I have an old laptop, about 8 years old. Right now it doesnt have an OS, but I have a Windows 98 disc, a 2k disc, a reformat disc, and a bunch of diffrent linux disc.. But I have a problem.. See, the CD-ROM drive is kinda messed up.. it's kinda hard to explain. See, it will read the contents of the CD, but cant actually use it. Like for instance when I pop in a CD, it'll read it all, I can tell it to install whatever so it'll begin loading it up, then I get an A prompt. When I put in the reformat disc, It'll ask if I want to full format or quick, and no matter which I choose it'll begin that, then it'll restart.. and nothing again. Is there anyway I can install Windows 98 or some other OS by floppy disk or something? Since it's old, I dont want to spend money on it to fix it, because I only want to use it for typing and note taking and stuff..

That doesn't sound like the symptoms of a bad cdrom. Usually you'll get some kind of error message. It may be some other hardware problem. It'd be a good idea to check the cmos settings too. You can install dos and win 3.1 using floppies. There are also some copies of 95 on floppies. And I believe at one time you could order 98 on floppies. But given the age of the laptop you may be better off going no higher than 95.

Have you tried to copy the 98 cab files to the hard drive and intall from there? Growing old is unavoidable, growing up however is stll optional

Actually the computer came with 98, it even has a "Designed for Win98" sticker on there. And I cant copy the 98 cab files over, because it wont read the files.. It doesnt even have a location.. I just tried to copy the files, I put this disc in and it showed the 98 start picture of the clouds and stuff, then it got to C:\ prompt and I did D: all the way threw Z: and it tells me every letter "Invalid drive specification"

When you boot from the cdrom, you don't get the splash screen. Therefore you must be booting from the HD. Apparently a format c:/s was done on the drive. This formats the drive and copies the system files so it'll boot. In that case, when booting you get a momentary splash screen and then a c:\> prompt. You don't have cdrom support because no dos cdrom drivers are loaded. To get cdrom support you need to create a config.sys and autoexec.bat file on the drive and copy the other necessary files to the drive. Or you can boot with a bootdisk and choose 'cdrom support'. Or, if your cmos/bios setup allows it, you can set the cdrom as the first boot device and then boot from the cd.

have u tried when it loads to the c:\ have u tried the command C:\cd\windows (then press enter) then type in WIN (then enter) see if windows continues to load, please let me know if this works or not! Martyn.S Whats the point in playing with something if there is nouthing wrong with it?

Have you entered the BIOS and looked around. With a computer that age the CMOS battery is suspect. The drive configuration may not be set right.