Working on old win 98/Me pcs. I don't have a boot disc floppy

[Denvers Dawgs]

I am trying to work on old win98. I don't have a bootdisc to put in the A drive that it keeps asking for. My other problem my other PC are all newer and don't even have floppy drive to create a boot disc to use on the win98 PC. How can I actually install win98 with out having a boot disc on floppy?

[AlanHK]

Does it have a CD drive?

In BIOS setup, set boot drives to be first CD, then hard disk.

Perhaps your WIN98 CD is bootable? Try that first.

I think any Windows installer CD is bootable.

Otherwise, you can make a "Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD" from
http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/

[Seeker47]

I am trying to work on old win98. I don't have a bootdisc to put in the A drive that it keeps asking for. My other problem my other PC are all newer and don't even have floppy drive to create a boot disc to use on the win98 PC. How can I actually install win98 with out having a boot disc on floppy?

I'm not sure if THIS is the site I was thinking of
http://bootdisk.com/
or if it is still free, but I definitely recall finding some sites online that had solutions like this -- with Free downloads -- for all versions of Windows. I'm sure someone else here will have links like this they can vouch for.

[cd090580]

This site is great, but a floppy drive is still needed to build the boot floppy.

[jman98]

How can I actually install win98 with out having a boot disc on floppy?

You can't unless you happen to have a bootable CD for Win98, but I'm assuming you'd have told us if you had that.
You can search on Ebay and see if anyone has any old Win98 media for sale.

[Denvers Dawgs]

argh....ok thanks guys. I'll check to see if any of my pals have a floppy drive on their computers

[Webster]

How can I actually install win98 with out having a boot disc on floppy?

This is from memory ...which I have not use this for quite a while now so it may not be absolutely corrected....your milage may varies......
How about trying this if you don't have a bootable CD:
1. fdisk and format the hard drive using MS-DOS (FORMAT C: /S)
2. Boot to MS-DOS with CD-ROM driver installed.
3. open the win98 folder on the CD-ROM using DOS
4. copy the installation files for win98 to the hard drive using the DOS command copy *.* C:\*.* (actually, you can run setup directly from the CD-ROM at this step. But later on, if you need to install anything else, you will have to put the CD back into the drive - I found this is annoying so I do the installation from the files in the hard drive)
5. Boot the computer to MS-DOS using the hard drive.
6. run set up from C: drive.

for DOS command help you may want to check this site:
http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm

[Heywould3]

argh....ok thanks guys. I'll check to see if any of my pals have a floppy drive on their computers

just make a bootable cd from another computer. nero and others will do it.. just add the files from a 98boot disk (bootdisk.com) to the archive then click the make bootable option in the burn software.. no need for a floppy drive.

[Webster]

How old is this computer?
If I remember correctly, some of the older computers does not have a boot to CD option and you have to install driver in MS-DOS to access the CD-ROM. But if it is new enough and you can selected boot to CD in BIOS then follow Heywould3 direction.

[Denvers Dawgs]

is there a free software to create bootable cds? I don't have nero

[Heywould3]

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Windows_Unattended_CD_Creator_d5104.html

here is one free one.. i just googled free boot cd maker..

[gadgetguy]

I believe imgburn can make bootable CDs.

[Denvers Dawgs]

I just found this site that has a win 98 boot disc as an iso. I'll try that and let you know how it all goes

[budz]

is there a free software to create bootable cds? I don't have nero

Use CDBurnerXP Pro which is freeware.

http://www.cdburnerxp.se/download.php

[Denvers Dawgs]

ok so I just created a bootable cd from an iso form this site http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

After loading cd with the iso into the PC I restarted.

Here is what it gives me:

Preparing to start your computer
This may take.....

The diagnostic tools have successfully loaded on Drive d

MSCDEX Version 2.25

Drive E:= Driver MSCD001 unit 0
A:\>

What do I do know. I have unhooked the Floppy drive hoping that would make the pc not need it?

[oldandinthe way]

You have booted.

Now what do you want to do?

Reload Win98? You will need a Win98 Installation CD. You can then run at the A: prompt

E:/setup

But all of the contents of C: will be lost.

Do you have something on your hard disk you are trying to keep? You will need to back up the contents and reload , then replace or repair the system on the hard disk.

In that case at the A: prompt type C:

You can then run dos based programs on C: and perform your backups. You'll probably need to floppy drive to store backups on.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Oh ok, So here is what I have a blank drive, which the PC calls D.

I have a win 98 cd. So all I need to do where it says A:\> TYPE E:/setup

[Denvers Dawgs]

I load my win98 cd and I typed in
Eetup

and it said
General Failure reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?

[Webster]

I load my win98 cd and I typed in
Eetup

and it said
General Failure reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?

what this mean is you are trying to run setup from drive A:
Pay attention to the back slash. It is different from the forward slash....

I think the setup.exe is in E:\win98

try to change to the CD-Rom directory
use this command

CD e:

then type

DIR

to check the directory of the CD to see where the win98 folder is

if the directory is to long, use the pause option

DIR /P

it will give you the directory and pause at each screen page.
If you see there is a file called SETUP.EXE, run it from here if not, find the WIN98 folder and go inside it to run SETUP.EXE to set up wind98

Once you confirmed the win98 folder is there, go inside it using the command

CD WIN98

then run SETUP.EXE to set up window.

[Denvers Dawgs]

thanks for the help, it seems to be installing now. That DOS was something all new to me.....thanks for walking me through it

[Webster]

thanks for the help, it seems to be installing now. That DOS was something all new to me.....thanks for walking me through it

You may need the OEM key to complete the installation. I do hope you have it....

Hope you have all the drivers for your computer. Good luck with the rest of your installation....

[Denvers Dawgs]

Yes I still have my win98se key. Thanks again