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My Old Windows 98 machine has been acting up over the passed few years so i've been keeping it away in a box. But lately i've come the need of a server so i pulled it out a few days ago and have been trying to fix it.

The PC itself was slow, so i brought over Ad-Aware and Norton by disc and began installing and scanning, i ran ad aware and my computer already had dramatic speed changes, i then proceeded to norton and removed any viruses that accumalated. After that i decided to clean it up, there were un used programs all over it, nearing the end of it, i restarted my computer. What i was surprised to see is that when i booted it up, and got to the login screen, many .dll files were missing, and i was told to re-install windows 98.

I got all my discs and poped it in, but i relized that i couldn't even access my desktop, i was stuck in the Login Screen with errors and i can't reinstall windows.

I was wondering if there is another way to re install Windows 98? Whipe everything on my Hard Drive then Re install it, without even going into desktop (I have access to the set up menu when windows is starting up). Is there any hope for me, and if so, how can i do it? Thanks.

If you have a win 98 cd rom (not sure if an update disk will work) then it can be used as a boot disk.Go into your bios settings and set your cdrom as first boot device,put the 98 disk in and restart (after saving bios changes).You should get a menu asking you to boot from hard disk or boot from cdrom.Boot from the cdrom and at the command prompt (a:\) you can type d: then press enter.From the new prompt, type cd win98 and press enter.Type format c: press enter and you will be asked if you want to proceed.Press Y then enter.After its finished you will be asked for a drive label or you can just press enter if you dont want to label/name it.Restart the machine,boot from cd and at the command prompt type d: and press enter.Now type setup and press enter and your on your way to reinstalling 98.

Where can i change my bios settings?

It depends who's bios it is...when you first turn the machine on you get a P.O.S.T. screen.On this screen you should see something saying "press ____ to enter setup".The required key varies from system to system with the most common being the Delete key.Other keys are F2 , F10 and in some cases F1.HP and Compaq are 2 machines i can think of that wont tell you what key to press or when to press it.The answer is HP mostly uses the F2 key that you press when you see the HP logo.Compaq is mostly F10 that you press when you see the Compaq logo.

Boot the machine and look for an option to enter setup,if you dont see one then tell us the manufactor of the machine or any name you might see when it powers up,such as Phoenix,Award or American Megatrends (AMI).

Oh, Sorry i didn't know that was BIOS, i just always refered to it as setup. Ok, i set the device "ATAPI-CD ROM" (Which i am guesing is the cd rom drive) to first, saved and exited, and poped in my Windows 98 Upgrade CD, sadly i don't think it worked, as the computer just continued to go through its normal procedure.

I have a HP computer, just to point out. What should i do now?

Hello QuickStar,

I would suggest that you go to and download the windows 9x boot disk.
Decompress the downloaded file to a floppy and use it to boot your system.
Select without CD Rom support

From the command prompt type
format c: press enter
press Y and then press enter.
Restart your system with the floppy still in

Select with CD Rom support this time making sure your windows 98 upgrade CD is in the CD Rom drive

at the command prompt type
d: and press enter.
now type
setup and press enter
That should start the windows 98 installation.
At some point you will be asked to provide proof for the upgrade
Put your windows 95 disk in and browse to it’s location.

Thanks Gecko, except i believe it ran into another problem. I downloaded and put it on the floppy, and stuck it in my comp and it ran fine, except that when i went to format c: it said invalid drive specification, which is weird as i know i have a C drive in there. Would there happen to maybe be a command to tell me all my drive's? I know i typed excatly "format c:", once again thanks for that post, but it doesn't seem to recognize the C drive.

Question, when your system boots up normal from C: drive do see anything about
“EZ-Drive”, “SpeedStor” or “Disk Manager”?

You might have a disk utility to handle large hard drives for your BIOS
if this system is really that old. That is stoping you from getting to C:/ drive.

I can't say for sure.. I don't think so but my system is pretty old.

Wait, i found a way passed it, i did all of step 1.

I then proceded to insert the disc and start up with the disc, it did all of that, i typed d:, and then i typed setup, But when i did setup it said "This program requires microsoft Windows".

QuickStar

Please check your private messages

Gecko