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Installing OS from the hard drive

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by mbertel

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I was wondering if someone could give me the step by step procedure in installing Win 98 2nd edition from the hard drive. I know that the hard drive needs to be partitioned into two logical partitions. Where I am not clear is what software that needs to be loaded and the proper sequence the sofware is to loaded on the hard drive for a clean installation . I know that this is the best way to install the OS than using the CD. Thank you for the assistance.

Markus R Bertel

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by vinnyd

The drive does not need to be partitioned into 2 logical partitions. You can do it with one.

Boot the PC and create the partition with a Win 98 boot disk and then format the partition with the /s option so you can boot from the hard drive.

You need to load a realmode CD Rom drive to be able to access the Win 98 CD.

Create a folder called Win98 on the hard drive.

XCOPY the contents of the Win98 folder on the CD (you may need a copy of XCOPY from a working computer). Use the /S /E switches at the end of the xcopy command.

ex: C:> cd \win98
C:win98>xcopy d:\win98 /s/e

Now use the SETUP command to install Win 98.

Everything from here works as a normal Windows install from the CD.

by thechas

You are correct that you need to fdisk and format the drive.
But, you don't really need 2 partitions.
If the drive is large, you may want to setup multiple partitions, but it is not necessary.

You need to connect the drive to a working computerand copy the Windows 98 CD to a directory of your choice. The main limitation is to use 8 character names for the directory.
Some of the computer manufactures use C:\Windows\Options

After installing the drive in the target system, boot the system from a boot floppy.
At the command prompt, change to the drive and directory where you copied the Windows CD, and type setup.

Yes, there are directories on the CD that you could leave off. These would include program demos and samplers. You can leave off the Plus! folder if it is on your CD and you are not going to install it.

For a single system, this actually takes longer than setting up from the CD. The advantage is that you never need to find the CD when you install new hardware, or change network protocals as the files are available on the drive.

Manufactures use this technique copying the setup image to large banks of drives at once.
They also include drivers and software that they are including in the system price.

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