Computer's wiped, cant find D:\, Need WIN98 Help

[SniperX13]

Ok, I hope I can explain this right, but I am at a loss. I need help in installing Win 98 on my wifes old laptop so we can sell it.


Ok, here is the whole deal.

It is a old Dell Inspiron pIII-450 with the swappable disk and CD-ROM drives.

I originally overwrote windows 2000 (it came on it when we bought it used) and put XP on it. Now, the system is not meant for XP, so since all I have is Win98se... I am going to put that on it. Ok, I made a win 98 bootdisk from bootdik.com, and I managed to finally fdisk and format the C: drive of the old laptop. But, I cannot get the CD to pull up for anything. Now, the CD is a burned copy of my old win98 CD. I had burned a copy of it to install on the now ex wifes computer, but it's all I can find.

I tried using NERO to make it a bootable disk, but that didn't work. I can't even seem to get the computer to read the CD-ROM drive at all. it reads the A: drive, and boots fromt he floppy, but whenever it tries to copy the CD driver, it says no sources found, errors, then moves to the A: prompt. If I boot it directly into the C: prompt, witht he bootdisk removed, and the CD-Rom in place, it can't find the D: drive what so ever. How in the world can I copy files from the boot disk to the C: drive, so when I do load the CD-ROm unit, it will read it so I can use my win98 disk...

someone either please help, or shoot me in the head, because this is wracking my brain big time.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to install WIN98..... it shouldn't be this hard. I hate these damn removable drives!!!

[harrymay]

the windows 98 disc is not a bootable disk by nature. you must create a 98 boot disk (as you did) and boot from floppy with the cd in the drive. run fdisk (as you did). reboot, boot to floppy and then it should load the cd drivers.

if it is stalling at the cd driver, you may need to check that you arent using a win98 boot disk instead of win98se. a win98se should have better driver abilities.
however, if you are still at a loss. you should be able to d/l the cd driver for that drive and put it on the boot disk where the other cd drivers are.

btw, make sure that the floppy isnt bad. thats a huge possibility.

I hope this helps, i havent messed with anything older than 2k in about 3 years.

[Oz]

Don't fuck around with WIN98, it is archaic and will continue giving you headaches.

What do you mean the laptop wasn't meant for XP? It meets (exceeds) XP minimum hardware requirements, so that is crap. If you have a copy of XP, load it on (and maybe add some value to your sale).

If not, find a way of aquiring Windows 2000 and install that. At least it will read your NTFS partition, created by XP. And boot from the CD.

PM me with questions, reply here, or your other thread.