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grgenter

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why is windows 98 setup cd is just dragging along

I'm trying to install windows 98 on my system.......it's taking hours (at least 10) for scandisk to check the file allocation tables, then after that is done, it takes another few hours for scandisk to check & fix/repair the directory structure.......I don't have access to my floppy drive, and the hard drive is from another computer with windows me already installed on it.........now I want 98 on this hdd instead of windows me........but why is it taking hours/days to get this thing loaded?

then about 50% of the way of checking & repairing/fixing the directory structure, it gets to a point where I'm prompted to hit enter to repair a certain file or escape to exit......well, here's the kicker......I've clicked this continue & repair button for 30 times at least on the same file path with the same file & option comming up each time after it attempts to fix the problem.......thinking that the problem is incorrectible, I hit exit only to be taken back to the original beginning of setup.......

I just got off this site yesterday trying to figure out why my motherboard wasn't booting up......now this.......any suggestions? (no I'm not throwing anything away.....lol)
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jvuz
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Well Seems your hard disk is having logical errors. Chances of possible logical bad-sectors.

  Use Disk manager to create partitions and those bad sectors will marked as BAD and windows will isolate those sectors permanently.

  But if you want any other way.. i have just one way for you.. That is Bypassing the scandisk when you install windows98

 To install Windows bypassing options, type at the prompt:


setup /is /im /ie /id

The switches do the following:
/is - disable scandisk
/im - disable ram check
/ie - don't make floppy startup disk
/id - don't check fo free disk space


The last time I faced that, as  jvuz stated, the hard disc is going to crash soon, Is it making a lot of noise?
As mentioned, your hard disk seems to have problems - maybe terminal. You cannot install Win98 without floppy - it will appear to install normally, but at the end, will not start. Obtain a boot disk (Bootdisk.com if you can't borrow one), format and start over. Hard drives are cheap, maybe this would be a good time for a new one.

Chris B
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tmireles

Since you said that the hard drive already had Windows ME on it and now you want to install 98 on it the problem may be that you didn't reformat the drive before trying to install 98.

I would boot into the floppy as burrcm suggested if possible and run the fdisk utility on the drive.  Delete all the partitions on it and then make new partitions.  Then reboot the machine to the 98 disk and all should be better assuming that your hard drive is not going bad as everyone else already stated.

What kind of hard drive is it? You may also try the manufacturer's website for diagnostics tools. Sometimes, (rarely, but sometimes) a low level format will revive a seemingly terminally ill hard drive.
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okay guys, you all have been great, now I have my floppy attached to this computer & have tried on numerous occaisions to creat a bootable floppy diskette for win 98, went to bootdisk.com, etc.......i've visited about 5 different sites & assumed I created 5 different bootdisk, but when I try to use them, my system is telling me no bootable media found in drive a, cd rom, hard disk boot record damaged...

I even have the win 98 cd in this computer in an attempt to browse the cd & try to locate a setup file or something to use to get this other darn computer booted up.....
have you gone into the bios and set to boot first device from floppy?
guess what guys, i finally found a boot disk that is working, am now formatting hard drive (50%) & counting.......thanks to all of you for your patience & support.....now if the rest of the process goes without error, I'll be happy

just in case your interested what the actual problem was, I was trying to boot from a floppy that wasn't properly installed & configured, also, there was a floppy swapable feature in bios setup that was enabled which made the system try to read from floppy b instead of a (i could really kick myself)..........
Thanx,

Jvuz