How do I Set Up MS-DOS Boot Partician

[phild]

I am with AARP TaxAide and we do free taxes for the elderly.

We were donated Some Compaq ARAMADA 1700 Laptops.

They had Windows 98 on them before they were reformatted.

They were reformatted before they were given to us to wipe out all information.

I used a Windows 98 startup disk and was able to get the CD drive working.

I put in the Windows 98 CD and typed Setup.

It started the process and then I got the following message:

" Please waite while setup initializes
Scanning system registry
cannot create a temporary directory
If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive
you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up Windows"

How do I create an MS-DOS boot partition?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Those laptops probably had Windows 2000 or XP on it, and it looks like they now have NTFS partitions.
Booting from the same W98 bootfloppy, type FDISK and hit enter.
Delete the existing partition, then create a new partition (using all available space) and set it to Active (primary). FDISK should guide you through that easily enough.
You may need to reboot.
Then use the W98 bootfloppy again, start with CD-support, and type in: format c: /s and hit enter.
When done, run Setup from the W98 CD.