Loading Win98

Factual Questions
1

As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I still have my first laptop. It’s running Win95, making it pretty useless. It has a 1.3gb hard drive.

I tried to install Win98 on it (because I have a copy), but it said that it could not install it because there’s already a version of Windows on it (it says I need to obtain the Win98 upgrade). Is there a way I can ‘wipe’ the hard drive and install the Win98 I have on it?

What are the steps?

Why do I want to do this? I’m not even going to use it! (I haven’t figured out how to make use of the iMac either – which, BTW, I was finally able to connect to the Internet.) But I like the idea of having something that I can use, rather than something I can’t.

2

I forget if the 98 CD is bootable…
Create a bootable floppy with CDROM support and boot the PC with that. (It may be easiest to visit http://www.bootdisk.com/
Format the drive
Run the setup program from the CD.

Microsoft article here

3

Thanks. I’ll have to see if I can find a floppy around this place so that I can go to the link and make a start-up disc.

4

An OEM Windows98SE CD is bootable. Usng the bootmenu, you can boot into MS-DOS, FORMAT /Q/U/S/C/V:volumename, reboot, and allow the installation program to run. Done it hunnerds of times. Literally.

Of course if your laptop cannot boot from the CD-ROM drive… bootdisk.com is the answer.

5

I attempted to start the installation using the instructions in Nanoda’s second link. I made a boot disc on my other PC.

I put the boot disc (downloaded from Nanoda’s first link) into the laptop and restarted the computer. Result:

So the very first thing I tried to do, didn’t work. :frowning:

Oh – I thought my laptop was 133mHz. Actually it’s 166mHz. Woohoo! That’s cooking with fire!

6

Hrm.
Well, either the floppy didn’t get made right, it’s defective, or the laptop is booting from something other than the floppy drive.
If you access the BIOS of the laptop, you should be able to set the boot order. (When troubleshooting, I like Floppy->CDROM->HD) That might make a difference.

If the Win98 CD is retail Microsoft, it’s probably easier to boot from the CD like sewalk says.

7

I know you can set the boot order, but I don’t remember how to do it. It seems to be trying to boot from the floppy when the disc is in.

It’s the OEM CD that came with my desktop. Will a Win95 machine boot from a Win98 disc? It wouldn’t let me update from the CD.

Actually, my first priority is going to be the desktop. I was going to buy an external drive and move my important files onto it, then reformat the hard drive, re-install Windows, and move the files back over. Instead, I think I’ll buy an external drive and put the drive in the tower and put the existing drive into the external drive. That way I don’t have to move any files, reformat, etc. I can just put Win98 onto the new drive.

8

When you boot from the CD, what’s on the hard disk is irrelevant. It’s not a win95 machine, it’s a win95 hard disk.

9

It’s easier to type ‘Win95 machine’ than it is to type ‘a machine running Win95’.

10

My point was that there is nothing about the hardware that “knows” it’s running win95. When you boot off the win98 CD, it’s a “win98 machine”, it’s “a machine running win98”. Win95 is sitting there unconscious on the hard disk.

So it’s not possible for win95 to stop you booting from a win98 CD: win95 never gets activated in any way.