What is HPFS and NTFS on a hard drive?

While trying to install windows 95 on my compaq
contura 4/25c laptop, I get a message that says,

” Cannot create a temporary directory.”
” If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard
drive, you will need to create an MS-DOS boot
partition to set up windows.”

I checked FDISK and a partition already existed.
How do I get it to create a temporary directory?
How do I install windows 95?