98SE setup error!

[Cityscape]

Hi I get this error when trying to start 98SE setup:
"Windows Setup requires 7340032 bytes av"

What does this mean and what can I do?

I'm trying to install on a 20 GB hard drive on a PC with 350 Mhz CPU and 382 MB RAM.

[manadude2]

After you FDISK, you need to format the drive to install Windows 98.

[Cityscape]

what do i type to format it?

[manadude2]

Actually it sounds as if something has gone wrong with either your partitioning or your format. I suggest you run FDisk again and check the size of your primary partition. If this is OK try formatting it again. If it is still no good try deleting all partions and starting over from scratch.

[Cityscape]

I rebooted setup and it now says "Error. Setup cannot install Windows 98 on your computer. An error occurred while creating partitions on your hard disk. Press ENTER to quit setup"

And when i hit enter it takes me back to the command line.

What do i do?

[Allan]

what do i type to format it?

format c: /s

[Cityscape]

format c: /s

says "Bad command or file name"

[Allan]

Have you created a primary partition with fdisk?

[Cityscape]

no, i have a raw hard drive with no data or file system on it.

[Allan]

Okay, let's start at the beginning. Please tell us everything that you are doing and why you are doing it. Please start with why you are installing the OS and the condition of the HD and computer itself (ie, is it known to be a good computer and hd).

[Cityscape]

It's a used computer I just bought, with the specs i listed at the beginning.
The main hard drive is in good condition, it had Linux installed on it when i bought it then i formatted it and installed XP for a week. I've decided to install 98SE because XP was too slow and I have old games I'd like to play that only work on 95 or 98. the computer is good except XP seemed to think that my 5.25 inch floppy drive was a 3.5 inch one and did not recognize my 3.5 one. That does not matter though because I'm using a bootable 98 CD and not a boot floppy. I erased XP completely and now my HDD is raw with no OS or file system.

I've never installed 98 before although growing up a lot of the computers around me were 95 and 98 machines.

I need to get 98 installed, so what do i do?

[Allan]

Boot to the 98 cd and you should get to a command prompt. Type fdisk (press ENTER). Choose the option to create a primary dos partition. After it is created format it as a system partition (format c: /s). Then you should be good to go. I'm pretty sure this is all the way it goes - I've done this a hundred times, but it's been a while (since XP was introduced).

BTW, the /s switch in the format command copies the system files to c: drive making it a bootable partition. But if it's the only partition I'm not sure you need the switch, I just don't remember. If you have a problem formatting with the /s switch try just: format c:

[Cityscape]

says "Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)"

should I or should I not?

And just to let you know i will be tri-booting with XP and Linux (install XP next and then Linux).

[Allan]

yes

[Cityscape]

It now says i have NTFS partitions and asks whether they should also be treated as large?