[Cows With Guns]

This will probably require a few e mails, but Iam really at a loss. Trying to install directly from the Windows 98 SE (Full Edition) CD with an unpartioned hard drive I get this msg.

Verifying DMI Pool Data................
Flashing cursor goes no further


I have the Bios set for:

Floppy
CD Rom
Hard Disk 0
Other

Appreciate your help walking me thru this.

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With win98se you need to have your drive partitioned and formatted first. That will be easiest with a boot floppy. You can go to www.albootdisks.com and use any computer to make a boot floppy. Note that the cd-rom drive letter is R: for their disks, which is very convenient because it doesn't change. Fist you use fdisk to install a partition, then restart and use format to format the disk, then restart with cdrom support and open setup. These is an excelllent tutorial up above for a clean install.

[Tyger]

With win98se you need to have your drive partitioned and formatted first. That will be easiest with a boot floppy. You can go to www.albootdisks.com and use any computer to make a boot floppy. Note that the cd-rom drive letter is R: for their disks, which is very convenient because it doesn't change. Fist you use fdisk to install a partition, then restart and use format to format the disk, then restart with cdrom support and open setup. These is an excelllent tutorial up above for a clean install.

[Cows With Guns]

Tyger: Thanks for your help. I followed your instructions to a tee. Here is where Iam at:

Formatted HD with floppy from www.albootdisks.com, using Windows 98 w/o ram and using "R" as the CD drive.

Note: I formatted drive C:/s and it formatted and copied command.com. When I rebooted and changed from A: to C:\dir, command com is gone and I get the msg.
"Invalid media type reading drive C Abort, Retry, Fail?"

I then went and changed from A: to R: drive, put in the Windows98 SE full install in and typed Setup at the R drive. It looked like it was starting to install and I get the msg.
"Please wait while setup initializes
Scanning System Registry
Windows Setup requires 7340032b"

Cursor is than frozen and I have to reboot to start over.

[shard92]

Well since you got this message on 'c' "Invalid media type reading drive C Abort, Retry, Fail?" the format of the 'c' drive failed for some reason. My first guess is when you used fdisk to partition the drive you failed to reboot before formating. It could also be something else going on like a dying hard drive. OR maybe something in the masterboot record causing problems.... You could try downloading the hddiagnostic for your brand drive and running that.

[Tyger]

Thank Googleness I found some information for you.

http://support.micro...com/kb/q296168/

[Cows With Guns]

Well I have changed HD, formatted and this is my new msg.

R:setup
Please wait while setup initializes
scanning system registry...
Windows setup requires 7340032 Bytes avail

[peterm]

How big is your hard drive????

[Cows With Guns]

80 GB Hard Drive Western Digital

[Tyger]

That help link I gave you says to turn off your virus guard in DOS, you have to go into Setup to do that. Have you done it? Well, darn it, do it and try again. On most older systems you press esc during boot to go into Setup.

[peterm]

Ok did you use fdisk to partition your hard drive?
if yes did you make the partition active?

[Cows With Guns]

I have went into the Bios and made sure that the virus scan was disabled. The drive is partitioned, formatted and active.

Still the msg comes up when I press setup on the CD drive

Please wait while setup initializes
Scanning System Registry
Windows Setup requires 7340032 Bytes Avail

I don't have a clue what to do next.

[Tyger]

What you may have done, every one of use has done it accidentally, is to put two partitions on the drive, a small C: and the rest of the drive is D:, and Windows is trying to install on C:. If so remove the second partition and reformat the drive to get the full size.

Edited by Tyger, 02 October 2005 - 01:35 PM.

[peterm]

Restart again and follow this guide
Install 98

Edited by peterm, 03 October 2005 - 12:19 PM.