First off, please forgive me because I really don't know a whole lot about computers - the hardware side of them, anyway.

I have two computers - a decent one, and a kind of crappy one (my old computer).
I decided to reformat my old computer, and just use it to hold my music. I formatted my C: drive, and stuck in my Windows 98 CD-ROM to try and load it onto the computer.

Every tutorial I've read says that I'll be able to just type D:\setup.exe and it will run the setup.
Unfortunately, mine doesn't do that. It just gives the prompt:
Boot from CD Rom:_
...but it won't let me type anything.
The CD starts to spin, but then stops. I thought maybe it was reading it and loading very, very slowly, but after about 2 hours, I gave up on it.
It does this every time.

If I don't have a CD in the drive, it tells me to put it in there, and press any key to continue. So, in short, I can't even get it to prompt me to enter any commands.

Can anyone help me get my computer to a point where I can use it again?
Thank you so much.

try using using a 98 boot disk (floppy).
Once it loads the cdrom startup files then try setup.exe.

Is your Cd drive set to first boot? In your bios?
If so you should be able to boot your compute and the cd should automatically start
If not you can get a boot disk from HERE as treveena says
Then once you load the disk and get a A: prompt type in D: then hit enter .
Then at your d: prompt type in setup then hit enter and you should be off and running

" Please Post back to let us know if we helped "

Not all 98(SE) CD's were bootable. Obviously yours is not. As advised above, obtain a floppy bootdisk and start the machine with it choosing "With CDROM support" (it should default to this anyway), and note the device letter assigned to the CDROM drive at the end of the boot process.

It's a good day when you learn something

First problem is your system is set to boot from CD but your CD is not bootable. That means you have a retail CD and not an OEM CD. Boot your machine and press Delete while the memory testing numbers are rolling on the screen - this will usually get you into the BIOS where you then choose your boot order to be A:, C:, CDROM. F10 then usually saves the changes to CMOS and exits the BIOS properly.

You then need to get a 98 bootdisk floppy from bootdisk.com to put in your A: drive to boot the computer with. THEN the tutorials you've read would apply.

Lee

All right... I tried the floppy boot disk. I set my bios to read my A: drive when it started up.

Then, it gave me this message:

Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to continue.

when I press any key, it gives me the same message.
When I remove the disk and pop it back in, it gives me the same message.
When I remove the disk completely, it tells me to put the disk back in, and THEN gives me the same message.

Thank you all for replying so quickly to my first post! :)

What is on the floppy? Apparently it's not bootable.

You can download a bootdisk at the following site. The file you download is not the bootdisk itself, it's used to create a bootdisk. And if you do create one, the CD-ROM letter will be R, not D

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Here's a second choice for a Win98SE* bootdisk.

*The above bootdisk image file is a self extracting file and has to be executed (run) from a running Windows machine in order to create the actual startup diskette. (This image file produces the same bootdisk which 98SE creates.) This downloaded image file will format the floppy disk, write the files to the disk, then verify the file write, so it'll take a minute or three to create the bootdisk.

Ensure the floppy drive is set as the first boot device in the bios.

NOTE: When you boot a machine with this boot floppy, it creates a RAMDRIVE in system memory to contain DOS system tools. Thus it will move your "normal" CDROM device/drive letter "up" one level. (If your CDROM is normally E: it will be F: when booting with this bootdisk.)

The path to the found CDROM will be set with the bootfiles however, so entering A:\>f:\setup is the same as entering A:\>setup at the A:\> prompt. There is no need to include the cdrom drive letter. The CDROM device letter will be assigned near the end of the floppy boot process, right after MSCDEX is loaded.

It's a good day when you learn something