Formatted my laptop's HDD...installed windows98...BIG PROBLEMS!!! Help!

[RgrPark]

Ok i just acquired a Sager p-166 laptop from my buddy... The HDD was so cluttered that i decided to do a clean format... I used a boot disk to boot up with cd-rom support, formatted c drive and ran the setup program from the cd to install windows...now, once windows got installed and was looking for various drivers, it doesn't recognize the cd-drive!?!!@ since all the drivers are on the windows cd, there's no way to install them... no cd-rom under computer's properties...totally not recognized... i know the cd-rom is good cuz when i start it with the boot disk w/ cd-support, it works fine...doesn't detect it when i try to "add new hardware"...any ideas?

 

[RgrPark]

bump! help!

 

[UF Jspec]

Did the laptop come with a recovery CD? When I was reformatting my laptop, I had to use the damn recovery CD because Windows would not load the proper video card drivers. So when I tried installing Win98 from the Win98 CD (not the recoverty CD), it ended up with 16 color display.

If that is not an option, try going into Add New Hardware and adding the CD drive that way. I suggest going to Sager Web site to see exactly what type of CD-ROM you have. When installing new drivers, it may look to the Windows CD (which it cannot access). You may have to copy the CD to the hard drive.

Hope this helps.

- Jspec

 

[Pederv]

Take your win98 boot disk to a win98 system copy the 3 xcopy files from c:\windows\command to the floppy. Put the startup disk back in the laptop, reboot and type the following line:
xcopy e:\win98\*.* c:\win98 /e
then re-install win98 from the c: drive by going to the c:\win98 directory and typing setup.

OOPPS!! forgot the win98 startup disk creates a ram drive which will be drive d: the cdrom will be drive e:

 

[KGB]

You do not need to re-install.

You do need to boot from your start-up floppy and copy the entire \win98 directory from your CD to your C: drive as mentioned above.
After you do this, boot into Windoze and hack the registry as follows:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Setup

Inside setup you will find a key called SourcePath with an entry of D:\Win98\ (your CD Drive). Edit it to read C:\Win98\ and close regedit.

You can then load your drivers and the system will never ask you for the CD disk again.

 

[afropick]

Just in case space is an issue...

You don't need the entire Win98 directory off of the CD. Just everything in the Win98 root directory (mostly *.cab files). So you don't have to do "xcopy".

Copying the files to the hard drive is the best way to install windows. Much faster installation than from a CD and, as KGBMAN said, windows won't prompt you to insert the cd ever again.

 

[Mday]

you just need everything (excluding the stuff in the subdirectories) of the win98 directory...

 

[Mday]

it what, some 150 to 170 MB worth of files... (not just the cabs,you need other stuff too)

 

[Ulfwald]

Hey bud, i just sent you a boot disk maker, try it out.

 

[Barefoot]

If you installed Windows98, then all of your drivers ought to be located, not only on the CD, but in the C:\Windows\Options\Cabs directory also. Next time it tells you that it can't find a file on the Win98 CD-ROM, tell it to look there instead (you may have to type in the path manually).