Still Dead

The boot disk allowed me to get into the system on a basic level, but I can't reinstall Windows because the CD drives are not being recognized. This may be because one is a DVD-ROM, and the other is a burner; I don't know. But I spoke to someone at PC's For Everyone, and he tells me that it's very hard indeed to reinstall Windows 98 in this sort of situation. I will probably have to find some way to reformat the C drive, losing years of work and a ton of programs, and install Windows fresh. I may be able to save some of my data by installing Windows on my old ancillary D drive first and temporarily making it the master drive; that might allow me to get the burner working long enough to burn off the gigs and gigs of data that I have. But it looks very much as if my computer will never be the same, and I am totally screwed.

I also don't have the technical skills to be comfortable doing some of this stuff.

Still Dead

The boot disk allowed me to get into the system on a basic level, but I can't reinstall Windows because the CD drives are not being recognized. This may be because one is a DVD-ROM, and the other is a burner; I don't know. But I spoke to someone at PC's For Everyone, and he tells me that it's very hard indeed to reinstall Windows 98 in this sort of situation. I will probably have to find some way to reformat the C drive, losing years of work and a ton of programs, and install Windows fresh. I may be able to save some of my data by installing Windows on my old ancillary D drive first and temporarily making it the master drive; that might allow me to get the burner working long enough to burn off the gigs and gigs of data that I have. But it looks very much as if my computer will never be the same, and I am totally screwed.

I also don't have the technical skills to be comfortable doing some of this stuff.