Thanks for response Raptor.
CD scratch free? Yes, seems to be in good order.
Reformatted before installing? Diagnose RAM and HDD.
Am unsure how these two could affect the performance of Extract.exe but yes, the hdd was formatted before intalling Win.98se altho' that was some weeks past. The OS isn't giving any problems and the install using the same cd ran without hitch. Have run memtest, scandisk and Seagate diagnostics without coming up with any problem.
V...