IT Employment
by pine_tree
What the type of file system do you have?
If NT - you have to format your drive first and convert the fs to Fat16. Then, boot from floppy and install your win95.
by thechas
It will take a bit of work, but you can install either W95 or W98 on this laptop.
If the laptop has at least a 233MHz CPU, and 128MB of RAM, I would opt for W98 over W95.
General procedure:
You need a Windows "Startup" disk.
The W95 boot disk does not include all the software needed.
You can download a disk image from www.bootdisk.com
Then, you boot from the floppy, and run fdisk
(www.fdisk.com/fdisk for information on fdisk)
Fdisk should report finding a NON-DOS partition.
Youwant to delete the partition.
CAUTION: Deleting the partition will result in the loss of all data on the drive!
Re-boot, and run fdisk again.
Depending on what version of Windows you install, and the size of the hard drive, you have some options here.
If the drive is over 2GB, and you have one of the older versions of W95, you will need to create 1 primary DOS partition, and an Extended DOS partition with at least 1 logical drive.
(check out the partitioning article at www.aumha.org)
Re-boot, and then format at least the C: drive.
Now, you can begin installing Windows.
As a side note:
You tend to get more and quicker response to this type of question if you post it in the Technical Q&A section.
Chas
by guruofdos
by thechas
Thank you for catching my error.
There are 3 ways to get W95 onto a PC without a CD drive.
1. Get the original floppy disk version. I believe there are around 40 floppies in the set.
2. Get a parallel port external CD drive. Or a parallel port drive case.
3. Mount the hard drive in a desktop, and copy the W95 CD onto the drive.
NOTE: You need at least a 1GB drive to make this work.
You can delete most of the files from the CD after installing ALL hardware and networking.
Chas
by guruofdos
Use a PartitionMagic emergency boot disk set, and destroy existing partitions. You can FDisk too!
Fdisk and format.
Using an external CD rom on the parallel port is the easiest way to reload windows 95, but I have a Zip100 parallel drive with the 95 cabs files on a zip cartridge.
DO NOT INSTALL from either media!!
Create a folder on the hard disk called W95Flat and then copy the cab files from the CD or Zip to this folder.
Then navigate to this folder and then run setup.exe.
This method of pre-installing the cabs then setting it up from the hard drive is a lot quicker than doing setup via the parallel port in one operation!!! The copying takes a while, but setup runs faster from the hard disk! The time taken by copying cabs is more than compensated for by the speed of the setup!
by guruofdos
an external CD OR a Zip drive...
Install DOS 6.22 from floppy. Don't bother with windows!
Modify config.sys to include the line
device=c:\dos\interlnk.exe
Modify autoexec by adding the line
INTERSVR
Copy all inter*.* files to a blank floppy from the DOS directory.
Find a 95 or 98 machine. Copy the interlnk files to the root of the c drive.
Add device=c:\interlnk.exe to config.sys on the 9x machine.
Boot the laptop....it will now run intersvr in server mode, searchingfor a connection. Connect the two PC's using a NULL MODEM cable between serial ports or a DCC/Laplink cable between printer ports. Boot the 9x machine and press F8 to get the boot menu. Choose Command Prompt only. type
INTERLNK
to start an interlink session
at the command prompt. then WIN to start windows.
When windows starts, you will have the other machines drives (including floppy) visible in explorer or My Computer. Create the W95Flat folder on the laptop's hard drive then copy the cab files across using explorer. It's slow, but will do the job eventually!!
When done....press ALT -F4 on the notebook to terminate intersvr...navigate to the cabs files and run setup. Leave it overnight if you have to!!! 97Mb of win95 cab files takes 7 hours via serial cable!!!
by zlitocook
by jorgy1
by dukebytes
Get it on a network or get a backpack CD and connect it thru the parallel port and copy the cabs to the HD.
In fact split the drive into two partations "C: and D:" and copy the cabs to the D: drive. That way if the notebook ever dies again - youcan just boot to a floppy - reformat c: and install from the D: drive.
Good luck,
Duke
by guruofdos
Most notebooks have 2.5" HDD's. Most desktops have 3.5" drives.
The connectors are not the same!! You need a 2.5 to 3.5 adaptor into which you fit the 2.5" drive. This then has connectors for a Molex drive connector (psu) and the standard 40 pin IDE. A 2.5" drive has 42 pins on a smaller connector and the power is fed via the ribbon cable.
These adaptors are readily available and are very similar to a 3.5" to 5.25" adaptor.
by omie
If you're problem is the password... I think there are freeware that you could download and make a boot up floppy disk and recover the password of administrator. That is a lot simple to work with. Another option is to have use the ghost image from other pc and bootup in a network. It not necessary from similar pc but later you could tweak on the hardware drivers ( which you will do it anyway when you load OS from scratch).
This is just a suggestion. Godluck
by jardinier
Having perused all the postings to this question, and being myself in the position of having a notebook computer without a CD-ROM drive, I would definitely recommend acquiring a piggy-back CD-ROM attachment that plugs into your parallel port. Insertany functional CD-ROM drive into the piggy-back. You can then do anything you want to whenever you want to. The idea of installing the CAB files onto the HD is very good, but you don't have to partition the drive: just copy them to a different directory, say Win 95, and then run setup into the standard directory c:\windows.
Good luck.
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