Installing Win98 on an old Laptop

scriptasylum

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
25 Dec 2001
Messages
832
A guy at work called me and asked how he could install 98 on an old laptop. The trouble is that it can only have a CDROM -or- a floppy attached at once. Plus, the CDROM cannot be made bootable in BIOS.

I told him to try to make a win98 boot disk, boot without CDROM support (since the CDROM is un-attached), then copy all the files from the floppy to the hdd. Then, hot-swap the floppy for the CDROM and try running the autoexec.bat from the hdd which I'm hoping will find the CDROM and load the drivers. From there, installation should be cake.

Any other ideas on this one? I haven't heard back from him yet, so I'm not sure if what I said to do worked or not. I thought it was an interesting problem. Apparently, the laptop came with Win95 and a butload of install floppies.
 
If he has an OS already installed, all he needs to do is copy the Windows 98 CD to HD. Then, boot to the bootdisk and install from the location you copied the disk. If he doesn't want to upgrade, have him copy the files to say, c:\win98. Then, boot to the floppy. Type in deltree c:\windows. This will remove the windows folder. Then install Windows 98 from c:\win98\setup.exe (or whatever).
 
if i'm not mistaken, you can format the HD with format /s C:

then copy the contents of the boot floppy to the hard drive. shut down, add CD, boot, copy CD to HDD, and install :)

EDIT: wouldn't even need to copy the CD to hard drive really..just install :)
 
cpugeniusmv said:
if i'm not mistaken, you can format the HD with format /s C:

then copy the contents of the boot floppy to the hard drive. shut down, add CD, boot, copy CD to HDD, and install :)

EDIT: wouldn't even need to copy the CD to hard drive really..just install :)

That's pretty much what I told him to do. I will talk to him tonight to see if it worked. I told him to not bother with all of this and get a decent laptop. :)
 
Well, simply copying the boot files to the hdd from floppy didn't work. He had to copy a few files (CDROM driver) to the hdd and edit a couple of files (config.sys and autoexec.bat I think). He then had to boot from a plain boot floppy, then swap the floppy with the cdrom, and run the edited autoexec.bat on the hdd. The rest was simple.
 
Maybe for future use, he shoul dmake a second partition and copy the win98 folder to it. You can run the setup within the folder and it has all the stuff necessary to install windows 98
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back