Grab one of those floppies Jaclaz pointed to, create the physical media, try it in your other PC (try to boot from it, don't format anything of course). If it works, and preferably if you have CDROM access as well after boot, retry on your 1st machine. If it does not work, your floppy drive is defct or you haven't setup your BIOS properly (do you see the led on when it tries to read the floppy at startup ?).
If you can't bot from floppy, try to make a bootable CDROM with that floppy as the "boot image" and try to boot from it.
If you can do that and get a letter for the cdrom after boot, then you are saved. Pop in you Win98 install cd and launch the install.

This post has been edited by Ponch: Nov 20 2007, 03:44 PM

Hi Jaclaz,
As you suggested,I went to this site "http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/98.html" to Download v 7.x and they only had v 6.25.From Wikipedia I saw their mention of V 7.1 and Googled and downloaded v 7.1 from Vetusware.com.Of course this had to go on a CD as it is 2.6 mb.I also downloaded on a Floppy Disk your other suggestion as below: http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/Disk...No_Ramdrive.exe
Although,I did'nt know whether that would reboot the Computer,I tried it and got this error message"Invalid system disk,replace the disk,and then press any key" So much for that!
Now,as far as v 7.1 Boot Disk (2.6 mb),it includes 2 versions,that is v 7.1.2 and 7.1.3,each at 1.44 mb.Of course each was too large for a Floppy Disk!I burned v 7.1.2 on a cd-rw disk, (re adjusted the BIOS to cd-rom) and tried re booting with it.I got the same error message as above.
I inserted a disk in the Floppy Disk Drive of my Win XP puter,and under Format I noticed that,I could create a MS-DOS Startup Disk,so I did one,and rebooted the Win 98 puter with it,and to my surprise, it opened with MS Windows Millennium.and " A:\>" !!My joy was short lived. I entered many different codes and combinations at this prompt, to no avail.I always got that dreaded error message.I guess the above will only work with XP !Can you or anyone else provide more suggestions to resolve this problem.Thanks.

VAN

Thanks for that Mijzelf,I'LL keep that in mind.

VAN

Hi Fredledingue,

Quote:That's surprising because, normaly, when you boot on the floppy, it should work no matter what's on drives other than A:.
I can see either a hardware defect (floppy drive or memory) or the floppy disk damaged/unreadable.

The Floppy Drive seems ok(as evidenced by reply to Jaclaz above).As far as the Floppy disk damaged/unreadable as you suggest.How else can I check that out?It worked ok a couple of weeks ago! Thanks for your help.

VAN

Quote:Grab one of those floppies Jaclaz pointed to, create the physical media, try it in your other PC (try to boot from it, don't format anything of course). If it works, and preferably if you have CDROM access as well after boot, retry on your 1st machine. If it does not work, your floppy drive is defct or you haven't setup your BIOS properly (do you see the led on when it tries to read the floppy at startup ?).
If you can't bot from floppy, try to make a bootable CDROM with that floppy as the "boot image" and try to boot from it.
If you can do that and get a letter for the cdrom after boot, then you are saved. Pop in you Win98 install cd and launch the install.
Hi Ponch,
I think,I've pretty well answered your above queries,in my reply to Jaclaz !Thanks for trying to help,really appreciated here.
VAN

@Evanhoe
I really don't get what you are talking about, (v 6.25, 7.12, etc.)

Just:
1) Download this file on a machine running Win9x/NT/2K/XP/2003:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/Disk...No_Ramdrive.exe
2) double click on it, insert a blank formatted floppy and let it create the 98 (DOS 7.1) bootdisk
3) insert the floppy in the unbootable machine and boot from it
4) at the A:\ prompt type FDISK [ENTER]
Follow this guide on how to use FDISK:
http://fdisk.radified.com/
you need to create a Primary Active partition
5) reboot the machine leaving the floppy in
6) at the A:\ prompt type FORMAT C: /s [ENTER]
7) remove the floppy and reboot the machine

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Nov 22 2007, 08:21 AM

Remove the floppy drive and test it on another computer. Nothing from what I'v read above proves that the floppy drive is working properly. Maybe it works only unproperly.
More puzzling is that you got the same error message when attempting to boot from the bootable CD-R. Here again it's not a scientific proof that the floppy drive is working, but rather that such type of boot disk (on CD-RW on top of that) is not compatible with your system.

If the floppy drive is not working it will explain many things.


I'v replaced my floppy drive twice already. And one week before I did, it was also still working.
Hardware problem are those we loose the most time on because we thing they are software problems.
HTH

what kind of floppy are we talking about here ???? 1.44 is the size of a floppy.


I didn't know XP makes WinME boot disks. I can't test here as I'm typing on a portable without floppy. Anybody confirm ?

Sure it does , though it is not a "full" floppy.

FYI, some info about it and some other ways to create it/get the files:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16745
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18896

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Nov 23 2007, 02:55 AM

Hi Jaclaz,
Geez,I thought I was exposing what I had done quite clearly! I guess I'm going to work harder at it(Smile)
As per your renewed instructions, I have re-downloaded" http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/Disks/Windows_98_Boot_Disk_Download49/Windows98_SE_No_Ramdrive.exe
on my Win XP machine (I can't on the Win 98 one),and did as you suggested in 2 to 7.While it was doing it's thing,I noticed it detected" Secondary Slave CD Rom,which is E Drive" Usually it detects The D Drive,which is the Secondary Master CD Rw Drive !!I finally choose "Start Computer with CD Rom support" Later it shows"Success loading Drive D" then I get this"Your CD Rom is Drive E" !
At the "A:\> prompt I type in D:\setup /P i and I get"Bad command or file name" I then restart,and tried with "E:\setup /p i" and got this:"CDR 101 not reading drive E" abort....
BTW: I downloaded and read and re read the following as you asked" Follow this guide on how to use FDISK:
http://www.msfn.org/board/ipb_seo.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffdisk.radified.com%2FI really don't know where to go from here.Can you provide more help with this.Thanks.
VAN

@evanhoe

Don't take this the wrong way, really, but where have you seen in my steps :


If you actually do what I listed in steps 3) to 7) you WON'T have anymore a A:\> prompt as in step 7) you REMOVED the floppy (or should have done so)

Possible explananation of why we seem not to understand each other:
I (and most of the other members that tried to help you) tried to make you install DOS on the hard disk BEFORE running the SETUP on CD.
You are trying to directly run the SETUP from floppy (which should theoretically work, but that it does not because of the following)

Now that you have described your hardware, it is possible that you are NOT succeeding because you have TWO CD-ROM's and it seems like one of the two (the CDRW probably) is not "seen" correctly.

SO, first thing, enter the BIOS of your machine and DISABLE one of the two CD-ROM drives, the CDRW.

Then, please do exactly as in the steps I suggested (forget for the moment about your Win98 CD, the command SETUP, just do that) and report if you can boot from C:\ drive, we were not able to understand if there is an actual problem in FDISKing/FORMATting your hard disk.

If you were not able to understand the usage of FDISK from the linked to site, try following this step by step:
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software...grade/fdisk.htm
and/or this one, containing actual screenshots:
http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/fdisk-format.html

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Nov 24 2007, 09:13 AM

Or setup.exe is not on the root of D:, but in a "Win98" or "install" directory so you get "Bad command or file name" trying on D and "not ready reading drive E" as there's no media in it.

setup.exe is in the folder "win98" on the CD.

Good Morning to you Jaclaz,
I will try and follow your instructions to the letter (As I usually try !),and come back with results.
DTW:Regarding your instruction # 7 (in your previous posting) I did that"Remove the Floppy and reboot the machine" and after a couple of minutes I got "C:\>" and because I had no further instructions from you,I typed in codes that I believe worked a few months back !Thanks for all your help and patience.

VAN

Hi again Jaclaz,
Quote:Now that you have described your hardware, it is possible that you are NOT succeeding because you have TWO CD-ROM's and it seems like one of the two (the CDRW probably) is not "seen" correctly.

SO, first thing, enter the BIOS of your machine and DISABLE one of the two CD-ROM drives, the CDRW.
I don't see the CD RW drive at all in the BIOS,so can't Disable!The odd thing though,is that before I attempted to reinstal originally,it was working,but the CD Rom was not at that time.

I downloaded and read your #2 Fdisk (Inc Screenshots) Web site suggestion which is great,but in the end I'm left to decide what to enter at the C:\> prompt !! Where do I go from here? Thanks again.

VAN

You need to get there I think :

A:\> format C:\