Not as easy as I thought.

[boofhead]

Tried to make a new computer from parts, including a m/b and AMD processor, RDram ,memory etc. Then tried to install WIN98. Could not, no way. All I get after partition and format is garbage messages, such as 'font incorrect', and the install hangs. I cannot install the drivers for the mother board because they will not work without an OS. I put in a hard drive from another computer which had windows installed and working fine, but it would not load past the intro screen, then telling me a whole bunch of files were missing. I guess the processor/memory were different to what the disks were used to and needed new drivers, but again without an OS I could do nothing.. .Has anyone had this problem and could help me to recover a lot of expensive hardware?. .Thanx in advance...

[SLF 999]

At least you know it is working (of a fashion) when you put a known working HDD in and its booting.. .The first thing to do is boot from either the Win98 CD or from an emer startup disk and do a full reformat, deleting all the partitions currently on the HDD this will give you a starting point and then install win98 on the formatted drive, this should work.. .Another option would be to format the HDD and install win 98 on it on another PC, yes you will get a lot of errors , but these can be sorted out easily at first boot on your built PC. .Remember to make the drive bootable when you format it !!

[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: SLF 999 ]</p>

[WhiteSail]

There are certain area's in your post that I am unclear about, so forgive me from starting from the begining.

1. Use a boot disk to get to an A: prompt and then type Fdisk (Enter). Fdisk the drive and when it is complete, don't forget to make the partition active. Without this crucial step, you won't achive anything.

2. Format C: (Enter) is the next command and this will format your drive and make it usable. If you wish, you can use the command Format C: /s/u This will unconditionally format the drive (in other words, get rid of everything) and load the system files on the drive, making C: bootable. (Note the space between the C: and the /)

3. Re-boot computer with a Windows recovery (boot) disk and when you get to the A: prompt type Setup (Enter)

4. Allow the setup process to start and when you get back to the A: prompt type E: (Enter) This is because, the setup floppy will have created a virtual drive and named it D:, so wherever your NORMAL CD Rom drive would be, it has moved along one letter. (If it were normally E, it becomes F and so on).

5. With the CD in place, now type Setup (Enter), and hopefully all should be well! If your not 100% sure of what your doing, use one of the default options. Once the system is installed, it can always be modified to taste later.

Hope this helps. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: WhiteSail ]</p>