Something radical
Geeky type jerked HDD stuck it another box as slave, used some type of program he grinned about when I asked. Then he did some DOS magic, reformatted it, and reloaded an updated vers of Win 98SE. I'll be hornswoggled, it worked like a charm. And took an hour and a half, verses the 16 hrs or so it took me.
Damn I forgot how fast this sytem is when it works right!