I have to ask again, trying to installing Win98.

[capman21]

Trying to install Win98 on a HD that did have WinXp on it. I used delpart and also another tool to completely remove the NTSF partition, but I still cant get Win98 to install on the HD. I am doing the fdisk and making it a fat32 and doing the format, and than sticking my win98 cd in. 1.install win98 will format HD, or 2. install win98 will format. Doesnt matter which I choose because it says "wrong system info." Do I need to copy something from the win98 floppy onto the HD before I stick the win98 cd in? I did get it to the point where the win98 logo would come up, but once again when I stick the cd in after selecting one of the options it still comes up with "wrong system info." I have installed OS's on HD before, but have never had this much trouble.

[buttzilla]

Check out this at microsoft
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221829

[aedipuss]

fdisk - make sure to delete all partitions including non-dos ones. run fdisk again and create a primary dos partition out of the entire drive. run format and reformat the entire drive to fat32.

then run dos floppy/boot with cd support/run setup on 98 cd.

would ask why anyone would want to, but it's your comp.....

[IKnowNothing]

Everything you need is (or should be) on your 98 Install CD.
Boot from that and use FDISK and FORMAT from there.

98 WILL not install if the disk has been formatted with an OS later the 98 (ie ME, 2K, XP).

Thanks Microsoft!

[johns0]

fdisk - make sure to delete all partitions including non-dos ones. run fdisk again and create a primary dos partition out of the entire drive. run format and reformat the entire drive to fat32.

then run dos floppy/boot with cd support/run setup on 98 cd.

would ask why anyone would want to, but it's your comp.....

Some programs will only run on win98/me.

[mstone321]

Have you tried fdisk /mbr (clear Master Boot Record) from the Win98 installation floppy that came with the Win98 CD kit? If you can find a Win95 installation floppy, the same command should work from that.

The response to fdisk /mbr is.... nothing. No prompt and FDISK does not actually start. HOWEVER, the next time you enter FDISK, the "magic" should happen.

I can't believe I still remember this....

[ahhaa]

just a thought, but there are now many linux distros that run right from CD without installing anything and can examine/modify all partitions on an HD.

You might use one to take a looksee at that HD; Puppy is small at around 80 megs (making for a quick download), there are several others too. Don't necessarily believe 'wrong system info'; M$ can flail around displaying strange stuff if that error wasn't planned for.

[stephenland]

Have you considered creating a Virtual Machine on your PC and installing Win98 on that? VirtualPC 2007 is a free download from Microsoft and creating and setting up the Virtual Machine is pretty easy.

You are constrained to a plain vanilla video card in the VM so a Non-Linear Editing program may not run. However, I've used this method to run old Win9x applications that would not run on WinXP or Vista.

[buttzilla]

just a thought, but there are now many linux distros that run right from CD without installing anything and can examine/modify all partitions on an HD.

You might use one to take a looksee at that HD; Puppy is small at around 80 megs (making for a quick download), there are several others too. Don't necessarily believe 'wrong system info'; M$ can flail around displaying strange stuff if that error wasn't planned for.

Windows 98 and the dos boot disc give you everything you need to install it. You can examine the partitions with fdisk and make all the changes you need. I don't know how large his hard drive is but 98 can't support really large drives. Cant remember the size. I believe at one point it ask you if you want to support large drive support. choose yes. It's been years since i installed 98 on a machine.

[capman21]

Tried once again, put cd in and fdisked/formatted drive. Checked it and it is FAT32. Restarted and booted to win98 boot disk. Selected first option run with cd support. Next I put the cd back in and tried to run "setup.exe" and it says cannot run in dos mode. Once again tried 1.install win98 will format HD, or 2. install win98 will format, and still got the msg "wrong system info." This is ridicilous it may sound like it, but I am not as dumb as it may seem. What ever I am missing I have no idea at all.

[stephenland]

Is your Win98 CD a full version or an OS upgrade? If it's an upgrade, it's looking for Win95 on the hard disk.

[buttzilla]

Have you looked at the Microsoft link that I posted above? It has detailed instructions on how to install. I recommend you look at it. You probably are missing something.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221829

[bevills1]

Exactly how did you try to run setup.exe when you "Restarted and booted to win98 boot disk. Selected first option run with cd support. and next put the cd back in and tried to run setup.exe." I've done this a half dozen times or more and never got the "Can not run in DOS mode" message. After booting to startup disk when trying to run setup.exe, are you typing "X:" and pressing "Enter" before typing "setup" and pressing "Enter" where "X" is drive letter where Win98 CD is? Trying to run setup.exe from A: drive by typing "X:\setup" and pressing "Enter" might cause this error, but I've never done it that way and don't know but could be.

[handyguy]

"run format and reformat the entire drive to fat32. "

Sort of.

You also have to put the system files on the hd so that you can boot to it.

Therefore, I think the dos phrase is: system cslash)s

Or system c: /s

/s adds the necessary system files

Then you have the right system on your hd.

[capman21]

It is Win98 CD full version. I have tried d:\setup.exe, r:\setup.exe not matter which drive I try I get the same thing. Which system files do I need to put on the HD, the files from the win98 cd or the boot floppy disk?

I just did the exact steps from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221829 and still when I go an type e:\setup I get "cant run in dos." Maybe I am missing a step some where, but where I have no idea at all.

[buttzilla]

Are you trying to install to another drive other then your C drive? Windows always prefers the C drive. If you have multiple hard drives disconect the ones you do not plan on installing 98 and if you have 2 cd drives disconect one of them.. Above you say you tried D:\SETUP AND R:\SETUP What is R do you have that many drives to have an R? I doubt it. How many cd drives do you have? I have 2 and their letters are G and H. So yours might not necessarly be D it depends on how many drives you have. If I remove my 3 other hard drives then one will be D: after a reboot. When windows 98 came out there basiclly where One hard drive and one CD rom. By the way you don't have SATA drives do you?

[kosz]

boot with your win 98se boot disk and it should ask if you want to boot with / with out CD Rom support, select no support then at the command promt

type Format c: /s and when its done reboot with the boot floppy and the Win 98se disk in the CD Rom and say yes for CD Rom support and the win installation should begin

[ViRaL1]

Were you using any kind of disk management or recovery software such as GoBack? If so, then you'll have to boot from the CD and run fdisk /mbr at the dos prompt. Here are the steps I usually follow.

1) Start the computer with the Win98 CD in the drive.

2) Choose Boot from CD, then choose Boot with CD-ROM Support, switch the CD drive (the boot process should show you which letter us your CD drive

3) at the DOS prompt, type 'fdisk /mbr' (no quotes)

4) reboot and follow steps 1 & 2 again then skip to step 5

5) run fdisk without switches this time and remove all DOS and non-DOS partitions

6) create a primary DOS partition, then exit fdisk and reboot

7) follow steps 1 & 2 again, then follow step 8

8) at the DOS prompt, type format c: /s; this should format the primary partition and install the system files on it.

The next steps are optional, but recommended

type the lines as follows

a) md windows

b) md windows\options

c) md windows\options\cabs

d) cd windows\options\cabs

e) copy d:\win98\*.* (assuming d: is your CD drive); this will allow the setup to run from the hard drive and you shouldn't have to put in the Window98 CD every time a program needs it.

f) setup /ie (this will skip the emergency disk creation during the setup process.

g) follow the setup process

[capman21]

I only have one drive, and I tried "r" by mistake. I am trying "e" because of this "If CD-ROM support is provided by the generic drivers on the Startup disk, you receive one of the following messages, where X is the drive letter that is assigned to your CD-ROM drive:
Drive X: = Driver MSCD001" The way kosz said do it is the way I am trying it, but it isnt working. When its time to put the cd in I try eetup I still get "cant run in dos", or I also have the options 1.install win98 will format HD, or 2. install win98 will format, and no matter what I choose I get "wrong system info", and I am positive its fat32.

[kimco52]

Since you are grabbing straws here, was there any disk compression by some manufacturer on that hard drive? Or mods made by disk manufacturers software? That used to cause me problems such that I quit doing that to get those large disks to work under older OS's. It was hard to remove them, also. Maxtor Max Blast Software, if I remember correctly.

Hard disks are cheap now. Why not buy a fresh new one and start with it?

I am currently running three computers on my network with Win98. One is my printer server which just runs the printers. It has been working for years just fine and see no reason to change it right now. Plus it is my incoming fax machine and it functions just fine without upgrading the Winfax program beyond V4.
One computer is my wife's and all she does is play solitaire and occasionally do some minor internet surfing. The other is a computer that I still have a Miro/Pinnacle DC30 card. I still have a lot of video clips from that card and Codec that I occasionally need to download from so I just keep that system because the drivers never went beyond Win98. I no longer edit with it but play clips when needed.

However, it has been a few years since I built a Win98 disk but I haven't had the problems you have. It seems that all the advice you have been given is correct and provides several options for accomplishing the task. Something seems to be missing in what you are doing. That is why I threw in the "try a new fresh disk" approach. What you are doing now doesn't appear to be working.

I am confused by your two choices. Option 1 Installs Win98 will format HD, and Option 2 Installs win98 will format.
What is the difference? Something is missing in those two Option descriptions.
You say it is a complete Win98 disk. The question was posed by Stephenland whether it is a full or an upgrade. The upgrade version is a full version, also. The difference between the two is that one is looking for an existing operating system and the other does not want to see an existing operating system.

Occasionally, I had problems with FDisk. As mentioned previously, Win 98 does not like versions of FDisk from later OS. I had to use FDisk from a Win98 or Win95 disk.

I also agree with the statement to remove all other hard drives and other devices. When building a Win98 system, I would get the computer down to one floppy, one hard drive (C) and one CD-Rom. Nothing else. Once the OS is up and running, then I added things one at a time until the system was up to what I ultimately wanted.

I also would start with a fresh disk and let Win98 partition and format the drive.

[Nelson37]

When you change to E: drive, can you type DIR and get a list of files on the CD? This is to confirm that you are actually reading the CD disk.

The options #1 and #2 you are describing do not seem normal, though it has been many years since I did a Win98 install. The two options seem to be saying the same thing, I do not recall any such prompt.

Once you have Fdisked and Formated, you should be able to boot from the Cd. After Fdisk, you HAVE to reboot before format.

Do any additional partitions show up in Fdisk, View Partition Information? What is the size of the Hard disk? Is this an AMD PC, IIRC there was a patch required for some AMD CPUs, long, long ago.

[bevills1]

You said "when I go an type e:\setup I get 'cant run in dos" and "I have tried d:\setup.exe, r:\setup.exe not matter which drive I try I get the same thing" both of which seems to indicate you're trying to execute setup.exe from startup disk or other bootable disk. Try changing drives to the drive letter of drive with Win98 CD first, and then just type "setup" without any drive letter as suggested in my 5/18 post.

It shouldn't be necessary to transfer system files because that's done as part of running setup, but to transfer system files from a DOS prompt from drive where Win98 CD is type "sys c:" with a space between "sys" and "c:" and press "Enter" if you want to try it anyway.

[Bjs]

1: Set bios to allow boot from cd , save , exit , upon reboot , go to 2
2: When running fdisk , use LBA , create partition , save info
3: As pc is rebooting , turn the pc OFF (do not simply allow pc to reboot , it will not work)
4: Turn on , and now format partition .
5: Once format completed , run setup from cd , from the win98 dir

As is X:\win98\setup.exe (Replace X with known drive letter)

To avoid optical read errors during installation , copy the "win98" dir from cd to hd , and run install from hd .

-

Older pc may not have bootable cd option , must use a bootdisk with cd support

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

-

Q: Not able to run from dose mode ?
A: Running wrong setup , use win98/setup which is pointed to by the files contained in the boot sector of the cd

Q: Wrong system info ?
A: It may be an a specific OEM system disc , and not the full retail (some oems check pc specs before install)


Other :

Query : System info error

Possible bootdisk format.com is not a specific version as required by os install choice ?
Make sure bootdisks contain the correct version

Copy format.com from cd's win98 folder to the floppy bootdisk (overwrite) , and use it now to format pc .

[bevills1]

Are you using a Win98 install CD? I just tried booting to Win98 startup disk and typing "o:\setup" where "o" is drive letter for Win98 CD for my system, and setup starts with no problem. The "can't run in DOS" and "wrong system info" errors generated seems to indicate you're using a CD where somebody burned a copy of an installation of Win98 on a PC. Those kinds of errors will indeed be generated in such a case because the system is booted to a Windows disk and not a DOS Windows install disk that's required. Trying to run setup from such a disk will not work, and only a Windows install disk will work.

[capman21]

I typed wrong there are three options Option 1 Installs Win98 will format HD, and Option 2 Installs win98 will not format, and the third is "run in dos mode" or something like that either way it keeps you in dos mode. I ran fdisk from the win98 boot floppy, and I did reboot after I ran fdisk. I tried just typing setup without any drive letter and still same msg "cant run in dos". Also when I type dir E: I am able to see what is on the cd. I have changed the bios boot order several times, and when I have cd set for first boot order it boots to the cd and gives me the three option, but once again still same problems.It is only showing one partiton and it is FAT32. Like I said I have done this before, and even just finished a semester at school installing OS, but what in the world is going on with this I have no idea, and its just a small 40 gig drive. Thanks for all the effort and help that has been given.

[nic2k4]

Try this, boot from your CD, select start with CDROM support. Run Fdisk, choose option 3 delete partition... Then choose option 1 create primary partition... Don't format the partition; reboot from the CD and let it install windows, it will format the drive for you.

BTW, would that 40 Gig drive happen to be an IBM or Hitachi drive? I once had a hell of a time installing win98 on a SIS board with one of those drives. Ended up having to run the drive in ultra33 mode (UDMA2).

[capman21]

No, its a Western Digital drive, and I think I tried the way you suggested, but its worth another shot I guess.

[handyguy]

Why not run the WD software to prep it? Should be at their website.

[bevills1]

No Windows disk I've ever seen gives options similar to yours, and I've installed Windows versions 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, 2k and XP. Setup should simply begin when executed, display message something like "Setup is examining your system" and then proceed through setup steps. The errors you're getting should only be generated when booted to Windows which indicates you're either using a Windows CD created similar to how I suggested in my 5/20 post or some kind of awful flaw in Windows setup CD. All attempts with this CD will likely fail because it either is or thinks it is a Windows disk instead of the setup disk needed. Which files and folders are seen on the CD?

[edong]

I just did the exact steps from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221829 and still when I go an type e:\setup I get "cant run in dos." Maybe I am missing a step some where, but where I have no idea at all.

Many years ago, I could not install Windows 98 also. I do not remember the error message which was not very helpful at all. Only by accident that I turned off the CMOS antivirus and the installation went through. This CMOS antivirus is also mentioned in the Microsoft guide. Did you turn the antivirus off? (Don't ask me how because I do not remember what I did ) Might worth a try. Who knows?