how would you go about installing OS on a laptop w/o CDrom?

[bandXtrb]

I have a P133 laptop, has Win2k installed now. But I want to put Win98 back on it. The way I can do this is copy the setup directory to the laptop's hard drive from a networked cd drive, then reboot with a system disk, then install. Later I can remove the old Win2k files. I usually like to format the drive, but as I said, no CDrom to install from.

Would you do it differently?

(I do have a PCMCIA NIC card for it, if that would be useful.)

 

[TallBill]

is it really worth it for a p133 laptop? whats wrong with win2k?

 

[bandXtrb]

Win2k seems too much for this laptop. Its sluggish.

Also, when I try to get online by dialup with the NIC/modem card, the computer freezes (could just be in need of an updated driver, though).

 

[Garion]

1: Backup all your files
2: Download all the drivers you'll think you will need and put 'em a directory on the laptop
3: Convert the drive back to FAT, make sure it's not NTFS
4: Copy 98 files onto the drive
5: Boot to a DOS disk that has deltree.exe on it
6: Use deltree to empty all the dirs EXCEPT the Win98SE directory and the driver directory
7: Re-install 98, using the drivers you have copied to the disk.

- G

 

[Noriaki]

<< 1: Backup all your files
2: Download all the drivers you'll think you will need and put 'em a directory on the laptop
3: Convert the drive back to FAT, make sure it's not NTFS
4: Copy 98 files onto the drive
5: Boot to a DOS disk that has deltree.exe on it
6: Use deltree to empty all the dirs EXCEPT the Win98SE directory and the driver directory
7: Re-install 98, using the drivers you have copied to the disk.

- G >>



That's what I'd do.
Keep in mind, that using deltree.exe to delete a directory with a lot of files in it will take a fair bit of time.
But that's how I'd do it none the less.

 

[spanky]

with a p133...why dun u just go on ebay and find win3.11 on floppies?

 

[LordUnum]

What you need is Win95 OSR2.1 (that baby should fly with it!) on floppies.... something I easily loaded up on some old 486 laptops.

P M m e i f... well, you know what to do.

 

[Kenazo]

i think they even sold win95 on floppies for a while. You're in luck or... i have dos 6.22 on floppy somewhere.

 

[Mday]

buy a notebook HDD to regular desktop HDD adapter, a few bucks. format, fdsk and whatnot with the desktop. make the HDD bootable, and place installation files for win98 on the HDD. place it back to the laptop. boot. you will require drivers for your laptop, prolly.

gawd i hope you are not using ntfs.

the nic will not help.

 

[hans007]

borrow a cdrom from someone. or copy it over a network through dos boot floppy

 

[ericb]

Couldn't you borrow a parallel CD-ROM drive? Also, FDISK can take a LONG time on older computers. I regularly use it on P100 and P133s, many without CD-ROMs to erase and clear the hard drive...erasing the windows dir alone can take 3 hours or more sometimes. Same with the program files dir.

 

[iamwiz82]

<< borrow a cdrom from someone. or copy it over a network through dos boot floppy >>



network install would be my choice.

 

[BooneRebel]

Convert from NTFS back to FAT? Er, uh, I don't think you can do that (while leaving data intact in the partition)

 

[Cal166]

Yes you can convert NTFS to FAT, first backup all ur important data away from the Harddisk and boot up in dos and use "FDISK" and take out the partition. the problem with the stupid fdisk is that sometimes u cant remove a NFTS unless a certain version of fdisk, forgot which. oh well good luck

 

[NetCadet]

I just had to do this on an old 486 laptop for a client the other day. Unfortunately, there was no NIC in the laptop, and I don't have access to Windows on floppy at all. I simply loaded some software on the laptop to allow me to transfer the files from my PC via the serial port through a null-modem cable. It took about 2 hours to transfer the install files at about 12K/sec, but the install went flawlessly after that!

 

[bandXtrb]

How can I go about doing a network install?

Or here is another idea. Install PartitionMagic 6.0 on the laptop. Reduce the size of main (FAT32) partition and create a new one of around 200Mb. Copy Win98 setup files to this smaller partition. Boot from floppy, format main partition, go to D:\ and install Win98.

 

[jschuk]

ericb: The problem is, you didn't load smartdrv.exe. Load that and you will have less time to twiddle your thumbs while deleting directories.

 

[Luden]

How about a $3.65 adapter?