Windows registry error

Hi all-

I’ve been running into a strange problem when installing Win98SE on my machine. A window keeps popping up that says “Windows has encountered a problem accessing the registry. Windows will reboot and fix the problem.”
Well, it reboots, but never fixes the problem. I’ll get that error message repeatedly.
I’ve FDISKed my computer, formatted the hard drive, FDISKed the master boot record and I still get this error. On one occasion, I also got an error involving the SETUPX.DLL. I’ll assume these are related, but I don’t know how.
Any suggestions from you more knowledgable folks? Thanks!