Can't install fresh 98SE

[Poda]

My friend just made an empty FAT32 using partition magic. He didn't create the rescue disks though, and now he's stuck at an empty command prompt for the new partition. He has the 98 cd, but when trying to boot from it, it says "Program too big to fit in memory". And so he can only browse the cdrom drive and empty partition now. He needs some way to be able to setup 98. I'm thinking he just needs a better boot cd that can load the cd rom for him and then he can put in 98 and run setup and not worry about this freaking error.

Any ideas?

 

[phatrabt]

I take it he can't boot from the 98 CD? Hmmm... First thing is WHY is he installing 98? Although I'm sure he has a good reason I wouldn't suggest using that OS unless it's absolutely necessary.

As for the install... here's one link I found

Installing Win98

Remember, Google is your friend!

HTH

 

[jackschmittusa]

Sounds like Winsetup is getting the wrong file size info for the install files (unless there is only 16mb of ram or some such in the rig), which usually means a bad cd.

edit: P.S. I've refurbed and upgraded a number of machines for people on a tight budget wanting basic printing and web access that still run win98 pretty much trouble free. One is even a file server for a company that has been chugging along for about 2 years in a closet without a single hiccup. Win98 can still be usefull, reliable and reusable in the right circumstances. Almost everyone gives win98 away with their old machines, so I think it will be around for a while yet, recycled again and again.

 

[moonsite]

Why did he used partition magic to partition the drive? Is this for dual boot or is he saving some data on the other partition? Did he format using format as a system drive? How many partition do you have on that one drive?
If you only have one partition, go to bootdisk.com and download the win98 bootdisk. Then repartition using FDISK. Boot from floppy with CDrom support and you can run setup from cd drom.
Or just try copy the entire content from the cd to the fat32 partition and run setup from there. Use the XCOPY command from DOS prompt or drag and drop in windows.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Did he FORMAT the drive after partitioning?