Hello there: I've got a pretty bad problem with my family's computer. Our house computer used to have XP, but it stopped working: it would load, and reboot, in a continual circular fashion, meaning that you could never do anything with it, because it logged off as soon as it logged on. Then, my mother had the bright idea(!) of reinstalling Windows 98 because she couldn't get XP to work. I'm not sure what she did, because I was not there, but when I came home, she had Dos running and copies of the Windows 98 floppy start-up and CD. Now, we're at the point of having Windows 98 on DOS - it won't allow us to carry on with the installation of 98, because it does not recognise our CD drive or the hard-disk drive. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

Windows 98 CD's should be bootable, maybe you need to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to CD Drive as first device !

You need to delete the partitions on the hard drive and then create new partitions and format those partitions. Your problem most likely is that the drive is probably formatted using NTFS file system. That is the default system for WinXP. However, Win98 can't access NTFS file system. So you need to change the file system to FAT32. Download a utility called Delpart and copy it to a floppy disk. Use that floppy disk to delete the NTFS partitions. You then will be able to use the Win98 setup floppy to make new partitions and format them using FAT32. Hope this makes sense to you. Now lets go back to square one. Do you really want to use Win98 as opposed to WinXP? If you are interested in using WinXP then indicate that and we can possibly help you to get it working again.

Thanks very much, Othehill - we will try Delpart and get back to you with the results. Do we have to run any commands in DOS to get it working? We would ideally like to go back to Windows XP. Best wishes, Amy

If you want to install XP, then post a thread in the appropriate forum, XP has the tools available when running setup from CD to create/format partitions. No MS-DOS required!

I agree with the above #4. However, in order to give better assistance we will need to know something more about the computer. First of all, is it a custom built unit or an OEM like Dell, eMachines, HP, Compaq, etc. When you first start the computer you should see some screens prior to Windows starting. In those screens should be information on the basic hardware in the computer. Should say what processor, memory and drives are in use. If you can't get that information because the screens change too fast try hitting the Scroll Lock or Pause keys to stop the change. Hit any key to resume the change. Post what you see on those screens. Also, do you have any CDs relating to WinXP or the computer itself?

USUALLY [but not always] a 98 startup disk will have drivers for CDROM. Maybe either your floppy or CD is a little funky. www.bootdosk.com As above, you'll need to delete existing partitions. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2