need help !!!!

My windows xp pro had crashed I could not even get into safe mode. So I formatted my hard drive and was going to start over. When I tried to install windows 98 se / windows 2000 pro / and windows xp pro , I could not get my cd-rom to bootup. I can get into dos by using my startup disk that I created but that is it. How do I get my windows disk to run in my cd-rom? When I do try to run 2000 or xp from dos it says this program can not run in dos mode (E:setup.exe) And when I try to install 98 se or 98 upgrade it says Windows setup requires 'largest executable program size' to be at least 442368 bytes to run (E:setup.exe). What does this mean and how can I correct this? I would appreciate anyone giving me some pointers on these problems. I have been trying for a month to figure this out. Dos books from the library haven't help any. Thankyou DazedConfused!!!!