(Rather late reply but I just noticed the post).

Sounds to me like the disc was burned too fast, try re-burning at 4x or slower. This should help stop it from struggling to load.

I've mostly used Memorex CD-R's (700MB of course... honestly I've not seen less), and had good results each time with them. Other brands have mostly been good but not every time consecutively so I stick to Memorex. (Also try to burn at 4x, or less if you're willing to wait).

get mcaffee or something

oh okay, wasn't sure if it supported them or not.

just to be safe try to stick with 8+3 if possible.

unfortunately the keyboard i use is ps/2 so i can't just disable those ports, and a re-install of win98 is not possible right now. i'm stuck with what i have until i get some money together and buy another harddrive and some RAM and rather than win98, XP. I'm just stumped for cash at the moment and ...

I've got two rather annoying issues with Windows98s.e. that I just can't seem to figure out. The first isn't so horribly bad for the most part, but the second I've got to fix before I rip this thing apart. 1. Every time windows boots it installs software for a ps/2 port mouse... I don't even use one...

try searching a tutorial on google. i'm sure you'll find something pretty quickly and easily... i seriously doubt you've looked everywhere.

yeah, and be sure to burn at 4x or slower, it Alcohol should allow you to do that.

as long as you're burning to a CD-R it should work then, unless you happened to somehow forget to add a file.

ah okay, well i know nothing of dreampac, all i can say is be sure to burn no faster than 4x. glad to hear the burner issue was fixed though.

is it a CD-R or CD-RW you place in the drive? unless your burner is supposed to burn either/or this could be an issue. most burners are capable of both though.

it worked before? you didn't happen to somehow fry it or mess with the jumper setting did you?

if absolutely nothing recognizes this drive, check to make sure it is compatible with your version of windows, and if it is, i doubt this would be the issue, but make sure your motherboard isn't horribly out-dated and doesn't know wtf a cd-burner is.

try 4x, and if possible doublecheck that it was a TAO. any faster than 4x can give problems, considering you got a boot screen i'm guessing the burn speed was the only problem. I remember when i burned DreamSNES at 8x... it did the same crap to me, but then i burned again at 4x and it was perfect.

what speed did u burn at, and did u use selfboot, or selfboot inducer to make this .nrg, also did u make sure to burn a TAO image and not DAO?

if you burned faster than 4x that may be the issue. I've had that done to me after burning at 8x, tried at 4x and it worked nice and smooth.

TAO not DAO.

I'm going to assume you have bba for your dc. so all i can suggest is using ICS ( Internet Connection Sharing) on your XP and linking it to the bba with a cross-over ethernet cable.

yeah, it'd be nice to post the solution incase someone else runs into the problem... that way they don't have to sit through useless gateway support (i hate those bastards with a passion for what they did to my media center...)