Hi Jacob, thanks a lot for your post.I too wish i had posted the problem when
i was able to load the os and the only problem was device manager not detecting my dvd player and cdrw though bios showed all correctly and you also had followed the thread from there.  instead i chose to fiddle around till the os froze at the windows logo screen and i was not able to load it at all. hence the need to reinstall over existing one which is also proving to be problematic now. anyway in the worst scenario i will transfer all my data(except win98se) to my dell hdd and then format the hd in the non working pc. thanks again and have a nice day --venkat viswanathan

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com