Due to a hard drive crash, the last several weeks I have found myself reinstalling Win 98SE almost daily due to unexaplainable lockups.Despite nearly daily rebuilds I haven't been able to get it stable, what's the best order of installation from OS, mobo patches to video and nic drivers, to DirectX to FS2k2?

I had this recurring problem with Win98 before XP came out. The only way that I could get a decent, stable installation was to go and download all the updated drivers for your hardware BEFORE you reinstall windows. The very FIRST thing you want to do is install the software for your motherboard. Any IRQ or EIDE driver updates, obviously you want to flash the mobo if there are any updated software out there before you do anything as well. Next would be any of the cards in the PCI and AGP slots. If using updated drivers doesnt do anything, you might have some bad memory you will need to replace. I have also heard of viruses that were not removed by formatting, they just killed your dirve. I think that possiblity is highly unlikely, but possible nonetheless. Save the last two problems for last. Obviously if you've had a stable installation before using the same hardware and software, you either have a problem with your memory or HD. If all else fails, do a low-level format. I forget what the command is in DOS, you also might need a 3rd party program, but what that will do is write zeros all across your drive so that there is absolutely no information left behind. Im sure there are otehr guys here that could walk you through all of this better than I can, but this should give you a good start. Hope this helps.Craig