can't start win98 after installation

[50cents]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/redface.gif
alright..its me again...geez, guess what? I have another problem....
This time, I am able to install win98SE right, and I did that last night and started at 1 in the morning which took like friggin the whole night and day to install because I fell asleep and the next morning it said "windows will now restart your system, blah blah" so i assumed that everything went fine. BUT, when I rebooted and it said, "WINDOWS IS PREPARING YOUR SYSTEM FOR THE FIRST TIME" I don't know if the computer is hanging or it just takes a long time for it to do it. I don't know, because I waited for about 30 minutes to let it do that and when I came back, it didn't do jack crap.
I've noticed this though, the Win98SE disc is from my brother's DELL computer. I don't know if that matters or not but thats the only thing that i'm thinking right now. If it is, is there a way to use that disc anyway, without buying a retail one thats not made for dell? I've heard that there are some switches that I could input or whatever...
ALSO, I checked out the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and at the bottom, it said WINDOWS SETUP NOT FOUND..............hows that possible, i just installed the damn thing.........man I still dont know if this is still a hardware or software thing.............PLEASE I NEED TO KNOW!!!
THANKS TO YOU GUYS THAT HELPED LAST TIME....but I NEED YOUR HELP AGAIN...THANKS!!
BTW, MY SPECS ARE STILL THE SAME

AMD K7-Tbird 900 mhz
MSI KT7-Pro2-A ('A' for ATA 100)
256 MB ram PC133
54x Cd-Rom
40 gig HDD MAXTOR model # 57040h4 Diamond 60 ATA
Leadtek GeForce2 32mb

p.s.
my BIOS settings are still at FAIL-SAFE...should I keep the harddrive settings at LBA? Should I delete the partitions? and I STILL CAN'T SOFTBOOT whatsup with that? Geezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif
(sorry I know this was redundant, but I thought that I should have issued this as an OS problem....oh well...let me know)

[tjaymadison]

If the CD is marked Dell, it may have customized/crippled so that it will only work with their systems.

[bassman]

I think Tjay hit it on the nose. We're not real big on giving software piracy tips here. Not trying to be an ass, it's just not what we do.

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They say to eat before you go to the grocery store so you don't buy so much. That doesn't work at the liquor store does it!

[rmac]

I assume it is a restore disk and it is loading drivers specific to the machine your brother has. Your box is hanging because the drivers don't match the hardware.

[Randy_tx]

BINGO , you are about (last time I checked) $86 away from getting it done right...OEM Win98 SE...on a single partition (IMO) w/ Fat32....Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif......Dont even think about Win Me...unless you want the potential for MORE problems.

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Put an Electric Screwdriver in my hand and I'm REAL dangerous!

[Paleo Pete]

Yep, it's the CD. That's a machine-specific restore disk, it won't work out on a different computer that's not assembled from identical hardware. You need a standard win98 disk. fdisk, format, start over...

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Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[tjjawilson]

I think I've used restore disks 2 times in three years. When you want to restore proprietary stuff, that cd does help, but I was surrounded by so many clones that I didn't bother with anything but the retail cd of Win9x. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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TJW