Start the machine with the win98 CD in the drive, booting with CD, but without loading setup.
When you come to the A prompt, write fdisk /mbr
see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q69013/
You need that to rewrite the master boot record after having linux on the drive.
Then restart fdisk by writing fdisk at the prompt. Remove all partitions, and create a new dos primary partition. Some older machines won't accept partitions larger than about 8 gigabyte, so keep that in mind if things don't work.
Then restart, boot from the CD. If the machine doesn't want to format the drive, reboot again, with CD. Navigate to the win98 folder on the CD, then type
format c: /S
It should format the drive then.
Restart and boot win98 install from the CD, start the setup again, and it should work - though it might complain about the drive already having a system and give you an alternate route. It still works.
This page was created by Ann Elisabeth Nordbo
and has its home at http://www.annelisabeth.com/
Updated 11.02.2005
Premiere issue October 2005