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make a Win98 boot CD?


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#1 Carolyn

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Posted 25 January 2008 - 10:08 PM

I just acquired an IBM Thinkpad T22. It has XP installed on it and I want to wipe it and do a fresh install of Windows 98. The floppy and CDROM are removable and interchangeable, only one being able to be in use at a time. I set the bios to boot from the CDROM, and copied onto a CD the files from a WIN98 boot disk I made with the boot98.exe file I got from bootdisk.com. It will not boot from this CD, though it will from the floppy boot disk. Problem is when it boots from the floppy, the CDROM drive is not in the computer, so the boot sequence skips installing the needed CDROM drivers. So, I can't install Win98 from the CD as the drivers for it won't be there when I reinsert the drive. How can I make a boot CD for Win98? Are there hidden files on the boot floppy? Any idea why it will boot from the floppy, yet bypasses the CD and goes into XP bootup? I have Win98, not Win98 SE. I sort of collect computers and I have a DOS 6.2 system, and Win 3.1 and my big PC is XP. I am determined to get a good 98 system up and running.

#2 wendy

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Posted 26 January 2008 - 08:13 AM

You need to do several things here.

1. Delete the partitions on the laptop with something that sees partitions. An XP install can do this. You do the install as far as deleting the partitions, and then abandon it.

2. You need to build a boot disk for XP, which also can see the cdrom. You can use a generic IDE driver here, or you can download the DOS driver from IBM/Lenovo. Thinkpads have _very_ good support.

3. Make the cdrom letter something late in the alphabet, such as s: (MSCDEX /L:S /D:MSCD000), then you don't need to hunt the drive down with "findcd". You can also use XMSDSK to park a ram drive at R: You need also "lastdrive=Z" or something.

4. If you use Win98se or earlier, you can use "SYS" as in DOS. You could put a full MS-DOS 7.1 unexpanded distro on the cdrom, and then use the floppy disk with a minimal setup. The following are relatively useful
  • io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com
  • fdisk, sys, format, and eg (delpart -> google for this) fdisk has a 64GB fix or something.
  • edit.com
  • scandisk (from WinME works faster/more accurately)
  • some ide driver + mscdex
  • himem.sys, mouse, ifshlp.sys
  • jo.sys, eltorito.sys, (see http://www.nu2.nu/ for details here.
msdos.sys can be minimal, eg ";sys" (a six byte file with this as a single line

When all works to what you want (you can use it as a rescue cd as well), make a raw image file (eg .IMA) of the disk. and make this the boot image of the cdrom.

The installation is then a matter of changing to the appropriate drive, and installing Windows 98.

You can make the same cdrom install at choice, Windows 95 or Windows ME. I made a composite cdrom, which has 95A, 98SE and ME, along with much of the original cdroms (except the multimedia/ads) in their source locations. The advantage of this is that programs that install extra features from the cdroms will find them in the right locations.

#3 Carolyn

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Posted 14 February 2008 - 08:30 AM

[quote name='wendy' date='Jan 26 2008, 02:13 AM' post='28155']
You need to do several things here.

Thanks so much Wendy for your great information. Just after you replied the mobo on that laptop died. Fortunately the seller refunded my money. I am now the proud owner of a Thinkpad A20m and I have both floppy and CD ROM available at the same time, so no problem installing 98.
Carolyn




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