I went to Google with the search string convert bootable floppy to bootable cd (no quotes) and got back a bunch of hits -- my thought is that you can take the Win 98 emergency boot disk, turn it into a bootable CD, and copy the Windows 98 CAB files to it. You would then be able to boot into a DOS environment and run setup from there.

Laptops, especially the newer ones have a slot for PCcards, this is much if not the same thing as a floppy on a desktop. Go down to the local CompUSA, by a 32meg (PCMCIA)PCcard. If you format it with system files on any GUI machine..be it 98, 95, or ME then load CDrom drivers on it you will be able to access the CDrom and run setup. If I remember correctly the windows98 CDrom has a utility to create a setup floppy. If XP installs, install it on one machine then use the windows98 CD to create a 98boot disk out of the PCcard.

The other much simpler way to do this is to download the CDrom drivers for this machine on the laptop configured with Widows XP, create a cdrom driver disk out of the PCcard, "It does not have to be bootable"...boot the machine to the hard drive. This will land you at the DOS prompt. The PCcard should be "A:", install the CDrom DOS drivers. Now when you boot the machine it should land you at a DOS prompt but with CDrom access. Simply type "D:" usually the drive designation for a CDrom, and then type "setup" You may have to create an autoexec.bat file and a config.sys file depending on the CDrom driver disk utililty. But it will work.

Some windows98 cds are bootable - not all though. Try a different CD if you have one.

You are correct, the store packaged win98 cd's were bootable, but for the most part companies have bundles that were issued with "new PC's", these are unfortunately not bootable. They are the equivelant of white box....

I think there are lots of tools which you can use to make such a bootable CD, even with a menu to choose which system to use or which tool to use, such as ghost or DM. I mean, you start your computer with the help of the CD, then make your own choice. I once met sucn a CD, and I think it's great.

Yup... just make yourself a Windows 98 boot disk... open your favorite CD Burning software and choose to make a bootable CD from floppy. pop the floppy in when asked and let it burn you a bootable 98 CD.

The idiots at work found another WIn98 CD that was bootable, and now problem solved, but not really.There are no drives available for this machine running 98 so the video looks crappy, etc.
I asked who was the idiot who bought these laptops without floppy drives (especially for this purpose) nobody wanted to admit to it.

Floppy disks are really quite obselite, like since about 1996
Making a bootable CD-Rom is the way to go.

Here is the easiest URL,
Take the boot image and burn it to cd-rom.

http://www.drd.dyndns.org/fr_index.h...to/cdboot.html

Do you use LINUX at all?