Windows 98 on a Laptop!

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PurePwnage

New Member
Alright, so there was my old sisters laptop that she doesn't use anymore sitting around. Figured: Hey, it's still useful. I can use it for internet.

So I went online, figured out how to make a boot disk and all, formatted, and suddenly. I've done something wrong.

It's all formatted, partition's have been made, but it won't let me boot from the D: Drive!!!

All it says when I boot is: "Operating System not Found"

Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks.

PS: No tengo un "floppy disk drive" en mi computadora.

And the boot disk (www.bootdisk.com) has to be on a floppy disk supposedly?
 
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You need to actually install windows 98. All you did was erase everything off the hard drive, but never installed windows 98 back onto it.
 
Check the bios and see if there's an option for booting off the optical drive. If not, what type of laptop is it. Some had external floppy drives(and I don't mean USB ones) that you had to purchase separately.
 
When the system is POSTing, there is an option to enter BIOS. Press the designated key (usually F2, F8, or DEL) and see if BIOS recognizes your Optical drive. If it does, prioritize it as your first Boot Device and insert your Win98 CD. Save the changes in BIOS and reboot. The CD should load by default and begin the install.
 
You may need the windows 98 startup disk. You inset that and boot to that. You then "enable CD-ROM Support" and when it gets to A:\> you type "D:\" (no quotes) and then "Install".

If you need the files to make the startup disk, let me know. I have a spare sitting around. Just PM me.
 
imsati said:
When the system is POSTing, there is an option to enter BIOS. Press the designated key (usually F2, F8, or DEL) and see if BIOS recognizes your Optical drive. If it does, prioritize it as your first Boot Device and insert your Win98 CD. Save the changes in BIOS and reboot. The CD should load by default and begin the install.
Click to expand...

I've tried this.

Voyager, I'll attempt this.

I'm getting an error saying Invalid Drive Specification. I have Windows 98 on the CD. I try to get the D drive to be the one I use, but it just skips by that and says Missing Operating System no matter what I try to type in. If there's a floppy in, it goes to that.

I type this in (except the A:\> part)

A:\>D:\Install and it says Invalid Drive Specification. Any other way to get from the A drive to boot the D drive?
 
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Did you start the computer with a windows 98 startup disk in drive A? You MUST use that so you can enable CD-ROM support to install the CD, otherwise there is no driver for the CD-ROM and the computer won't detect it. Trust me. I've installed 98 HUNDREDS of times.

I just read you don't have a floppy drive. If you don't, try and find another computer that does. First, download the files (seen below) and copy them to a flash drive. Then go to like the library or somewhere that has a floppy and make it.

I have the files hosted Here in a .EXE that will ask you where you want to extract the files to. Just extract them and copy to a blank 3 1/4" Floppy.
 
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That's what I'm going to have to do. Alright, Thanks!

PS: Now just to find someone w/ a floppy drive. I tried booting up a really old slow computer in the basement, but it just crashes when it gets to the desktop screen.
 
PurePwnage said:
That's what I'm going to have to do. Alright, Thanks!

PS: Now just to find someone w/ a floppy drive. I tried booting up a really old slow computer in the basement, but it just crashes when it gets to the desktop screen.
Click to expand...

Thats why I find it important to have a decent computer in the house with a floppy drive! (In my case, my computer)
 
Hey, I'm back at it. I've got the startup disk made from bootdisk.com (OEM Version 2 -- Windows 98), and now I'm just stuck on this. I think it's already formatted, but just getting through BIOS and the installation is bugging me now.
 
You have to enable CD-ROM support from the floppy disk and then go through the command to get it to the CD-ROM drive and then type install.

Sometimes I wish I could magically appear and help people.:rolleyes:
 
I just tried that. It didn't work, for any of the 3 drives.

EDIT: It's the E drive! I got to where it tells me to start, then it sits on a screen saying:

"Please wait for setup to Initialize..
Scanning System Registry
Wind

Then it just sits on "Wind" forever.
 
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I had that issue too the other day when I was trying to create a virtual machine.
 
Nope.

I also had the same issue installing XP on my old Dell. Setup would freeze, so I had to memorize the correct keystrokes otherwise it would freeze by the time it hit the license agreement.
 
Windows XP's install is slightly different than 98's install ;)

Besides, you have to get past the whole part where it's freezing for you to do anything anyway.
 
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