Good luck.

 

[Buddy21972]

dave, it is a copy, it was a computer made for my aunt by a friend

 

[Davey7549]

Robet
Good. Since you have a real mess on your hands I would prefer you start from scratch with a format and clean install. Here are links that will help you through the process.
You will need a boot disk for win98. If you do not have one you can make one from here........www.bootdisk.com
After you have the bootdisk start at step 3 in the website below.
http://www.basichardware.com/HowTo_Format.html
Let us know how it goes.
Dave

 

[Buddy21972]

Tried all that boot disk stuff, is there a way just to start all over? can i like maybe delete everything and install it again? would that help???

 

[Davey7549]

Robet
Thats what you are going to do with the bootdisk. If you follow the webpage you are going to do a format, (which will wipe your windows mess away) ans install Win98.
Dave

 

[Buddy21972]

ok tried that get to where i run the cd, but every drive letter that i try it says invalid drive spcication, any ideas on what to do now?

 

[Max19]

The CD is a copy of an actual Windows 98 CD? Does it have the Microsoft hologram on it?

 

[Buddy21972]

copy

 

[brianF]

When you installed xp did you choose ntfs for the file system

 

[Buddy21972]

no clue what that even is, i tried the "recommended" way, and the computer froze in the setup, then (being the idoit i am) thought i could do it myself. so i think i deleted win 98 and tried to install xp. but, guess what??? IT FROZE in the setup!! so i came here and formatted the hard drive and i just can't find the drive letter for the cd rom.

 

[brianF]

When you boot with the boot disk, do you choose with cdrom support, do you see any error saying can't find cdrom. If not, whatever your cdrom drive was before the problem it will be one drive letter higher after booting with a win98 disk do to the bootdisk installing a ram drive, so if it was D, it will now be E.

If that doesn't work enter your bios and make sure the ide channel your cdrom is attached to is set to auto detect or cdrom.

When you start your machine you should see a message that the bios have recongnized the cdrom and hard disk, are you seeing these messages.

Can you get a directory of your hard disk, go to the c: prompt, type dir, does it give you a short list or error

 

[Buddy21972]

(sorry if i sound stupid but...) what's a bios?

 

[brianF]

when you restart your machine, watch for a message stating press key to enter setup, once in bios setup look for the menu containing the ide channels, should list primary master, slave, secondary master, slave. Set the channel the cdrom is connected to accordingly\

If you don't see a message here is a list of common keys to enter setup

Entering CMOS For Different Motherboards
Press Tab during boot=Emachine
Press del during boot= (AMI, Award).
Press Esc during boot= Toshiba.
Press F1 during boot= (Toshiba; Phoenix; Late model PS/1 Value Point and 330s).
Press F2 during boot = (NEC).
Press F10 when square in top RH corner of screen= (Compaq).
Press Ins during boot=IBM PS/2 with reference partition.
Shift Ctrl Alt + Num Pad del= - Olivetti PC Pro.
Ctrl Alt ? =some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90.
Ctrl-Esc = Misc Puters
Ctrl Ins= some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen.
Press reset twice= some Dells.
Ctrl Alt Enter= Dell.
Ctrl Alt Esc=AST Advantage, Award, Tandon.
Ctrl Alt + =Misc Puters
Ctrl Alt S= Phoenix.
Ctrl Alt Ins= (Zenith, Phoenix)
Ctrl S =(Phoenix).
Ctrl Shift Esc= Tandon 386.