Rebuilding Old computer

The way to resolve this is to make a WIn98 boot disk...it will boot the system using generic ATAPI cd-rom drivers and allow you to install.

You can make this off your CD, another 98 system or download it from bootdisk.com

Good luck!

The Windows 98 CD is not a bootable CD.

Having the CD bootable started with Windows Me, and W2K.

You need a Windows 98 "Startup" disk.

You can either create one from Add/Remove programs on any working W98 system.

Or, you can copy the files from www.bootdisk.com onto a bootable floppy disk.

Then, set the bios so it boot from the floppy, and install CD-ROM support during the startup process.

Then, run setup from the DOS prompt, and you should begin installing Windows.

Make sure that the IDE channel that the CD drive is connected to is set for either CD-ROM, or auto.
Many of these older motherboards cannot detect the CD-ROM drive on their own, and need DOS mode drivers in order for you to have DOS access to the drive.Also, I recommend 2 things for this PC.
First, I do not install W98 on anything slower than 350MHz. It just runs to slow for my tastes.

Second, do your friend a favor, and find some more RAM. 128MB would make a significant difference in the operation of W98.

Chas

Here is the way I would do it. Install it on the 1GHz system, and at the end of the install copy the Win98 directory from the CD to the hard drive.
After the copy had finished open device manager and delete (remove) everthing from the system listing without restarting. Shutdown and install the HD in the old computer and start let windows discover everthing pointing it to the Win98 directory you copied on the HD when it asks for any cabs. This might take a couple of restarts before everything is recognized and you might have to run add new hardware but this always works when I reinstate old machines.

Here is the way I would do it. Install it on the 1GHz system, and at the end of the install copy the Win98 directory from the CD to the hard drive.
After the copy had finished open device manager and delete (remove) everthing from the system listing without restarting. Shutdown and install the HD in the old computer and start let windows discover everthing pointing it to the Win98 directory you copied on the HD when it asks for any cabs. This might take a couple of restarts before everything is recognized and you might have to run add new hardware but this always works when I reinstate old machines.

The best way, the the way I've done it many times, is what the first answer that was given said. Get a Win98 boot disk and the rest will be a piece of cake. If I recall correctly, that version of windows came with a boot disk already exclusively for what you are trying to do.

:)