DOS Boot Disk With Networking?

[Hideous_Hog]

This question is for a laptop that doesn't have a CD-ROM. Is there a boot disk (or other method) available that would allow me to re-format, and then do a fresh install of WIN9x over my home network? The laptop has an Intel 10/100 PCMCIA card.

TIA

 

[obenton]

Easiest way would be with a DOS boot floppy that supports networking (see http://hdallen.home.mindspring.com/doswin.htm ). Then copy the I386 directory from the win9x cd to the laptop and run the install from the laptop's HD. If you find that the laptop can't access the cdrom drive over the network, copy the directory to the computer's HD, from which it can then be copied to the laptop.

 

[Hideous_Hog]

I spent a couple of hours yesterday messing with the Microsoft DOS Client and came up totally frustrated, the DOS commands after all these years!

After giving up on trying to wing it, I did a power search (Copernic) and eventually found out that Helmig's site (www.helmig.com) has a comprehensive tutorial on exactly how to do this, with screen shots. It is not easy to configure stuff nowadays with such an old program.

I may give this another shot someday, but I think the moral of this story is to find someone who has a PCMCIA CD-Rom and borrow it.