Setting up 98. Wont load!!!

tmh88tmh88 Pittsburgh / Athens, OH
edited August 2005 in Hardware
My cousins wanted me to fix their old gateway :shakehead and i think its a model from 99. Anyway it had ME on it and whenever the computer would turn on it would just freeze while loading ME. I tried putting a copy of 98 in on startup, and it would just skip past it. I changed the boot settings so the cdrom was the 1st device and still nothing. I even made a boot disk and for some reason the computer didnt even say disk error or whatever it does when a floppys in during startup.

Then I took that hd (its a fairly new 40 gig seagate) and formatted it in my computer. I put it back into the gateway and it was then saying NTLDR ERROR. Ok so i have no clue what that means, so i tried a different 98 disk from an old dell, and it finally loaded it. Im fairly new to the computer scene (2-3 years) so ive never setup windows 98. Anyway it goes to that screen where it wants you to type something (A>: or something like that) in to get it to load, so typed Fdisk, and I formatted the hd from there again, just to be safe.(on boot-up it was now saying no OS, which is good i guess). Like i said im kinda new to computers, and i dont know what other commands to type. I tried d/setup but it said bad drive name or something. Please i need suggestions to get this computer running. :scratch: Ok now im just trying to install 98. please help ive never had to do it before. im used to xp how it just does everything for you :)

sorry for the long discription, but i wanted to get very detailed so you didnt have to ask me anything again.

Comments

  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    It would be D:\Setup.exe rather than d/setup, also remember you can do directory listings with the command "dir" and move into a directory with "cd foldername" and then "cd .." to go back up a folder. There should be a setup file on there somewhere, can't remember where though.
  • SiggySiggy Sydney Australia
    edited August 2005
    do you feel comfortable going into the Bios?

    If so press delete on start up and once in the BIOS look for the boot sequance - Make the 1st Boot the CDROM and save and exit then put the 98 disk in and wait while it reboots - should automatically start setup

    From memory, at the a: prompt you should just type Setup and the disk goes looking for the installation CD?

    hope it helps
  • tmh88tmh88 Pittsburgh / Athens, OH
    edited August 2005
    Siggy wrote:
    do you feel comfortable going into the Bios?

    If so press delete on start up and once in the BIOS look for the boot sequance - Make the 1st Boot the CDROM and save and exit then put the 98 disk in and wait while it reboots - should automatically start setup

    From memory, at the a: prompt you should just type Setup and the disk goes looking for the installation CD?

    hope it helps

    Yea I already went into the bios and changed the boot sequence. I made the floppy the 1st boot device and it still wouldnt boot to it. Im not a complete noob about computers. I've built 2, but used xp on both so im not experienced with the 98 setup. Any yes i did change the boot sequence and still nothing. Usually when theres a floppy in the drive on startup it says disk error or something like that, but I'm not even getting that. Im starting to think the floppy drive could be dead, although i can hear it making noises and the LED on the front is lighting up.
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