7 replies to this topic

[the_beast]

I've been trying to cut down win98 for a few weeks now to build a diskless photo frame. I want to boot from a cf card into a RAM disk and run a light version of windows to display my pics.

I have set up a hard disk to do the install and get my image to store on my flash disk. But whenever I try to install to E:\WINDOWS I get an error saying there is a problem with the drive and to run Scandisk or ChkDsk to sort it out. (E:\ will be my ram disk - I have partitioned my disk to make sure I don't need to mess about changing drive letters etc when running from RAM).

However when I run Scandisk I get no errors. There is over 350mb free on the disk, and SMART and other disk utilities report no errors or bad sectors in the disk. In addition I can install 98lite versions without a problem.

Is there something in the Mindows installer that cannot install to drive E:\? If so I guess I will need to either put up with the extra bloat I don't need in 98lite or figure out how to change the drive letters etc.

Any help or pointers would be much appreciated...

[FloKo84]

I dont have a clue whats stopping the Mindows installer, unless you are installing directly to the flash disk wich probably wont work.
However, its easy to change the Windows path after installation:

• Extract regedit.exe from your Windows CD, or a running Windows (Mindows doesnt install it) and put it in your WinDir
• In real DOS, cd to your WinDir and extract your registry to a .reg file using "regedit /e registry.reg"
• Open registry.reg in a text editor, and replace the drive letter (i.e. C:\\ -> E:\\) in all occurrencies, to be safe use case sensivity.
• Build the regitry again with "regedit /c registry.reg"
• Dont forget to edit your msdos.sys to the same changes
• That should be all, no other absolute pathes in Mindows that im aware of

Even a fresh 98lite 98micro installation takes twice as long to boot compared to Mindows.
If you encounter page faults accessing your flash drive in explorer, try deleting/renaming WinDir\system\iosubsys\esdi_506.pdr .

Good luck,
Flo

[TheHive]

Another way to go is to install it In a virtual machine so it will be easy to change things without having to mess with real harware untill your happy with most of the results.

Freeware
VirtualBox - similar to Vmware Workstation
http://www.virtualbo.../wiki/Downloads

MS Virtual PC
http://www.microsoft...pc/default.mspx

Retail
Vmware Workstation
http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/

[FloKo84]

So true!

I started with CDRWs for the DOS memory optimization part, finding out after a while that the virtual environments are all for free - it saves so much time and trouble.
Not to mention some obscure errors from outweared RWs.

However, my already noted potential problems with esdi_506.pdr seem to be limited to virtual setups.

the_beast, let us know how it goes

Greetz Flo

[the_beast]

Thanks for all the tips.

I had hoped to get everything all sorted this weekend but as it turns out I haven't managed to touch my hardware as things kept getting in the way. However I'll give it another go sometime in the next few days I hope.

I use a variety of virtual machines (under VMWare) for various different tasks, and had been using them to cut down a copy of micro98 further by deleting unused .infs etc. However I ran into problems when I transferred it to my photo-frame hardware as I had removed some of the drivers necessary. I figured it would probably end up easier to do everything on the actual computer I intend to use. I hadn't found Mindows at this point though.

I reckon I'll get Mindows installed virtually to e:\ and see if that works. If it does I'll just copy it over and carry on as if everything installed normally (hopefully). If not I'll have to install to c:\ and then mess about to change the drive letters/paths (thanks for the tips FloKo84).

I'll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck...

[was_jaclaz]

Maybe the following is not what you like to hear, or maybe it is.

If you need this as a "digital photo frame" why do you need Win98 at all?

DOS would be more than enough:
http://home.att.net/...phics.htm#lxpic
and several other ones here:
http://home.att.net/...ics.htm#viewers

jaclaz

[the_beast]

Maybe the following is not what you like to hear, or maybe it is.

If you need this as a "digital photo frame" why do you need Win98 at all?

DOS would be more than enough:
http://home.att.net/...phics.htm#lxpic
and several other ones here:
http://home.att.net/...ics.htm#viewers

jaclaz

I had previously considered running this under DOS and Linux. However the frame is for my mother, who has limited PC knowledge and will want to browse through pictures and select sets of pictures to view. She wouldn't have the knowledge or patience to do this under DOS or linux. Added to this is the control interface - the pc has a touchscreen for which I have been able to source windows drivers only. Using this will allow her to select images by touching thumbnails with her finger, and removes the need for a keyboard or other keypad.

The PC I'll be using has a Pentium class processor at 166MHz and 128mb of ram, so running windows plus my viwer won't be a problem. The only reason for all the messing with minimising windows is so I can get a reasonable boot time and have the system running in the smallest possible ram disk to leave enough free ram so I don't need swap. My boot times will never be too fast as I will be limited by the speed of the flash, but I'll be happy if I can keep it below a minute (although I am shooting for 30 seconds). If I didn't have to decompress my windows install from flash on every boot I would have been happy with micro98, but the extra size kills the speed and eats into my ram.

Thanks for the links though - the first program especially looks useful and I may use it to build myself a small constantly looping photo frame. Again drivers would be the problem though as I would probably build my own photo frame completely disKless (I have a 32mb DOC that will hold DOS and dirvers and an image viewer, but no space for images).

I've still not had time to try out my virtual install but I hope to sort it before the weekend.

Rob

[was_jaclaz]

I remember reading something about similar experiences, maybe it is of some help to get some ideas:
http://likelysoft.co...ureframes.shtml

Some projects are really interesting.

jaclaz