On Oct 9, 1:04*pm, "philo" wrote:
"Eroica" wrote in message

...

Progress. *I was able to create a bootable CD on my desktop. *I'm
reinstalling Win 98 SE on the problem laptop now. *I'll let you know
how it goes. (1 AM here in CA).

Hope you get it going...
post back either way

Thank you. Yes, I did finally get the computer going. I was finally
able to create a bootable CD, using my old desktop, and I got Win 98
SE completely reinstalled on the HP laptop. Plus I was able to clean
up a dangling registry entry left over from Norton AV, which I
uninstalled from the computer a year ago. Boot-up would stop every
time it hit the unresolved registry item, solvable just by pressing
ENTER, but a nuisance just the same.