Install prompts for COMMAND.COM locale

I am one desparate puppy...

I got a brand new spanking system yesterday. I'm running the ASUS A7A266 w/onboard audio motherboard, 512Mb DDR, 1400Mhz t-bird, Leadtek Geforce2 64Mb DDR RAM,a dvd/cd drive, a CDRW drive, and a floppy. I know that the hardware is all installed correctly and functioning. I can see and navigate all drives when I am in DOS mode (using a boot disk).

I'm trying to install Windows 98 (not SE). First, I had to fdisk the hard drive. Next, I shutdown the computer, booted to floppy, and then changed directories to the CD-ROM drive. I had windows 98 in the cd drive, and I choose to run SETUP.EXE. This failed to even run the first few times, so I would just reformat the disk again with the FORMAT.EXE. Eventually, SETUP would run, and I would begin to install Windows 98. I would get as far as creating the boot disk, and copying windows files to the hard drive, when it would tell me to remove the boot disk and restart the computer. Upon restarting, I received a prompt to enter the location of the COMMAND.COM file (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM). Well, I entered what I thought to be the right location of the COMMAND.COM file, and it would just repeat the prompt again. I tried every location of that file, and no go.

I've heard this is a common problem with installing windows 98, but I have no idea how to resolve this. I may just try to get a copy of win2k pro -- maybe that will alleviate this problem. I dunno. Any thoughts people?

Thanks in advance for your help.