Installing Win98SE on a laptop without CDROM

[jonifen]

Hi all, I've got an old laptop here which I want to install Win98SE on (currently has 2x partitions on a 1.3gb hdd, but nothing installed on either atm). There is no cdrom in the laptop and I dont have a parallel external cdrom to use. I do have a USB Zip100 but there are no DOS drivers for this, so I think thats out of the question. There is a floppy drive, but as the Win98SE folder on the CDROM is ~120mb, I'm gonna have to use numerous floppy disks and a lot of the files are over 1.38mb so I'd have to compress them.
What do you recommend? It's gonna be used as a spare PC for the kids to do their homework on (office 97 etc). I'll use the zip100 to get Office on when Windows is installed... just need to get that far first!

Thanks for help in advance,
Jonathan

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Might be an easier way than this..............

Take the hard drive out & put it in your computer. Then copy the win98 folder from the 98 setup CD to it on the second partition. (name the folder win98) You might have to take note of the drive letter.

Put it back in the laptop. Use a boot floppy. Navagate to the win98 folder & type setup (enter).

Might work.

 

[Admiral Michael]

How bout gettin Laplink for DOS, and transferring the Win98 Folder off the Cd to a separate partition on the laptop. Thats all you need to install, theres a setup.exe in that folder, Ive done thins before so it works.

 

[jonifen]

Might be an easier way than this..............

Take the hard drive out & put it in your computer. Then copy the win98 folder from the 98 setup CD to it on the second partition. (name the folder win98) You might have to take note of the drive letter.

Put it back in the laptop. Use a boot floppy. Navagate to the win98 folder & type setup (enter).

Might work.

Laptop has a different socket on it for data & power and I would need an adapter... (unfortunately 🙁)

How bout gettin Laplink for DOS, and transferring the Win98 Folder off the Cd to a separate partition on the laptop. Thats all you need to install, theres a setup.exe in that folder, Ive done thins before so it works.

There is no modem in the laptop (again... unfortunately 🙁)

But... the good news 🙂
I sat there with both laptops open and copied Win98SE using the winrar for dos version from one laptop to the other using floppy disks... took a while longer than I would have liked... but I've put the install folder on the 2nd partition. When I got Windows on, I copied the necessary files from the Office97 CD over via my usb zip100 drive (supported now in Windows!). Problem solved, but thanks for the advice - much appreciated 😀

 

[LeeJend]

Damn. You should be Sainted for doing that by hand with floppies (or possibly commited).

 

[jonifen]

lol... by getting that laptop working with Win98 and Office97, I have gained some silence in the house by avoiding the kids from arguing over their computer (for games and homework etc), so its definitely a good thing after all the work 😛

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Time to look around for 98 lite in case something goes....???......well it just goes. 😀