eMachine eTower 400i restore failure

Machine in question is eMachine eTower 400i with Win98

Problem: While restoring Windows and reformatting hard drive using the factory restore disk, before the process completed, I began to get "Not ready reading drive R:", then it would ask abort/retry/fail. After hitting 'r' several times with no success, I began hitting 'f' until the process completed. Windows would then not completely boot. I have retried the restore (without a hard drive format) two times with the same results. This PC is sued by my 8-yr old step daughter and would like to get it back in shape so she can use the word processor and some very simple educational games. Any help would be appreciated. I have already had one of our four PCs go down this month. I would like to keep that from being #2 of 4.

Thanks,
Jason

 

Make sure the CD is clean and it might not hurt to clean out the drive some, try again.

Steve

 

Because the disk had been stored for quite some time, I did clean it before use.

I just ran it again WITH a hard drive format with identical results again. This time, I paid attention to its progress and noticed that the failure occurred at exactly the same point as it did the time before.

Jason

 

What is being referenced by 'Drive R:' ?
Is that a temporary drive status assigned to the restore disk?

Jason