Ok after much stress and a few wasted hours I've come to the conclusion that I need the help of the people on these forums to install W98. Why 98? 0ld$k00l compatibility and a dos re-boot option(I think) that XP lacks.
I'll just list the facts.
1)Windows 98SE is not the orginal MS disk, it's a pirated copy(actually, it's not even a literal copy, the files are unzipped in a directory on a backup disk)
2)When I try to install W98, everthing is ok until it finishes setting up the installer. Then it informs me that it can't install to this disk. It thinks I have it partitioned wrong or am using disk compression.(it is formatted and can actually store files though)
3)I lack an MS-DOS, I used a windows 98 bootdisk to install it from.
4)The boot from CD option don't work with the windows 98 cd.
5)The first time I tried to install it, I used a different startup disk. It was a so-so MS-DOS startup disk I made that day. I made it into a new startup disk during the install, thinking that a W98 startup disk would be better. Then setup just had to finish rebooting and I let it. Sadly it didn't want to boot from the partition I made for it. So I used the startup disk again and examined everything. I typed "win" and it loaded half-way, then had an error. It's possible that me changing the DOS disk confused the poor installer. If that is the case, then I just need to make another homemade one. However, I would perfer if you guys could link me to an excellent one on the net.
6:If I want W98 AND XP on, I need to install them first, THEN install Mandrake. It might be a little bit easier if Grub/Lilo's stranglehold on my boot for drive C could be eliminated. I messed around with re-installing Mandrake some. Doing thing such as formatting the Mandrake parition in hopes that it would "let go"(as that might be why W98 is grumpy) and allow me to tell Fdisk to make the wind0ze partition the active booting partition(the "non-dos" partition is the boot). Then with XP and W98 each having their own little greedly boot worlds(switch with bios) I could install Mandrake, configure the bootmanage, and ALL THREE OS's could be one big happy family.
7:Windows 95 VS Windows 98. 98 has the same level of oldskool compatibility as 95, correct? Perhaps I should make a small W95 partition for extra oldskool insurance, incase W98 is unfriendly sometimes? I need to know the answer before I do the big system install marathon, cuz I don't wanna go through this again for quite awhile.