Reinstall Win98 and now can't boot 1

[dallen43]

I was going to give an older computer to a neighbor but wanted to wipe out everything and start with a clean system for him. My husband had put linux on the D: drive. He tries to re-load windows 98 on the c: drive but got this error:

"You started your computer with a version of MS-DOS incompatible with this version of Windows. Insert a Startup diskette matching this version of Windows and then restart."

So I did the following:

I got out the Windows 98 boot diskette that came with the Win98 CD.

Reviewed the BIOS to be sure that the system would boot first from the diskette, then hard disk (C and then from the CD. (Just in case.)

Booted with the Win98 Diskette with CD Rom drivers.

Ran FDISK. Removed all current partisions and then created just one on C: and D: I'm using FAT32 as the drives are 16GB and 32GB respectively.

I tried to run a format but the format command was not on the diskette. Looking at Microsoft.com, it said to run the following to extract format from the CD. So I typed: EXTRACT EBD.CAB FORMAT.COM. It extracted the format.com command from the cd to the diskette. Then I formatted both the C: and D: drive with the commands-- FORMAT C: and FORMAT D:

The formats seemed to work as it took considerable time.

Then I typed E:Startup to start up the Win98 install and installed it using all the defaults, except typing the neighbor's name when it asks for a name and company name.

After the installation, it instructs you to remove the diskette and reboot. I did so but STILL got the same original error:

"You started your computer with a version of MS-DOS incompatible with this version of Windows. Insert a Startup diskette matching this version of Windows and then restart."

Looking at the readme.txt, on the startup diskette that was created during the install, it said to use the following: SYS C: to put the system files on the hard drive. It tried that but still came back with the same error.

Does anyone have any ideas about the cause and what I might do to fix this?

Thanks,
Deb

 

[edfair]

Suspicion that your boot disk is other than 98. Boot with it and run "ver".
You might also get a 98 boot disk from

http://www.bootdisk.com

and use it to reinstall.
Your boot disk should create a ram drive and extract several transient utilities to it and the path command should have you pointed to where they are stored. Format is , to the best of my rememberance, on the ramdrive.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[dallen43]

I downloaded the boot disk. Then from the A: drive typed

SYS C:

and it loaded the correct system files on the hard drive.
And then I was able to boot okay.

Thanks,
Deb

 

[G0AOZ]

Assuming you have a clean, virus-free bona fide Windows 98 boot disk, try booting up with it and running FDISK /mbr at the A:\> prompt just to make sure Linux hasn't got into the hard disk's MBR.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[micker377]

Just for info: Win 98, and Win98 SE boot disks are different

 

[timroop]

How about removing the partition on C and then boot from the Windows 98 CDROM and let it create the partition?

Tim

Tim Roop
"If you can do something about it, why waste time getting upset? If you can't do anything about it, why bother getting upset on top of it? -Shantideva