My old hard drive recently failed, so I'm trying to
install a new one with a fresh Win98 SE install. BIOS
reads the HD just fine as far as I can tell, so I don't
think there's any problem there.
First off, I've tried to boot windows installation
directly from CD, but that hasn't yielded any results
(though I know the CD works fine for other
purposes on my friend's computer, and it does say
"for computers without Windows")
I have an official Win 98 SE Boot Disk, which when
used gives the "NTLDR is missing" message. Seems
odd given this is usually an error seen when
upgrading to 2000/XP...
I also have a boot disk made from my friend's
computer running Win98 SE (installed from the
same CD I think), but it doesn't do anything and just
hangs at verifying DMI...
I'm about ready take my computer to tech suport
center, but I feel there's got to be a simple solution
here...any ideas? Perhaps I need to do something
specific in the making of my boot disk? I'm going to
make at least one more, as the first one made from
my friend's computer could have been corrupted
somehow. And I suppose the "official" one may have
actually been made on a Win2000/XP system or
something, giving the NTLDR is missing thingy. I did read somewhere that I might need to make some special adjustment for FAT32 systems. Alas, I don't know - but I'm open to ANY suggestions here! :) Thanks for reading.

SR

Sean,

In your BIOS setup, first set the primary boot from the floppy, insert the Win98 boot disk from your friend's machine and bootup to a C:\ prompt. Type in fdisk /? and hit enter, choose the option for the operation you want to run (probably fdisk /mbr) and hit enter. After that has finished go ahead and format the drive and you should be ready to load the OS you want.

what is the size of your hard drive? If it is maxtor or western digital there is a warning about the mothe board does not support the drive and it will hang up during dmi. read the manual that come with the drive to see the info.

Hi Sean,

Download a bootdisk from here.

Win98 BOOTDISK

Do not download it directly to the floppy.
Download it to Windows then insert a floppy and click on the downloaded file. It will then extract all the files to the floppy.

Restart the computer with the floppy.
At the A:\>type sys c: [Enter].

Restart the computer without the floppy and see if you still receive the error.

Good Day!
Mesich

From Article #4 of
LangaList Plus Edition 2002-08-26
A more thorough article at
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm lists six specific
reasons for a DMI problem:
1. Corrupt boot files on the computer.
2. Settings for hard disk drive are not correct.
3. Boot devices not set properly.
4. BIOS corrupt or misc. setting not set properly.
5. Connections loose or disconnected.
6. Bad Hard disk drive or other bad hardware.

The above article also goes on to suggest fixes for DMI Pool problems;
it's a good read.
**End**

Following the other posters advise should resolve the DMI problem.

Just wanted to thank everyone for the fast and thorough replies. Turned out both the boot disks I had were bad floppies, go figure. After I had a working boot disk everything proceeded smoothly. :)

SR