I am trying to refurbish an old computer I have to give to a family member. The hard drive was blank and I was having trouble booting from the CD-ROM drive to install Windows 98. So, I installed MS-DOS 6.22 using the installation diskettes. I still cannot boot from the Windows 98 installation CD. When I start the computer, I get a message saying "Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Failure...". From there, the computer does nothing. I have tried boot from different CDs. I have also tried using different CD-ROM drives and it results in the same message. The CD-ROM is listed in the drives list during the POST, so I know that the computer is detecting it. How can I fix this problem and get Windows installed? Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks, Paul

Fresh Start M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Yeah - there is no need (and I'm not sure why folks do this) to install DOS if the goal is Windows 9x. (Especially) If the hard drive is larger than 2Gb, installing an old version of DOS is more of a step backward than progress, and would be better if removed with fdisk. Not all Win98 CDs are bootable Use a Win98 bootdisk (with CD-ROM support) - you execute the file from the desktop to create the diskette. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Mechanix2Go: I will try doing that and see what happens. Hopefully iy will work. XP Mythology: I tried using a Windows 98 boot disk that I had created quite some time ago, and it didn't work. The computer just kept saying that booting from the CD-ROM failed. I would try to make a new disk from BootDisk.com, but unfortunatly, the new computer I have that it up and running does not have a floppy disk drive.

Name: jboy Homepage: XP Mythology when booting from a floppy drive with Cd support, you are able to access the CD drive - - this is not the same thing as booting from the CD, so you are likely misremembering the message. Not all win98 Cds are 'bootable', so that might not even have been an option. Since you seem unprepared to make a boot floppy, you can either explore creating a bootable CD, or else copy the installation files to the hard drive and proceed with the installation from there. Installing 622 was fairly pointless, and may need to be undone. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

If the 'boot floppy' you have is good, set the BIOS to boot floppy first and try again. If you get a msg anything to do with 'boot from CD fail...' you have not got the BIOS set right. M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

I don't know exactly what I did, but I got everything to work fine. Thank you everyone for your help. Paul