this query is actualy in regards to a dell win 98 laptop. i cant get it to run the windows setup from the cd. it just goes to a blank screen, like a DOS prompt with no command line help?

OS line should be filled in with the OS you are fixing, not what you are currently using. Same for the machine CPU/Ram. Does the machine have a floppy drive? If so, get a Win98 boot disk and run setup from that. Best

Yep, I agree that info on some other machine is not much use to us (but it often happens on here). When you boot with the floppy choose "Start with CD-ROM support". Your normal CD drive letter will be temporarily grabbed as a RAM drive. If you are using a bootdisk made in W98 your CD drive letter will move up one, say D to E. If you downloaded a bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com (created on some other machine) it might push your CD drive letter up to R. Watch the screen, it tells all. Assuming your drive letter becomes E then you put in your W98 CD then: Type E: (hit Return) Type setup (hit Return) Bill Gates should then start doing his thing. DerekW

do you hear the cd spinning up? if not, go to the bios setup (usually hitting f2 or del within a second or two of seeing the dell logo) and then look around in the bios to find the boot order. try and set the cd to be the first boot option above the floppy disk and the hard drive. if you find you make changes here, when you go to exit the bios, make sure you 'save changes' and exit. leaving cd as the first boot device okay, or you can change it back to 'hard drive' later. also, it is possible that the 98 cd you have is not a bootable cd. p.s. is there an operating system on it now?