I just dug up an old computer I had stored and whated to see what was on it. I pluged it in to start and it would not boot. So I took the Windows 98 boot disk and got it started to where I nowe have a screen that has the following options:

1. System Hard Drive Recovery.
2. Reinstall Windows 98 without formatting the hard drive.
3. Format the hard drive first, then instal windows 98.
4. Quit windows 98 setup.

So when I choose 1 2 or 3 I get the message:

Make sure the Windows 98 disk is in the CD-Rom drive and press any key to continue.
I hit a key and.
I get the error message CDR101: not ready reading drive Z.

I can change the dos promp to C and it works, and to A, but there is no E drive which should have been the CD drive. Where did Z come from and how can I get this up and running? Please Help. Thanks.

A drive can be any letter from A-Z, but A is taken it is default on floppy drive's, mainly because floppy drives were one of the first creations to PC's after Mem sticks. Beside the point, you just need to find the correct letter and place that as the root point and try again. Also the error could be a disk all scrached and miscondition, I had that error once when a disk had a crack in the middle. So maybe its not just the Letter, and a ribbon cable could be loose, or damaged, or the PC is just very.. how do i say, Fairly damaged.

Thanks,
I removed the hard drive and donated to a good cause.

what was the good cause?

Drive letter B is also reserved for floppy, and i 'think' h: in DOS etc is reserved for high memory

you may want to put the CD-rom driver disk in and install the drivers for it.