sounds like you just have one of the older Win98 CDs that aren't bootable. Also sounds like you lost your IDE cable so that you can attach your FDD externaly while having your CDrom in the bay.

-first see if you can find the cable, if so you should be able to have both devices on at the same time and be set.

-otherwise try to find a new rev of the Win98 CD that is bootable.

-last but not least...you can find yourself a copy of the 25 (or so) diskette set of Win98 

Message Edited by PhoneMonkey on 02-04-2004 04:12 PM

Thanx for the suggestions. They are all new to me and I'll try them shortly.

cheers. CK

Here's another option.  See if anyone you know has an OEM Windows 98 SE boot disk.  It has some advanced features such as ofdisk, instead of just fdisk, and once it clears tha hard drive of partions, and you then create your primary partion it will require you to reboot.  Leave the floppy in and reboot.  at this time you will be able to format the hard drive and then it will load some files, tell you to remove the disk and shut down.  at this time you can substitute the floppy for the cd rom with the windows 98 disk in it and reboot the machine. the cd drivers will be on the hard disk, as well as the boot files, and here's the real beauty, it loads the cab files on the hard drive, then extracts them to load the operating system.  No more having to find the operating system disk when you add a new modem or nic card, it automatically loads whats needed from the cab files.  Not to mention ofdisk works a thousand times better than fdisk, it finds even dells nasty hidden partitions and gives you the option to delete them.

You can also download all the files necessary for an OEM Win98SE boot disk and create your own.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

thanx, it is similar to "flooby"s" reply and I'm back in business.CK