Installing 98SE-Damaged CD

[Tavekk]

Hello all, long time lurker (well ok, about a week or so), first time poster.

I just built myself a new computer, and was wanting to put the full version of Windows 98SE onto the new HDD which is already partitioned and formatted. I am using a CD to install from, but I am absolutely certain my CD-ROM is not the problem.

I can get past the scandisk part, then it gets to the part where it starts to copy files. It stops and says it can't find the file "vga.drv", and to reboot and try again.

I took this CD over to another computer and looked at its .cab files. I could see the contents of all of them, including the ones with "vga.drv", except for one called "win98_40.cab". I am guessing that between not being able to view this archive, and the CD not reading the vga.drv even though it's right there, that the CD is physically damaged, even though it looks fine.

I am guessing that the answer is "no", but is there any way I can still use this CD to install 98? Maybe a way I can skip those damaged files? If not, is there a way I can copy just the system-specific files from an old HDD to the new blank one, or make my own setup CD? If it's possible to copy necessary system files without copying everything, does anyone know of a place I can find a list of them? I did run a quick search on it, but nothing helpful turned up.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[phisrow]

I don't think that there is anything you can do to replace files piecemeal on a system to which you are installing the OS. You might, however, be able to do the repair on another system. First thing I would try is just a quick CD copy. See if the burned copy works any better than the original one. Presumably it will fail in the same place as before. If so, you might be able to take the image of the CD and replace the missing files(from a working win98 install, if they are the sort that are copied over directly, rather than installer files of some sort) and then reburn. All of this is obnoxiously difficult and fairly speculative, however.
In all likelyhood, you would be better off obtaining another copy of Windows 98SE. My understanding is, though I am not a lawyer(so correct me if I'm wrong), that if you have a valid software license for Windows, it doesn't much matter what cd you install off of. The licence is actually the expensive bit, and what you are really paying for(if you don't have a valid licence, of course, this is just what you were going to do anyways). Anyone know the details on the legality of installing an OS to which you have a license, from a downloaded .iso?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If this is a legit OS install CD (not a customized OEM "recovery" CD, or a copy), contact MS Fulfillment services, and ask for a media replacement/exchange. I think that you can purchase replacement media for around $10. Not sure if you have to send in your defective CD first or not. Also not sure if that applies to non-customized OEM (MS "DSP" version) copies or not.

Failing that, if you can get a copy of WIN98_40.CAB off of another Win98se CD, you should be fine. Be aware that you still want to use the same CD's SETUP.SIF as your corresponding installation product key, as certain CD pressings only accept certain ranges of associated keys.

 

[Aluf]

Time to time I have similar problems with CD burned at my PC, why - I haven't been able to disclose, but CDs burned by this LG burner get unreadable after 2-3 years. And nasty thing about that is when it says "can't find the file ..." "can't read.." or in a style and I skip and later replace damaged file from another source - it says another "can't find the file " . So in 95% of such cases it [CD] ends up in trash. To be sure whether you can do something with the CD - try to copy all the standalone files from CD one by one to harddisk so you 'll get all the damaged files known to you.

 

[Tavekk]

Thanks for the help. It is a legit copy, and a full version, not just a recovery CD. It came with my old computer (a Dell), and I have used it to reinstall before. I have the book/license # and everything.

I will try your suggestions about making a new CD and swapping in "good" files from a working install, and copying the files one by one to the HDD. I had previously tried to copy them all to the HDD to run setup from that, but when I did so it would stall at scandisk and say there was a problem on whatever partition I copied them to.

If these methods don't work, I will look into the fulfillment services suggestion from microsoft. Nobody else I know has a full 98SE CD for me to borrow, only the recovery versions. That's why I am having this problem in the first place, I think, because I had to loan them my CD to fix their computers and they may have scratched it or something.

If this still doesn't work and microsoft won't send me a CD, I guess I will have to end up putting my old HDD in the new machine. It is an ATA66/5400rpm drive, the new one is ATA100/7200rpm. I understand that with 2 drives on one cable (they are IDE drives), the faster slows down to the speed of the slower. If I have to do this, will it matter which drive I set as master and which drive I set as slave?

 

[Kalvin00]

I've got a full Win98SE CD sitting beside me right now, I could email you the win98_40.cab file if you need it? If you need it, just PM me your email address..