2 weeks of dis-connectivity!

Some two weeks ago while downloading a p2p software from the internet my PC got busted( I think it was the curse of the piracy hatters). While downloading the PC suddenly hanged and I having no options had to restart it. Next thing I know is that there is some file missing in the windows folder.
I don't know much about fixing PCs so I sat for two weeks with out logging on to the internet. And for the first time I realized the it was quite difficult to live without it although bearable. So anyway I had no other option but to fix it my self. This led me to finding ways to rectify the problem. In my experience of using the computer for about 7 years I have atleast found out that most of time when there is something wrong with window or anything getting corrupted in the system registry or anything related to DLL files, you most probably have to reinstall windows with formatting the drive due to which some precious data can be lost!
So after managing to get a bootable windows CD and asking about some DOS commands from my friend( to whom I phoned almost after half an year), I finally installed windows. I had done the whole process two time before I managed to do it right on the third try.
Although the biggest problem wasn't installing windows and formatting but it installing the drivers for it( yes people I am still using windows 98). I had to find an old CD in my CD collection which was packed in a large box, upon which there were several other thing stacked( and they were really heavy).
I got the CD and installed the different drivers but the VGA driver wasn't working so I had to find it from somewhere else. Anyway after searching for 2 hours in different CDs and retrying to install from the same CD again and again and hoping that it would work I finally found driver which was already there in the D: drive. At first I didn't know how to install it but after another hour of fiddling with different thing I got it.