This sounds like it could be one of several documented problems.  There are
several causes and fixes to try.  It may be bad ram.  Windows stops loading
when it switches to 32 bit mode (it starts in 16 bit mode).  It may be an
often reported problem with cache.  Go into cmos and temporarily disable the
cache setting. Re-enable cache after windows installs. A vaguely recall some
issue concerning certain AMD chips as well.  It may be a reported problem
with certain IDE ultra -dma controllers.  Do you know what type drive and
controller your friend has?  I think this was limited to UDMA-100
controllers but I could be mistaken.  There are a lot of knowledge base
articles about items 2 and 3 I mentioned, or you could ask the list again
about specifics, if you tell us your brand of board, cpu, controller and
drive.  About the bad ram, there is nothing to do but the old R&R (remove
and replace) troubleshooting procedure, using spares until you have tested
separately each ram module to find the bad one, or eliminate this as a
possibility.
Of course, it could be a bad drive, but you just can't blindly trust the
error messages, they are notorious for being misleading.  More specifics
would help eliminate the other possibilities, however remote they may be.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Ryan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 2:19 PM

    Hi I'm trying to install win 98 on a friend of mines computer all goes
well untill it starts to configure hardware.  then I get a blue screen with
the message that it cannot write to disk C data may be lost, and that's the
end. After the first attempt I reformatted C and ran scandisk surface no
errors found.  I could try another hard drive but I don't see how scan disk
and format work without problems but I can't install. He bought the computer
used and we don't have any info on the previous OS

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