Windows 98 se help.

Hello.

My mother was trying to reformat her Windows 98 se today. When she was almost done the setup it started asking for her eathernet disk and sound blaster disk. She put them in but the file couldnt be located on the disk. She made sure it was the correct disk, and it was, and she believes that in the installation a driver for her CD ROM drive wasnt installed. She tryed booting up in safe mode, and alot of errors came up, but eventually windows explorer came up and she could access most of her files and programs. Neither of us know what can be done with this and i have sepnt the last hour or two looking for a way to make a startup disk with floppy's on microsofts website (i have done this for my computer with Windows XP) but so far no luck. So if anyone could help out i would be very greatful.

Thanks.

 

To create a win98 startup disk, click start>settings>control panel>add remove programs. Click on the tab that says startup disk. From there it will be pretty much self explanatory.

For the rest of the problems, more than likely the cdrom drivers were installed ok. Put a disk in the drive and then open my computer and double click on the cdrom drive. If it opens with either a view of the folders and files that are on the disk or if it opens an autorun program the cdrom is working fine.

Assuming it's working, when you're prompted for the disk for whatever hardware is involved, put the disk in and then, there should be a browse or have disk button you can click on. You have to click on the button and then browse to the folder that contains the drivers for the hardware (either your ethernet card or sound card, depending on which you're trying to install). If you just put the disk in without showing it the folder where the drivers are located, more than likely it won't find it. Unless I'm misunderstanding, this should get the job done.

 

I am not sure how you formatted the drive without a boot floppy, as you cannot do a complete job when booting off of the hard drive.
I noticed you mentioned you could access files and programs, they shouldn't have been there after a proper format if they were on the C: drive.
Go to Bootdisk, and download the file for 98SE OEM. Put a floppy into the drive and double click the file and one will be created for you. This file will work if you run it on your XP machine.
Do not copy this file onto the floppy and expect it to work.
Back up all files that she wants to keep, so that are not on the C: drive to be lost.

When using the boot floppy, choose with CDROM support. Before the A:\> appears, there will be a message giving you the drive letter for the CD drive. It will not be the usual letter, it could be E, use this letter in place of the X below.
If you want the dos commands to do a format and install here they are. NOTE: this will completely wipe everything out, that is what a format does.
format c:
X:\win98\setup

After a complete format, install windows, then install the motherboard drivers as the first thing. If the network card is onboard and not an add-on card, this will be one of the things the MB CD will install.
Then install the video, then sound drivers if it is not onboard.
The same for the modem.
Note: during the MB CD installation, these onboard items will be listed only as Devices at first.
Onboard means it is part of the motherboard, and not an add-on.

 

It has been my experience that during the installation process of win98 and while it is still trying to install devices it will ask for drivers before it has fully recognized, loaded and engaged those needed for cdrom. You are left in a position of allowing windows to detect the device and later, after win98 has fully detected and loaded cdroms, going back into device manager and updating those still needing drivers you have on a cd. Or you can choose to ignore or skip these and redetect, update or install them later.

In other words win98 installs are mistimed. It asks for drivers you have on a cd before it even installs the cdroms. Only options you have at this point of the win98 installation is A drive (floppy) or harddrive C:. I usually allow the detection and incomplete installation of these and later go back into device manager and update the buggers.