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Installing Win98SE on a old Compaq

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5 replies

by nevernessit

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I have just got an old Compaq Presario 2200 system that I want to setup for my kids to play around with. It currently has a heap of junk on the hard drive as well as Win 95. I did not get any driver disks or anything else with the computer. The problem I have is that I cant access the CD drive. I have tried everything. Anyway I want to format the computer and install Win98SE. The problem I have is that none of the boot disks I have are recognised as system disks by the Compaq so I cant get access to the CD to install Windows (the disks are fine on any other system). If I format the computer and fdisk the master boot record would that wipe the Compaq proprietary stuff from the system so I could use a normal boot disk to boot and then install Windows? Any one had this problem or can offer any advice would be hailed as a saint in my eyes! Thanks.

5 replies

by old and tired..

If I remember right, the Compaq BIOS allows one to define IDE interfaces as active/inactive. You might want to confirm IRQ 15 is enabled so the CD-Rom can be recognized. F10 at startup to enter SETUP...navigate to advanced.

Just curious...ou really think your kids will play games on a Cyrix/P 1 133/166/whatever MHz PC...probably has 72 pin EDO - somewhere in the region of 16/32 meg Ram?

by nevernessit

Thanks for that. I checked the BIOS and the CD drive is enabled and is even auto detected. When Win 95 was installed (before I formatted the drive) the CD drive was recognised and I could read data from it. Now the hard drive has been formatted I can start Win 98 install as any boot disk I try is reported as "Non-system disk". I have a Compaq diagnostic boot disk that boots into its own little diagnostic utility, but I cant exit from this into a Dos prompt to start the install or try to access the CD drive. I have tried four various Win98 boot disks that have all previously worked on non Compaq machines with no problem at all.
Im just wondering if I need a specific Compaq boot disk?

by km

using Windows 98 SE bootable CDROM works fine in other PCS not this one. Also tried booting off of 98 boot floppy (also did not work) Any ideas? Did you ever get it to work?

Thanks!

Kieran Mullen

by deadly ernest

I have 'plain Janed' a number of Compaqs and have experienced this problem twice. From experience I have laernt that the only way to rebuild a Compaq is to delete the partition, create a new primary partition, format the partition and rebuild the MBR in the process. Using Fdisk will do this.

However, if you refromat the drive without rebuilding the partition first it retains some of the Compaq proprietary info and will cause trouble unless the reformat was done with the specific Compaq software for that model.

Once you reach the lock up you describe, the best thing is to remove the drive from the Compaq, place it as a second drive on another machine and then remove and replace the partition and format as FAT 32 on the other machine. This has always worked for me.

I also load the Win 98 CAB files onto the drive and then load Win 98 from the drive, it is quicker.

by km

on another computer I booted of the win 98 se boot cd, then I fdisk /mbr ed it, but I wasnt able to format it. So I ran 98 SE setup which forced the formatting..

However booting of 98 boot disk still stalls (read light stays on) and booting of the same win 98 se cd i used earlier in the compaq produces a bunch of gobbley good and it beeps and beeps...

Do Can I run the cd install off of the HD? I copied the files in the main cd directory and the win 98 directory cab files... what else should I change?

thanks

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