windows 98 clean install....HELP!!

[Nebeka]

I'm trying to install windows 98 on a clean hard drive (compaq presario 12xl400) i have created an active primary partition and formatted it, upon booting to the a: prompt with the '98 startup disk, i have no cd-rom support, which in this case is important since i'm installing from a cd-rom. I have tied to edit config.sys and autoexec.bat files to load real-mode drivers and still nothing. My question is how can i get cd-rom support if the generic drivers included on the start-up disk don't support my cd-rom?

[Wainui]

Go Here and download a Windows 98SE Boot disk
Download it to your Desktop, insert a new or formatted floppy disk in the drive and double click the icon. The program will run and create a Bootable floppy disk with CD-Rom support, which you can use in the computer you are trying to install Windows 98.

Do you have any Restoration CDs for your Compaq Computer?. If you do you won't need the Windows 98 Startup disk with CD-rom Support. Just insert the CD in the drive and restart your computer.

[jtdoom]

hi, and welcome

what happened to the recovery/restore CD?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...en&lc=en&cc=us
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00034787

[Nebeka]

i'm not sure what happened to it. i'm trying to fix it for a friend. He originally had ME installed then upgraded to XP and then went to 2000. Not sure why he did it like that. Anyway all the OS's he installed were burned copies so his system was hosed, i wiped his hd and now trying to install 98 for him. the laptop itself is about 4 yrs old and i figured 98 would be the right choice for the OS.

[jtdoom]

even when I like 98 better than I ever liked ME, i found ME a better choice for laptops.

the machine should have a ME licence key, so you better get and install ME.
btw, it oughta boot off the millenium CD just fine.

[ptmaloney]

I went to www.bootdisk.com and followed the instructions on how to install Windows 98 on a clean hard-drive with no OS. It is quite easy to do, I had better luck then other boot disks. I have a laptop with a 3.5 floppy with an external CD-ROM.