Run Win95 setup from DOS

A

Ailadad

New Member
Been struggling with a project here,

I've got a DOS boot disk that I downloaded from the internet. It works great. I can start up from the floppy and run DOS. I am doing this because the Win95 installation CD I have requires that I start from DOS. With a blank FAT 32 10GB hard drive, the set up won't run on the C drive. So, I figured I need to do some formatting. With DOS up and running I used FDisk to set a small DOS partition on the C drive, (It will only let me make a partition up to 2GB, DOS limitation), and then set the remaining space as an extended drive. I can then initiate the Win95 setup (located on the CD-ROM) from DOS command. Win95 setup comes back and says that it needs 7.5GB of space to do the setup. This should be fine as I have a 10GB hard drive formatted FAT 32, ready for the setup and this remaining space is larger than 7.5GB. So for some reason, the Win95 setup doesn't see this space as available to use. Are my partitioning and formatting steps incorrect? What format for the Win95 install do I need and how should I go about getting it done?

What format does this have to be in, and/or are there any other ideas.

Here's what I have:

1 MS-DOS boot disk
10GB hard drive (I could format it however I need)
Win95 setup on CD-ROM (not bootable)(requires to be initiated from DOS)


How do I get these pieces to go together? The ultimate goal is to get Win95 on a PC.

Please stick to the things I currently have, I know there might be other ways, but there is a way this should work, with what I have.


Any ideas?


Thanks
 
best i can figure your saying.
run fdisk again and remove the extended. 10 gig is not that big. you want one primary partition (10gig). after removing the extended i would do again as one primary then format all drive as 32 bit.
just for the record if the drive was bigger (say 40gig) you could and might create a primary say 20gig. You could then create a 20 gig extended called d:drive. then if you wanted more drives you create logical drives within the extended partition. then you run format on each of the drives. Primary, extended and logical drives you created.

take it step further if you had logical drives. you would run fdisk, remove the logical drives, then the extended and give it back to the primary.

windows 95 was a long time ago.
I said that because i remember. the only one worth a sheet (and best) was OSR2 windows 95.
3 windows was hard to work with. on the other hand when i got on the band wagon with computers was only dos.
no internet, had bulletin boards and dial up.
love it............cheers
 
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I'm still a little confused,

The FDisk that I'm using (installed with DOS6.2) will only let me format DOS primary partions, or up to 2GB. But I will try.

I'll play around with it later today and see, but I don't remember having the option to go bigger, maybe I missed something.

Yeah, its been an adventure. I've never played with DOS of fdisk before, and am learning. I have an old program that won't boot on XP and I know it will work on 95, so I'm having fun learning trying to get win95 up.


I'll let you know what I see, when I dive back in later today.



Thanks for the for the info.
 
It is possible that you have an old version of windows 95 which does not recognize the FAT32 file system, you may have to format it to FAT16. Only OSR 2 or whatever it is called was the first one with FAT32 support.
 
One other thing. dos 6.2 will work fine. i can create all you mentioned including ntfs.
You can not use ntfs on 95.
 
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Ok, so I tried again. The version of DOS that I have (it claims to be 6.2) has a certain version of Fdisk on it. When I run Fdisk, it only gives me the options to create a Primary DOS partition and Extended DOS partition. So I am limited. I can't format the drive to the right thing in order for win95 setup to like it!
I formatted a drive in FAT32 using XP, then booted up using this DOS boot disk and it saw it as a FAT16! So I think that I don't have the right Fdisk.

I downloaded this DOS boot disk from, http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I choose the 6.2 version. But I need to try and get DOS another way such that I can use Fdisk in the way you are saying tremmor.


Any other ideas of where and how to get a good, full version of DOS?
 
i think chibicitiberiu is correct in his post. you are not using a 32bit ver of 95.
its not your 6.2 dos boot disk. that part is right. he stated that 32bit was with osr2.
that was the last ver of 95 that i recall. or install a ver not an upgrade of Windows 98 2nd edition.
cheers..........
 
tremmor said:
i think chibicitiberiu is correct in his post. you are not using a 32bit ver of 95.
its not your 6.2 dos boot disk. that part is right. he stated that 32bit was with osr2.
that was the last ver of 95 that i recall. or install a ver not an upgrade of Windows 98 2nd edition.
cheers..........
Click to expand...

No, all windows versions starting with windows 3 are 32bit, but I was talking about the filesystem.

Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

There is FAT12 used for floppies, FAT16 for DOS and Windows 1,2,3,95 Original & OSR1 and FAT32 used on all windows operating systems since Win95 OSR2.


Now, FAT16 has a size limit, about 2 GB, so you cannot make a partition bigger than that. You can format it using the 'format' command.
I'm not sure about this, but I think that you could install win95 on an unpartitioned hard disk, and it would make the partition needed, the right file system. At least windows 2, 3, NT 3.1/3.5 installers do. And you can choose the size you want, as long as it's under 2GB.
 
I am installing a Win95 setup, not an upgrade. Yet if I try to just run it from XP it says that it can't run in an NT environment and that it must be initiated from DOS. Its an old OEM version of win95 that was supposed to be bundled only with the purchase of a new PC, well over 10 years ago now.

But, for what ever reason, I can launch the setup from this DOS boot disk, which is further than XP would let me, but when the win95 looks at the hard drive, it says that it is incorrect.

I try the fdisk that is on the DOS boot disk but it doesn't give me options for formatting anything other than a primary or extended DOS partition. As well as the ability to delete these.

I guess I will try to find a program that can run on XP and can format my hard drive to FAT 16. Or as chibictiberiu (you gotta simplify that name!) said, I could try an un-formatted drive as well, and see if win95 is smart enough to do it, itself.

Either way, I'm running out of options, I'm starting to loose faith!


Thanks again
 
Ailadad said:
I am installing a Win95 setup, not an upgrade. Yet if I try to just run it from XP it says that it can't run in an NT environment and that it must be initiated from DOS. Its an old OEM version of win95 that was supposed to be bundled only with the purchase of a new PC, well over 10 years ago now.

But, for what ever reason, I can launch the setup from this DOS boot disk, which is further than XP would let me, but when the win95 looks at the hard drive, it says that it is incorrect.

I try the fdisk that is on the DOS boot disk but it doesn't give me options for formatting anything other than a primary or extended DOS partition. As well as the ability to delete these.

I guess I will try to find a program that can run on XP and can format my hard drive to FAT 16. Or as chibictiberiu (you gotta simplify that name!) said, I could try an un-formatted drive as well, and see if win95 is smart enough to do it, itself.

Either way, I'm running out of options, I'm starting to loose faith!


Thanks again
Click to expand...

When I had to install Windows 95, it would launch from DOS and recognize the FAT16 partition. But another option would be to install DOS to that computer, instead of using bootable disks, which should take care of the partition and install win95 on top of it.
 
OK, yes. But how do you install DOS? I am only familiar with how to use these boot disks.

Can someone help specifically on that?



Additionally,

OK, now I've got an image of a win95 hard drive that contains the drivers/software that I need. It will only let me restore the image on to a FAT 16 hard drive. But like I said in a previous comment, using this boot disk, and the Fdisk running in it, will only let me partition in DOS partitions, with a size of 2GB.



Question is, how do format an entire drive (10GB) into FAT 16 so that I can do this restore?
 
OK, so I still need help actually installing DOS, instead of from a boot disk.


But I just learned that Primary DOS is FAT 16, and you can't go any larger than 2GB in either (they are the same thing), so I can format in FAT 16, its just that in this Fdisk I have it calls it making a DOS partition.
 
been a long time since playing with 95. if you formatted the drive and wiped. boot from boot disk. at the dos command level type sys c:
this should copy all system files from the boot disk to c:.
then you can copy all files from the boot disk to the c drive.
xcopy *.* c:/s.e/v/w


i don't think you will need switches for the commands. xcopy if you have on the boot should work. you can also type at the command level help
im rusty on this one. sys will copy the system files. you have to copy the commands like mentioned above.

switches is not important though. s,e,v and w.
s is include sub directorys
e is even if empty
v is verify
w is wait
 
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