So you are booting up from a floppy, formatting the hard disk, then running setup from the Win98 CD? Or are you booting off the Win98 cd?
Couple ideas, just wild guesses since you didn't post the exact error message..
Run smartdrv.exe
Run emm386.exe
Load himem.sys in your config.sys
Try loading with only one drive connected to a normal IDE drive, no RAID stuff at all.
Write down the exact error message that you get and post it... Just something about resident programs doesn't help. If you're using a boot floppy, post your config.sys and autoexec.bat too.
Try to get net access at home somehow (stop by the grocery store and get one of them free AOL CD's if you absolutely have to)... Get XP runnin so you can flip back and forth between the broken 98 install and the working XP install to post and give more details and get more ideas.
