7 year old computer sluggish, so I reformatted.  However, Upon attempting to reinstall windows 98, the error message was cdr101 not ready reading drive E.  I took the case off and ensured all the flat ribbons were firmly attached.  Now the message is bad COMMAND or file name.  Why can I not complete setup?  What do I do next?  Please help soon.A quick googlle search turned up these links. Check them out:

HTTP://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=cdr101+not+ready+&btnG=Search

<-------------------I'm assuming that you booted from floppy or CD and arrived at an A:\&GT; prompt. If so, enter the following at that prompt:
md x:\setup where x: is any hard drive or partition
xcopy /y y:\win98 x:\setup where y: is your CD drive

This will copy the installation FILES from the Windows98 CD to a folder CALLED setup on your chosen hard drive/partition. You can now run setup from that folder in the normal manner but without the need for the CD.
However, the xcopy operation is likely to fail because of a dirty CD or a knackered/ill fitted CD drive unit.