clean install Win98 on a Dell Latitude LM laptop

[Easy]

I have a Dell laptop with win95 on it. I want to do a clean install of Win98. The problem is that it has what is called an options bay that can have either the floppy drive or the cdrom in it. Only one at a time.If you go into the bios there is no option to boot from the cdrom only the floppy and hard drive are listed as possible boot options. Can anyone suggest a way to do a clean install of win98? I am thinking that there must be a cable of some sort to plug the cdrom into one of the other ports somehow so that I can have the floppy and the cdrom both running at the same time. Anyone got an idea?

 

[SufferinSuccotash]

Maybe try setting the BIOS to boot from floppy but really have the CD-ROM plugged in? The Win98 CD-ROM shjould be bootable. Hopefully telling it to boot from the floppy and leaving the CD-ROM drive plugged in will fake the computer out. My other thought would be to copy all of the files from the \Win98 directory on the CD to a directory on the hard disk, use deltree to delete everything except that directory, and then install from the hard disk. This is how we do it at work, it is very convenient, because then if you decide to change Network settings or add another component of the Windows software, you don't need the CD. Setup goes a lot faster, too. If you're strapped for disk space, all you need is the \Win98 directory from the CD.

 

[Zach]

Get/make a Win98 boot floppyYou'll want a Win98 one if you're gonna use FAT32 (Hard drive bigger than 2 gigs). Boot from the floppy, than use it to format your hard drive and copy system files, 'format c: /s'

When that's done, you just need to make the hard drive activate the CDROM while booting. The easy way to do this is to copy the whole floppy disk to the c: drive. A better way to do it is to move things after copyuing them. You could make a /dos or /boot directory ti store most of the files used, and modify the config.sys and autoexec.bat to use those directories.

 

[Duckers]

Easy, there is a special cable which connects the floppy drive to the Parallel Port.

 

[Easy]

Thanks guys. Ducker do you know if this cable is generally available or is it one of those "only from Dell" things.

 

[PCAddict]

The cable is unique to Dell. I have a Dell Latitude LM 166 laptop with the same setup. It had Win95B on it, but I recall I was able to FDISK and reformat to reload Win98SE. I think I used a boot disk that I created from an image file on Dell's website. I am not sure exactly, as it has been a while. I FDISK'ed it because I bought it as a refurb and for some twisted reason they had the 2GB HD partitioned.