A friend gave me a compaq presario 1200 with no disk .When I turn it on it goes to misrosoft scandisk goes up to 87% then stops .I want to reformat the whole thing an reinstall windows 98 which I have a disk for 98 windows ,but I can't get passed scandisk .Need your help thank you

Lizz, January 2009

If at all possible try and get hold of a windows xp cd as most hardware drivers are on that cd.
Windows 98 has very few drivers and you will need seperate drivers for your hardware.
Firstly try and get into safe mode.
1 Boot up.
2 Press and hold F8 on keyboard.
3 From the menu choose safe mode
4 When you are in windows, in the run window (bottom left) type scandisk.exe and press enter on the keyboard.
5 When finished reboot.
6 Hopefully it should be out of the scandisk cycle and boot into Windows.

If not turn off.
1 Turn on
2 press f10 on keyboard to get into bios
3 set cd drive as first startup device.
4 Save settings
5 Exit bios
6 put windows cd into cd drive
7 Turn off and then turn on.
8 You should be given the option now to install Windows

Irish Lad, January 2009

Boot from the W98 CD. When asked do you wish to format the had disk, reply yes.

t, January 2009