Having some trouble re-installing Win98 on a machine

[Otrant]

Hi,

I am having a bit of trouble re-installing windows 98 on an old machine. The computer boots to the DOS prompt, and the Win98 CD is in the drive, but when I try to run setup from the CD-Rom drive, it gives the error "This program cannot be run in DOS mode."

I have also tried booting w/ a boot disk, and I get the same message.

I tried formatting the system again, but for some reason, I get "Bad command or filename" when typing format c: from the DOS prompt.

What's going on? 🙂

 

[MrChad]

Go to Bootdisk.com and download a Windows 98 floppy image. Boot with the floppy and follow these steps:

1. Boot without CD-ROM support.
2. When you get to the command prompt, type FDISK. Delete and recreate your primary partition. Exit FDISK.
3. You will be prompted to reboot. This time, boot with CD-ROM support.
4. At the command prompt, type FORMAT C: and follow the instructions.
5. Insert your Windows 98 CD and run setup from your CD-ROM drive.

 

[Otrant]

Downloaded boot disk, ran fdisk, deleted and recreated primary partition. Rebooted w/ CD Rom support. Still get "Bad command or file name" upon typing format c: from DOS prompt.

 

[MrChad]

How to Install Windows 98 on a Computer with No Operating System

NOTE: If you receive a "Bad command or file name" message, you may need to extract the Format.com utility to your Startup disk. To do this, type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
extract ebd.cab format.com
After the Format.com utility is extracted to your Startup disk and a command prompt is displayed, type format c:.

 

[redbeard1]

If your using the win98 cd to boot from, choose boot with cdrom support. When you are at the prompt you can change to the cdrom drive letter and then change directory to win98. For example ... a:\d: (hit enter) d:\cd win98 (hit enter) d:\win98\ format c: /s. Format is in this directory, and you can launch it from there to format c:. What I usually do is enter a path statement to the win98 directory and then run the format command. Something like... path=d:\win98 ... now typing format c: /s should work.

 

[Philippine Mango]

FDISK?

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: Otrant
Downloaded boot disk, ran fdisk, deleted and recreated primary partition. Rebooted w/ CD Rom support. Still get "Bad command or file name" upon typing format c: from DOS prompt.

What you need to do is this.

Assuming D:\ is the CD drive.

At the command prompt, probably showing A:\ type -

D:
CD WIN98
format c:/s

There is no path parameter defined telling DOS to search the WIN98 directory. So DOS can't find format.exe in the directories that are defined in the path statement and thus it displays "Bad command or file name".