I’ve been trying to install Win98se on a pc I’ve just put together but no matter how many times I partition the hard drive and then formatted it (2gb) I kept getting this error after the first automatic reboot during installation, C:\ Type the name of the command interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM) C:\ I tried typing the example but it just comes up with the same error. The same machine installed perfectly with another smaller hard drive (1gb) but no matter what I did with the larger one I got the same error. Then I read somewhere that if I type from a Floppy disk dos prompt “fdisk/mbr” that it would sort it out. so I did what it said and it did exactly that, it carried on installing from where it left off and now runs perfectly. I’ve installed Windows dozens of times if not hundreds and never come across this before. Anyone know why it wouldn’t install before I typed fdisk/mbr and why it installed correctly afterwards, and why it installed on the previous hard drive with doing anything? Robbie.

Well, I don't know that this will answer your question, but here's a link I found to the Microsoft Support Knowledge Base using a search at google.com and the search word, "mbr": Q69013 - FDISK /MBR Rewrites the master boot record http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q69/0/13.ASP

Here's another interesting link: ""Type the name of the Command Interpreter"...?!" http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID7/232.html

fdisk /mbr formats and recreates the master boot record on yer harddrive... either the harddrive was used previously, and the remnants of the file system on it earlier hadn't been totally wiped, and were causing problems, or the win98 cd was setting up the mbr slightly out of kilter, and needed to have it wiped and reset before it could make use of the hd it had screwed up... have fun...