You have two options.

One is to make the ISO image setup CD you created a bootable CD. This means
you will have to modify the image before creating the CD. The only way I
could think to do that would be to use the boot CD you created and copy the
_contents_ of the setup CD you created onto it. You might find a 'Virtual
CD' utility that allows you to create a virtual CD drive on your desktop
hard disk from the ISO image, and then copy the contents to the boot CD, or
you could simply copy the contents of the setup CD to a folder onto the
desktop hard drive, then create a _bootable_ CD and copy the contents of
that folder onto it. There might be a utility that creates a bootable CD
from a non-bootable ISO image, but I'm not aware of it.

The other option is to set up the laptop hard disk so that you can access
the laptop's CD drive from a boot to hard disk. After partitioning and
formatting the disk (as you have already done, from your description) you
need to install DOS, or at least a rudimentary set of DOS utilities. You
will need to SYS the hard drive, and that will enable you to boot to it.
Then you can modify CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to support the CD drive.
After that, when you boot to the hard drive, you can access the ISO image CD
you created, and run setup from the CD.

You will need DOS drivers for the CD drive to do this. Laptops often use
special hardware and generic drivers often won't work, so the standard CD
support files that are available may not be good enough. Look at the
manufacturer's www site and see if they provide DOS drivers for that
machine.. If the manufacturer makes DOS drivers available they should have
instructions for building the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files and copying
in the software that's needed.

There is a description of setting up CD support he
http://www.computerhope.com/cdromd.htm

I'm not sure from your description, but you may have already got this far -
if so the invalid media messages indicate you do not have the correct
drivers for the CD drive.

Also, have a good look around the BOOT CD sites such as Barts and see if
there's a source for a bootable CD that automatically configures the hard
disk for you. This is a task that's very common for laptop configurations
such as yours.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"xskarmah" wrote in message
...
I got a laptop free and wanted to install 98 on it, a clean install for my
nephew. I burned a bootcd, and managed to format and partition it, my
trouble
starts because I dont have another disk drive to put the iso I have in, I
only have the one drive, the laptop does not have a Floppy drive.


Any suggestions? Whenever I try and use any setup commands I get invalid
media trying to read disk