At 01:10 PM 11/24/2000, you wrote:
>MY in-laws have a Dell pentium 166mhz computer that won't let me reload windows . It has
>a 1.6 gig hard drive . scandisk says it does'nt have any bad sectors but it won't let me
>reload windows. I did FORMAT C:/S to prepare the drive . IT will start loading and get
>about 3% loaded and ask for another disk. Which I don't have. Windows 98 is  the CD I am
>using .I don't understand why it is asking for another disk . IT also says may have a
>virus that maybe causing the problem .Is there a way to check for and getting rid of a
>virus since windows isn't on the machine ?

If your problem is a virus, it is no doubt located in the Boot Sector.  The only
way to remove it now is to use FDISK to remove the partition, being sure
the boot disk you use, (floppy), is write-protected.  No sense letting that
nasty little bug invade your floppy disk and then reinfect the hard drive.

Reboot and then build a new partition using FDISK.  Once you have
rebooted, you can then format the hard drive and reload Windows.

If you need help with the partitioning, we have a guide for it online:
    http://freepctech.com/pc/001/001.shtml

If in fact this does not solve your problem, my next thought is that either
the CD drive needs cleaning or the CD is dirty or damaged.   One
trick that might help is to create a directory on your hard drive after
formatting and copy all the files on the CD in the WIN98 directory to
the directory you created on the hard drive.  Then, run setup from
the hard drive.  This is much faster and eliminates problems with
dirty or damaged CDs.  Also, with this directory on the hard drive,
should WIndows require additional files when loading software
applications, you do not need to keep your CD handy...   it will
just pluck them out of the install directory.

     Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

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