Drive Not Found on 98SE bootup

For the first time ever, when I bootup 98SE, I get a "Drive not
Found", insert boot floppy then press any key, nothing happens. When I
reboot the machine with the boot floppy in it, I get the 3 possibility
error choice before the "A" prompt. either not a valid Fat32
partition, create another partition, or a virus. I just spent 3 hours
performing a complete virus + spyware scan, no problems. I am not a
techie so the other two make no sense since the computer has been
working perfectly all along. I also perform a Scandisk from the boot
floppy, everything is fine. I was planning to install XP Pro in the
near future. When I run the XP install cd and it comes to the point of
what to do with the "C" drive, it also won't recognise a valid "C"
drive, asks me if I want to delete my 98SE configuration then create a
new partition, start from scratch, which I will do if I can't fix the
existing problem. I have everything on 98SE backed up on a Norton
Ghost image disk, as well as other backup cd's. I can even extract
material from my "C" drive to a usb key in Linux. When I try Fdisk, I
get the message that there is no drive found, even Format c: won't
work. I am writing this from my Puppy Linux live cd, which boots
perfectly from my cd/rw. I also check my "C" drive from Linux,
everything seems ok. Is there anyway a non-techie like me can rescue
my 98SE system easily. Thanks.