Possible to load Win98 from PCMCIA CD-ROM?

[ArchStudent]

I downgraded my laptop (Twinhead P79-emc) from Windows 2000 to Windows 98 S.E. (not enough memory for win2k to work properly).

The laptop never came with a CD-ROM, so I purchased this one(external PCMCIA) and win2k recognized it without any problems.

Now installing win98 SE was a pain, as I had to pull the hard drive out and place it into another laptop just to load all of the windows setup files, and then swap it back in so that Windows would do the hardware detection and setup properly on the original laptop.

Could I do a network-like install using the pcmcia cd-rom as the device to point windows to when searching for files? If that is possible, how do I go about pointing it to the device?

I have tried to install the driver using the Hardware Wizard, where it asks me for a location of the drivers, and I direct it to the supplied I/O Magic floppy disk. The driver is found and then it starts to load it, but then the whole system freezes and the PCMCIA beeps once, and not even Ctrl+Alt+Del works. I have to power it off then back on, and it never finishes installing the driver.

 

[TerryMathews]

Yes, you can install Win98 from any device you can access via DOS. Which means your going to need to run down a DOS 'real mode' driver for your CDROM and set up a boot disc with it for your system.

My advice after you get everything working would be to format C:, mkdir c:\win98 and copy d:\win98\*.* to c:\win98 assuming your CDROM is D:. Then run setup from C:\win98.

Works every time. I've got a Tosh Libretto 70ct and a parallel CDROM drive.

 

[ArchStudent]

TerryMathews thanks for the info, finally figured out how to get it copied, as it took a few trial and error typings. Worked like a charm Now if I could just get this blasted PCMCIA CD-ROM to load up properly, damn thing keeps freezing the computer just before it finishes installing the drivers :frown:

 

[ArchStudent]

I should also mention that this has doubled the speed of the machine Pentium I 166MHz w/ MMX and 64MB of Edo-Ram certainly can not keep up with Win2K. Win98 seems to be happily buzzing away