Drivers, Drivers, Drivers

By cleaning off your hard drive, do you mean that you formatted the drive?

If not, if you can install the drive in another PC and back up your files that will help.

What I would do, is as follows:

Boot from a W98 startup floppy.
If your floppy drive does not function in DOS mode, check the cables, and if need be replace the drive.

From the DOS prompt, run the command
fdisk /mbr
This will rebuild the master boot record for the hard drive.

Next, run the command
format C: /s
this will format the C: drive and make the drive a bootable drive.
CAUTION: ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST!

After the format is complete, insert your W98 CD, and from the DOS prompt run
setup

Re-install Windows 98.
I use the custom option, and select the components I want to install.

After Windows installs, you need to install device drivers for your hardware.

I start with the drivers for the motherboard.
Then if needed, I install the proper version of DirectX for the video card.
Then the video card driver.
Finish up with other device drivers.

Use caution with Windows Update, as some older video cards do not support IE6 or DirectX 9.

Chas

A great site you could go to is:

http://www.driverguide.com/

They have heaps and heaps of drivers, for all types of O/S.

Setup a free account with them and they will send you out a username and password to log onto their network.

Check your bios settings for boot drive sequence. If you want to load Win98 with a floppy then floppy drive must be first. You can also load win98 with just the cd. Make sure the cd drive is first in boot sequence. You don't need drivers for these before windows unless your system ancient. Consider loading xp home. For the $100.00 upgrade you will have to hunt for less drivers. Also checkout www.grisoft.com for AVG Virus Scanner to keep your new installation problem free.

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