I formatted and partitioned HD with fdisk all went well.
Then when I was ready to install Win98SE the CD does not run.
It assigned the CD to G drive and I can switch to G in DOS but when I TYPE in SETUP I get :
         Device not ready Retry, Abort, Fail  
What am I doing wrong?
CD worked fine before format and the machine was on FAT 16 WIN 95
fdisk shows both partitions as FAT32 C & DYou can call me on this one, but I believe win 98se is a  bootable disk. Assuming you have the original MS disk you could try setting the bios to boot from CDrom (sometimes burned/backup copies of windows dont work as well).  If that doesnt work... I am assuming you already have a floppy boot disk you may WANT to try making a new one from either http://www.bootdisk.com/


http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/ubd.htm

Lastly you could try copying the cd (hoping you can at least view it) directly to the hard drive and install from there. Provided is a link that explains it quite well http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software/windows/upgrade/inst98.htm or http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q169/5/01.asp&NoWebContent=1 Good luck let us know any updates.Dennis......Try reading this it just might be of help
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=716493758+1081713496464+28353475&threadId=293689
Hope this is of some help

dl65Thanks detox,
I made a new boot disk from the link you posted but same result it loads a cd driver assigns it a drive letter (now R) when I enter drive letter R at DOS PROMPT the CD runs but then gives me this msg
          CDR101: not ready reading drive R
           Abort, Retry, Fail ?

I have used fdisk several times and reloaded OS several times first time with this problem. Also the CD 98 disk is a full MS version not a copy.


Thanks dl65,
Great site for the use of fdisk but I use fdisk quite often my problem is after fdisk and formatting HD.
go into the bios del key and change the boot sequence to cdrom?I can't seem to get into BIOS I have pushed F1-F2-Esc-& Del keys but none of these open the BIOS.
The Comp is a Compaq Presario 4660 if this helps. It only boots up from boot disk then goes to A prompt.
Try Ctrl ALT SAlt S didn't work either any help for getting into BIOS from the 95/98 start up disk??hit the f10 on boot to obtain bios and change the boot sequence to boot from cdrom save and exit more info on re-install win98>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=221829&product=w9