Could there be a virus?

You are booting up with a Win98 startup floppy, correct?

After fdisk, go for "format c:" and after formating try installing Win98 from the CD (setup...).

Zee

I am booting up from Win98 Startup floppy.

I just took my floppy out and booted from my hard drive.  I started to get the 98 splash screen but then I got a blue screen that said:
Windows found an error in your system files and was unable to fix the problem.  Try deleting some files to free up disk space on your windows drive.  If this doesn't work re-install windows under another directory.
And then it gave me an OK to press

After the OK I got my c:\  .  However, before it showed that I got a few error messages on the screen.
1.  Registry file was not found
2.  XMS cache problem
3.  System.ini cannot be found
There were a couple more words but after maybe 10 seconds the screen just said it is safe to turn your computer off now.

And formating my hard drive I have done it with "Format c:" and "Format c: /u/s" and either way I'm still don't know what is wrong.

>>This is a seven year old system that won't recognize larger hard drives.<<

What size is the HD?
Try creating a much smaller partition and format it...

If you have a system whose BIOS does not support large disks, you may need something like the Ontrack overlay to be able to use the disk properly.  Check with your disk manufacturer's site.

JohnT

The hard drive that I'm trying to get to work, if that is the problem, is 2.5 Gig and is a FAT16.  The two that I have tried more than once are 40GB Maxtor and 30GB WD.  When I go into the BIOS it won't recognize either one.

Well I have a MaxBlast 3 CD.  I had only the easy option to select of formating the whole hard drive.  The advanced option would give me the choice to add partitions.  There was only one partition on there and I couldn't add another on even if I deleted it.  I just formatted the whole drive and it mentioned when I reboot it will show a blue banner and load my OS from there.  About half the time when I reboot I can see the memory testing up to 64MB and sometimes it doesn't show it but it still moves on.  Next it is showing that it is trying to detect the primary master (which is my hard drive) and press F4 to skip.  I have left it on that for thirty minutes and it didn't detect so I never got to the blue banner.  I am using my MaxBlast II CD now and doing some tests.  The only two failures I've gotten so far are:
1.  BIOS Extension Support
2.  BIOS Large Drive Support
Besides that maybe rebooting every 1 out of 4 times I get three beeps, one long and two short, when I reboot and I can't see the screen my A:\ light is on and active but I don't know what it is doing.

I just found this about the beeps for AWARD BIOS

Beep Code Description
1 long, 2 short Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information

Well, that's not going to help.  When windoze setup searches for new h/w, it tests fairly rigorously and will lock up / BSOD / crash if it finds
problems it can't handle.  If you get the error on 25 percent of reboots, setup'll probably hit it most times you run it.  [I had one the other
week that took 5 attempts to install W98.  After that, it'd screw up on re-boot every time you installed any s/w and revert to the previous
registry settings.  Completely ****** useless. ]

Do you have a spare video card?  If  your m/b has an on-board card, you'll need to disable that in the BIOS - if it'll let you.

This is beginning to look like it's time to consider some new kit.. :-(

JohnT

I'm still trying to get Windows 98 working.  I used some diagnostic software that booted from DOS and everything was ok.  Everytime I start booting, or when I'm booting setup.exe, I the system locks up in different places.
 My autoexec.bat file is:
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&#9484;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472; a:\AUTOEXEC.BAT &#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;&#9472;
&#9474;C:\cdrom\mscdex /d:NECCD
&#9474;@if exist C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat call C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat
&#9474;@if exist C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat del C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat
&#9474;

And my config.sys is:
devicehigh=C:\CDROM\NEC_IDE.SYS /D:NECCD
Lastdrive = Z

If this is the problem what can be done?

My autoexec.bat is:
C:\cdrom\mscdex /d:NECCD
@if exist C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat call C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat
@if exist C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat del C:\WININST0.400\SuWarn.Bat

If for any reason Setup does not finish and the computer needs to be  restarted, the following lines in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file prompt you to run Setup again:
     @if exist c:\wininst0.400\suwarn.bat call c:\wininst0.400\suwarn.bat
    @if exist c:\wininst0.400\suwarn.bat del c:\wininst0.400\suwarn.bat

I have 4 16MB DIMMs in this computer.  I went ahead and took out the last two and did a setup/is/ig and tried it several times but I got an error with User.exe to begin with.  I took those out and put the other two back in and did the same setup with the /is/ig and everything works  I guess I just need to do more tests on this memory.  Hopefully it will stay up.

Thanks for the feedback and good news.

Zee