this is so confusing!!
 

i'm trying to boot Fedora Core 4 on an OLD Windows 98 machine. i know it will work cause my computer teacher gave me all the stuff to do it and expects me to make it work. windows 98 boots fine, i can see the ISO file in the D:/ drive, but when i select CD rom as the boot device in BIOS and disable the harddrive from booting, it says "please insert bootable media into the appropriate drive" PLEASE HELP

if all you see is an iso file it wasnt burned properly

you must 'burn image to disk' (in nero) when you burn the image file.

You burned the CD incorrectly. You have to "burn from image" with your CD burning software.

When you open D: drive, you should see a bunch of files and directories. If you only see an .iso file, you did it wrong...

Right now, the computer is trying to boot from the cd-device, and there's nothing to boot from in the cd-drive.

Open Nero, or some other burning utility, and burn the cd iso. DOn't just burn the file to a disk. It's a disk image, so what it'll do is extract all the needed data to a dvd.

If you don't have nero, you can search download.com for tons of free burners that will burn an iso. I don't know if Win98 came with a utility to do it.

Windows 98 does not come with a CD burning application.
What are the hardware specs of this computer?
Requirements of Fedora are:
Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHz Pentium-class or better
Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz Pentium II or better
Disk space min install 520mb - everything 5.3GB.
Memory:
Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
Minimum for graphical: 192MB
Recommended for graphical: 256MB

...if Fedora is too intensive, there's always other Distros, like Vector which is meant to run on more lean hardware.