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how to format win98

You do realize that formatting C: will clear the drive, leaving nothing. If you're experiencing problems they may be correctable. If you want to try correcting any problems, post as exact much info re; same.

If you just want to erase everything and start over;

Ensure you have a boot floppy with cdrom support if your O/S cd isn't bootable. (Not all 98(SE) cd's are bootable. Trust me, I have one. It's an official MS cd, "for PCs without Windows". Microsoft Part No. X04-14310.) Download the boot floppy image to your hard disk. Put a floppy in your A: drive and click on the downloaded file to run it. Don't just copy the downloaded image file to a floppy.

Collect any non Microsoft drivers, especially modem or NIC card drivers, first. Motherboard chipset drivers are another that's good to have for a fresh install. (If you have the modem/NIC card drivers at least you can get on the net to download any others that you may require.)

Once you're set, boot with the floppy boot disk. Choose "with CDROM support". Take note of the device letter assigned to the cdrom. When you get the A:\> prompt, type in;

format/c c:

and hit Enter and follow the prompts. (Some people advocate using "format/s c:", but there is no need as the O/S load does this for you anyway. It's one of the first installation steps. As well, on some systems this can produce a "Not enough memory" error.)

When the format is complete, change to the cdrom drive letter (as noted earlier) and enter "setup". ie; If your cdrom was assigned the device letter "E:", type in;

(hit enter after each command line entry)
e:

setup
and setup should start. If you have any problems, post back to this thread.