I formatted win 98, and attempted to re-intstall it. Unfortunatly, the CD is so scratched, it won't let me. Is there a place I can download and burn the windows 98 installation files in order to replace mine?

Hi, Try very gently polishing the surface of the CD with a small blob of a normal white toothpaste on a cotton wool ball. Don't polish circumfrentially, right around the CD, but polish in smaller circles going right around the CD. To clean the toothpaste off, wash the cd very gently and then dry with a very soft cloth. Make certain the CD is fuly dry before trying to use it. Alternatively look on ebay or a computer fair. hth Ceri

As ceri says, polishing the CD with a mild abrasive can often resurrect a scratched CD. I have found that brass polish does the job just as well. As for downloading Windows 98 No, not legally anyway. You should be able to pick up a Windows 98 CD on E-bay for a few dollars if the polishing doesn't work. Stuart

Another thing I've found works sometimes for both data and music CD's is to get out your CD burner software and "copy" the CD.

Scratches on the bottom are not serious and can often be polished out. However scratches on the top are not likely to be fixable. The data is actually stored 'very' close to the top of the CD.

It may be a failing cdrom or a combination of a scratched cd and the cdrom. Copying it as name suggests may work then.

The only time I tried toothpase on a CD it scratched it to blazes, so take care. I'd wash it in washing up liquid and water first then copy it. The copy process sometimes works because the reading is more steady and continuous. DerekW