i just bought a used e machines that upon power-up displays several lines of type then ends with needs boot disk. the machine says it was designed for windows 98. i dont know if the entire HD has been erased or what, don't konw where to go from here. i also have another e-machines running xp but have no disks for it. is it possible to transfer xp from one to the other?

If the drive is erased then you will need the entire CD to install windows, not just the boot disk. You can order OEM CDs from eMachines for around $30. If that machine came with 98 you will be better off buying a copy of XP Home and installing it. No you cannot transfer an OEM version of Windows from one machine to another.

thank you very much

Try downloading Puppy Linux and see if you like it. If you have at least 256mb of RAM you do not even have to install it to the hard drive. The multi-session version will write the changes back to the same boot CD so they can be used the next time.
Download, and burn it to CD and be surfing in 10 minutes.