hey, thanks for your help but im going to bed now. any further posts will be greatly appreciated but they will have to wait untill morning when i will be back to try and solve this annoying problem.
Thanks.

Could you take a look at the post on this toshiba forum, it looks similar to yours and may help:
http://forums.computers.toshiba-euro...881&tstart=136

Hello again,
i read the post you directed me to and i found the drivers for the cdrom, which are different again from the ones you and the link suggested, and im a bit closer to accessing the cdrom. When i boot off the win98 boot floppy with the altered config.sys and autoexec.bat files and then initialize the pcmcia card then use mscdex to redirect to the correct drivers (Idecdrom.sys) i can access the e: drive but cant view any files (dir) i says
CDR101: not ready reading drive E
Abort retry fail?
The link you posted suggested that to solve this problem i need to boot off the hard drive. I tried to simply copy the contents of the boot floppy to the hard drive but it says
invalid system disk
replace the disk and then press a key.
How/what do i alter to make it work.
Thanks.

Ohh that is sounding like it is getting closer.

To get the system to boot from the hard drive you will need to do the following:

Boot off your floppy and at the dos prompt type
SYS C:\

This enable you to boot from the hard drive.

EDIT:

Would you be able to post the config.sys and autoexec.bat details again for me, I think that if we change the MSCDEX section we might be able to get it to work.

here are the config.sys

[menu]
menuitem=CD, Start computer with CD-ROM support.
menuitem=NOCD, Start computer without CD-ROM support.
menuitem=HELP, View the Help file.
menudefault=CD,30
menucolor=7,0
[CD]
device=fcpoint.exe
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
device=idecdrom.sys /D:idecdrom
device=btdosm.sys
device=flashpt.sys
device=aspi2dos.sys
device=aspi8dos.sys
device=aspi4dos.sys
device=aspi8u2.sys
[NOCD]
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
[HELP]
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
[COMMON]
files=10
buffers=10
dos=high,umb
stacks=9,256
devicehigh=ramdrive.sys /E 2048
lastdrive=z


and autoexec.bat files
@ECHO OFF
set EXPAND=YES
SET DIRCMD=/O:N
set LglDrv=27 * 26 Z 25 Y 24 X 23 W 22 V 21 U 20 T 19 S 18 R 17 Q 16 P 15
set LglDrv=%LglDrv% O 14 N 13 M 12 L 11 K 10 J 9 I 8 H 7 G 6 F 5 E 4 D 3 C
cls
call setramd.bat %LglDrv%
set temp=c:\
set tmp=c:\
path=%RAMD%:\;a:\;%CDROM%:\
copy command.com %RAMD%:\ > NUL
set comspec=%RAMD%:\command.com
copy extract.exe %RAMD%:\ > NUL
copy readme.txt %RAMD%:\ > NUL
:ERROR
IF EXIST ebd.cab GOTO EXT
echo Please insert Windows 98 Startup Disk 2
echo.
pause
GOTO ERROR
:EXT
%RAMD%:\extract /y /e /l %RAMD%: ebd.cab > NUL
echo The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive %RAMD%.
echo.
IF "%config%"=="NOCD" GOTO QUIT
IF "%config%"=="HELP" GOTO HELP
LH MSCDEX /D:adapi /L:E > NUL
lastdrive=z
echo.
GOTO QUIT
:HELP
cls
call help.bat
echo Your computer will now restart and the startup menu will appear.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
restart.com
GOTO QUIT
:QUIT
echo To get help, type HELP and press ENTER.
echo.
rem clean up environment variables
set CDROM=
set LglDrv=

I booted up off the floppydisk and transfered the system files like you said but then when i comes to booting off the hdd there are alot of problems.

Alright lets ignore the "booting from the hard drive for now"

Could you change this setting in your autoexec.bat or add an additional line:

From
LH MSCDEX /D:adapi /L:E > NUL

To:
LH MSCDEX /D:idecdrom /L:E > NUL