windows 98 setup

Try creating a directory on your hard drive (C:\CABS is what I use) and copy the contents of the WIN98 directory there.  Run SETUP from there.  Does it make a difference?

I havn't a clue how to do that ,but would love to able to ,please explain

If you have formatted the hard drive do the following.
1. SYS C: (this copies the system files to C: and makes it bootable)
2. MD CABS (creates the directory)
3. CD CABS (changes to that directory)
4. XCOPY D:\WIN98\*.* /S/E/V (copies the entire contents of the WIN98 directory to that location.  This is assuming that your CD drive letter is D, it may not be)
5. SETUP (starts the setup from the hard drive)

I tried it but it stops at exactly the same place...it scans the drive(free space ect)then it flicks to "windows start coppying files" and freezes there again.I'm running 100mhz pc 100 ram but my cpu is a celeron  66mhz will this make a difference...it's regestering as 66mhz ram.

PC100 SDRAM will run fine at 66mHz. T

Back it down to a bare minimum system.  Take out the NIC card, sound card, and other unnecessary stuff.  You only want the CPU, memory, video, floppy, and hard drive (if you have the cab files copied to your hgard drive.  Now will SETUP run?

i only hav cd rom,hard drive,cpu ,floppy and memory,ther,s on board sound,will turning this of in bios setup help?I've done the other thing(cab files as previously described)run setup and it did the same

Have you verified that all memory is properly seated?  Can you try different memory?
If the sound is integrated that should not matter.  It should install if you have device conflicts but it would put exclamation points on the device.
Have you done a virus scan?

tried memory...no luck,still the same.I have pc chillin anti virus installed on this system(it came with the board) so i made some rescue disks and tried them through it but they reported no viruses(i've tried updating virus pattern files)I had a different board and cpu in the system prior to this one that worked fine with the rest of the system.The mobo is brand new (cheap)the cpu i bought off ebay as recon.The exact place it freezes is when the button is supposed to come up to start coppying files,it doesn't.After a failed setup it reports a problem on scandisk and fixes it.I hope all this helps.

Maybe the CPU is bad.  Swap it out and try another.  Then again it could be the mobo.  Try another.  Whichever you can borrow from a friend would be the first I would try.

The only other thing left is the video.  Can you try a different video?

not sure if this was mentioned but it may make a diff   go to bios and disable antivirus   maybe its not letting setup write to the HD    

looks to have worked with the re-partition(fingers crossed).You'll have to instr. me on how to award points,i'm a bit new to this,realy impressed though while on subject.thanks for the help...jay

If one person helped the most, you accept the comment as answer.  If more than one was helpful in the solution, you can request that the points be split by submitting a request to Community Support (link at left) with this Q number and your request of how to split the points.

i've just looked round  and can't find out how to splitt the points,i think it's only fare slink9 gets 30 for time put  and 70 to rid ror solving it.I'll try to sort it tom orrow.

I'll get Comtech to do the split for you

Thanks for the note trekie1, I will accept rid here at the question, so I will reduce the amount of points to 70,
and accept him when you notice I have changed the points to 70.

To help you out this time, I will create the 30 point Question for slink9

Kind regards,
ComTech
CS Admin @ EE

You may now accept rid's comment as the answer.

Best to all,
ComTech

once again ...what a great service...I'ts like being able to ask teacher when your stuck but having thousands of teachers...brilliant idea.

Glad it worked!

/RID