How can i install an os on a laptop

[killerdcc]

i got this laptop from a friend and i told him i would wipe it and start afresh. The problem is that it can only have the cd or the floppy installed at once, not both. also, the drives are not hot swappable so you can't change them while the unit is on. i want to install win98 but i can't figure out how since i need the bootdisk to get the cd drivers on there to start the install process and the win98 cd is not bootable.

any hints
thanks

 

[brxndxn]

Most labtops don't use software. Labtops are built to hold test tubes and withstand chemical spills.

 

[Geekbabe]

Use your floppy to partion/format your drive,remove floppy, put in CD, copy the WIN98 directory to your hard
drive

 

[warcleric]

boot with a floppy, format c: /s, install CD-Rom driver onto hard drive, insert cd-rom and boot from hard drive.

 

[killerdcc]

what does the /s do?

how do i install the cd rom driver? I am ust to putting in the boot disk with cd support and it doing it for me.

booting from the hd gives me "no rom installed"

 

[Viper GTS]

The /s switch formats the disk and transfers the system files.

You should be able to find a CD-ROM driver fairly easily, I have a Mitsumi driver disk that I've used on all kinds of CD-ROMs with no trouble.

Viper GTS

 

[killerdcc]

how do i find and copy the driver?

 

[ATLien247]

Most laptops that have the "either/or" drive bays come with a cable so that you can plug the floppy drive into the parallel port. I'm guessing you don't have that cable?

 

[killerdcc]

nah, no cable or dummy bay.

 

[pulpp]

none, and i dont plan to ever do that

 

[killerdcc]

what r u talkin 'bout?

 

[killerdcc]

please help me. i am losing my mind trying to get this thing working

 

[Doggiedog]

I just did this last week with a troublesome laptop that had Win98 in Japanese.

I had 2 partitions c: and D:

In D, I copied (not installed) the win98 CD into a directory.

Then I booted from a system disk in the floppy drive. Make sure your system disk has fdisk and xcopy.

Then I fdisked the c: drive and activated it as the primary drive

Then I formatted the c: drive

Then I rebooted with the system disk and went to my d: drive and installed win98 onto my c: drive and voila win98 again.

If you have any questions you can pm me.

 

[bonkers325]

<< i got this laptop from a friend and i told him i would wipe it and start afresh. The problem is that it can only have the cd or the floppy installed at once, not both. also, the drives are not hot swappable so you can't change them while the unit is on. i want to install win98 but i can't figure out how since i need the bootdisk to get the cd drivers on there to start the install process and the win98 cd is not bootable.

any hints
thanks >>



get a bootable cd

 

[bonkers325]

shouldnt this be in the hardware section ? :Q

 

[warcleric]

Doggie: so how does he get the install files to the hard drive? he cant boot with cd-rom support because he either has to have the floppy in or the cd-rom drive in. I have yet to see a win98 cd that isnt bootable though.

 

[killerdcc]

war: mine is win98 upgrade.

it won;t boot from it

is there any way to burn a copy of it and make it bootable?

 

[Doggiedog]

I PMed killerdcc but what I did was I borrowed an Ethernet PCMCIA card hooked my laptop up to my DSL router and used my desktop PC's CD ROM to copy all the files on to the laptop's HDD.

I don't know if you have any friends that can do that for you but that was my solution.

 

[dabuddha]

heres how i do it
first use the floppy drive
bootup with a 98 boot disk
format C:/s
after you're done formatting, copy autoexec.bat and config.sys to your c drive
you'll also need to copy *.sys to the c drive as well as mscdex.exe from the ramdrive it creates
then modify autoexec.bat and config.sys and remove all the extraneous crap from it
next, put the cdrom drive in and bootup, it should find the cdrom drive then and you can copy the 98 cd to the hdd before installing it
good luck