Yep, looks like you need to start over. First, do you have a valid win98 
startup disk? Also do you have the win98 CD? If so, boot machine with
startup disk in the floppy drive, you will get to the screen that says whether
to start PC with CD rom support. You will select no. Then you will get to
prompt which is a black screen with a short prompt on it,
and enter FDISK, hit enter. You will see the FDISK program. (Read
all you can about how to use FDISK) .From
here you may partition the drive, at least make one primary partition and
then make it active, you have to have at least one primary partition
and it must be active, you may make it the size of the entire drive if you
want which is easiest. Warning: you will be losing all data on the drive.
There is a selection called FDISK status, which gives you information on 
the status of the drives in your machine. You may also use this at the 
prompt, type this,  FDISK /status. 
After you have FDISK the drive properly, then you issue this command
at the prompt, FORMAT C: /S
This will format the drive and put system files on the drive. 
All this time you have been booting with your startup disk, and selecting no
CD rom support.
Next you will want to put in your CDrom drive the win98CD, and keeping
the startup floppy inserted, boot up and select WITH CD rom support.
Then when it is finishied booting you would enter this command at the prompt,
SETUP,
then hit enter, and you will be setting up win98!!!!
Good luck, I hope this works for you. Above all please read all you can
about installing win98, FDISK,FORMAT and read and learn it all.
There are many websites with complete installation instructions.
Sincerely,
Susan Stubbs





Hi there , its Carlos Gonzalez([log in to unmask]) and I need
help .
Just today I started my sister's computerand the computer just wouldn't
start it would say SEARCHING BOOT RECORD FROM CDROM.It said NOT FOUND and
gave me an error message that said Boot Failure REBOOT AND SELECT
PROPER BOOT
DEVICE OR INSERT BOOT MEDIA IN SELECTED BOOT DEVICE so I inserted the
WINDOWS 98 STARTUP DISK and switched the BOOT SEQUENCE
in ADVANCED SETUP I put -1st sequence- floppy
                        -2nd sequence- Disabled
and I restarted my computer then it took me to is Page that said
START COMPUTER WITH CDROM SUPPORT
START COMPUTER WITHOUT CDROM SUPPORT
VIEW HELP FILE
I went to-START COMPUTER WITHOUT CDROM SUPPORT
then it said that WINDOWS 98 DETECTED THAT DRIVE C DOES NOT CONTAIN A
VALID
FAT OR FAT32 PARTITION. THERE ARE SEVERAL POSSIBLE CAUSES...

1. YOUR DRIVE MAY NEED TO BE PARTITIONED. DO THIS THROUGH MS-DOS

2. YOU MAY BE USING THE 3RD PARTY DISK PARTITIONING SOFTWARE SOFTWARE
IF YOU ARE USING THIS SOFTWARE REMOVE THE BOOT DISK AND RESTART THE
COMPUTER
THEN FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO START YOUR COMPUTER WITH A FLOPPY DISK.

3. SOME VIRUSES CAN CAUSE YOUR C DRIVE NOT TO REGISTER. USE A SCANNING
PROGRAM TO CHECK FOR VIRUSES.
After that i did a scandisk , then a  checkdisk but on both drives A
and C
CHDSK but every time I  press F8 during booting process it took me to
this
menu  and i choose command prompt only so i can do an FDISK
but then it took me to the menu that said start computer with/without
CDROM
support. That happened always.

My theory is that I need to partition my C drive tell me what to do
please
any tips or something help me as soon as possible please.  Thank you.

This comp Win 98 operating system
450 MHz -CPU SPEED                     Help!

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