I am trying to reinstall windows 98SE and I am getting this message. NTLDR is missing. restart your computer. I can't get my keyboard to work at all while I am trying to type format in dos. I have tried to boot from CD and from floppy. nothing works. HELP.

Enter the machines bios and set the boot device sequence for the floppy drive as the first device. A suggested boot sequence is FLOPPY, CDROM, IDE HARD DISK, OTHER DEVICE. Post back if you have problems entering, or setting the bios parameters.

Boot with a Win98SE Boot Disk*

The NTLDR message is indicative of an NTFS install attempt. (Win2K or XP). Once you boot to the A:\> prompt, type in fdisk and delete the non-dos partition. Create a new FAT32 partition, exit fdisk, reboot, then format the new partition.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867/en-us

Post back with your results, or if you have problems, further questions, or more information to add.

*The above bootdisk image file is a self extracting file and has to be executed (run) from a running Windows(9x) machine in order to create the actual startup diskette on one of your floppy disks. (This image file produces the same bootdisk which 98SE creates.) This downloaded image file will format the floppy disk to ensure its integrity, write the files to the disk, then verify the file write, so it'll take a minute or three to create the bootdisk.

Ensure the floppy drive is set as the first boot device in the bios. http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/23.html

NOTE: When you boot a machine with this boot floppy, it creates a RAMDRIVE in system memory to contain DOS system tools/drivers. Thus it will move your "normal" CDROM device/drive letter "up" one level. (If your CDROM is normally E: it will be F: when booting with this bootdisk.)

The path to the found CDROM will be set with the bootfiles, so entering A:\>f:\setup is the same as entering A:\>setup at the A:\> prompt. There is no need to include the cdrom drive letter. The CDROM device letter will be assigned near the end of the floppy boot process, right after MSCDEX is loaded.