Hi, I really hope someone can help me and I'm sure it's something so easy that i just totally forgot about.

Problem!!![/u]

I just purchased an older computer from School, They are ex-lease Acer Power4100
Off hand its a celron (pent 3 equv.)
Processor speed : 466mhz
about 3 yrs old

It has been networked in it's previous life at school. Because of this a DOS message stating "omega jazz host adaptor not found" flashes up, followed by the Win98 logo. Then it starts a cycle of messages in dos. the first "Boot From (N)etwork or (Q)uit?" almost instantly the screen fills up with "probing pci nic... (eepro100)Ethernet ADDR: {number} .... Valid link not established"

redisplays the boot from N)etwork or (Q)uit?" and so the cycle continues.
I was told i could just Format the c DRIVE and id be set...So i did.

I do have original win98 disks and auth cert so that i can reinstall win98 and start from scratch (this was the theory)

Now i have formatted the hard disk and restarted the comp. I inserted the Win98 CD and let it load...well attempt. Now i keep getting a message with the comp. hardware Stats at the top in blue and "invalid system disk...Replace the disk, and then press any key" at the bottom.

There is nothing wrong with the CD as it was still in the shrinkwrap from the late 90's

What should i do!!!
I really just want this comp as a dedicated Internet and basic word processing machine.

Thank you for you help, any assistance is appreciated.See if your BIOS allows to select the cdrom as the first boot device. If it does, select it and boot from the cd. If it does not, download or have a friend with w98 make a boot disk with cdrom support. You can use that to boot and then run setup from the dos prompt. You can download from bootdisk.comVery few Win98 CD releases were bootable.
Download [highlight]this archive[/highlight] and extract it to a folder. Run the resultant bootdisk.exe with a diskette in the floppy drive. It will create a bootable diskette.

Put the diskette in your new computer, enter the BIOS and set the boot order to boot from floppy first. Save it and exit. The computer will now boot from the diskette to an a:/> prompt.
The boot diskette loads real mode CD and mouse drivers plus some useful tools.

To install Windows98, type the following:

v:
setup /ie /im /is /nr
Quote

Very few Win98 CD releases were bootable.