Installing Windows 98 by floppy only

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GaelicForce - 20 May 2008 19:03 GMT

I have inherited a Panasonic Toughbook CF 25 with a 1.4 GB hard driv
and a floppy drive only. It has a parallel port for printer but no US
port. It's pretty old. It has no OS. Can I install Windows 98? And i
so how?
GaelicForc

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GaelicForc

http://forums.techarena.i

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Gary S. Terhune - 20 May 2008 20:12 GMT

Not sure why you'd want to go to the trouble, and it's a LOT of trouble with
lots of potential pitfalls, and no, it's not normally done via floppy. You
have to remove the HD, put it into a functioning machine, manage to format
the laptop HD without screwing up your main system, using the /s switch,
make sure the partition is Active, then create a folder on the laptop drive
called WIN98, then copy just the files, not the sub-folders, from the folder
with that same name on the installation CD. Then put the HD back into the
laptop, boot up, change to the WIN98 directory and run SETUP.

And that will only MAYBE work. You'll likely need to find drivers for the
machine, and since it is almost certainly a Win95 machine or earlier, who
knows if 98 drivers exist for that machine. Then again, maybe you'll get
lucky and the installation files already include those drivers.

Yes, MS distributed Win98 on floppies, but they haven't done so for a long,
long time. I have a set, but considering they're floppies, which tend to
deteriorate over time, I'm betting they're worthless.

Signature

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

> I have inherited a Panasonic Toughbook CF 25 with a 1.4 GB hard drive
> and a floppy drive only. It has a parallel port for printer but no USB
> port. It's pretty old. It has no OS. Can I install Windows 98? And if
> so how?
> GaelicForce

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philo - 20 May 2008 22:19 GMT

Not impossible but fairly impractical to install win98 from floppies.

If you want to use Windows on that machine,
Might as well use win95.

That can be installed from floppies
and since the machine has no USB anyway...will at least give you an OS

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teebo - 21 May 2008 23:30 GMT

Hmm.. I remember I have tried install win98 with only floppys ones,
it was 20 floppys or so... with badsectors on disk 15...

Instead you should probably copy the windows98 cd to a directory
on the harddisk and install from that directory.
If you can't remove the harddisk and mount it on another computer
to format it and copy the files to it (it is a portable so....)
then you should copy the win98 cd files with a dos program.
Do it have a network card? freedos comes with network support.
Or use a serial or parallel cable to connect the computer to
another computer. (sure slow but you don't have to sit with it
while you wait)

boot on a dos bootfloppy and format the disk from the dos-prompt
then transfer the files between the computers with some dosprogram
like norton commander

If it is an old computer you should probably use win98lite
to remove internet explorer and other things that slows down windows

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philo - 22 May 2008 00:24 GMT

> > I have inherited a Panasonic Toughbook CF 25 with a 1.4 GB hard drive
> > and a floppy drive only. It has a parallel port for printer but no USB
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> Hmm.. I remember I have tried install win98 with only floppys ones,
> it was 20 floppys or so... with badsectors on disk 15...

LOL

win95 needs close to 30 floppies

http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/w95_floppies.html

Win98 would need a *lot* more!!!

> Instead you should probably copy the windows98 cd to a directory
> on the harddisk and install from that directory.
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> If it is an old computer you should probably use win98lite
> to remove internet explorer and other things that slows down windows

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teebo - 24 May 2008 02:53 GMT

>>> I have inherited a Panasonic Toughbook CF 25 with a 1.4 GB hard drive
>>> and a floppy drive only. It has a parallel port for printer but no USB
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/w95_floppies.html
> Win98 would need a *lot* more!!!

hehe, yeah I guess it must have been win95 I used (osr2.1 have 26 floppys
says wikipedia) or it was even more floppys than I want to remember :-D

I do remember it was original floppys and the installation took ages
to do, and at the end failed because one of them was bad...
with 38-39 dmf-floppys for win98, is it possible for all of them to work
at the same time?? well it is insane anyway... :)

>> Or use a serial or parallel cable to connect the computer to
>> another computer. (sure slow but you don't have to sit with it

I forgot to write that it will not work with just an old modem-cable
you have but perhaps you can open it and convert it to a nullmodem-cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_modem (you don't use your old
modem nowadays anyway, right?) info on the parallel version is linked
from there too.

btw, what do you want to do with the computer? web surfing (if it have
network) might be a bit slow on a 166Mhz pentium (even though you turn
off all flash), and you should check that it have at least 64MB ram.
If you don't need to run a windows program you could try some small os
like MenuetOS/32 or Kolibri os that fits on a single floppy :-)
And for old dos games you just need dos and not windows.

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Gary S. Terhune - 24 May 2008 04:34 GMT

Found it. There are 33 floppies for Win98 Gold. I have a set I've never had
to use. Maybe it will be a collectors' item someday.

Signature

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

>> > I have inherited a Panasonic Toughbook CF 25 with a 1.4 GB hard drive
>> > and a floppy drive only. It has a parallel port for printer but no USB
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
>> If it is an old computer you should probably use win98lite
>> to remove internet explorer and other things that slows down windows

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philo - 24 May 2008 11:17 GMT

> Found it. There are 33 floppies for Win98 Gold. I have a set I've never had
> to use. Maybe it will be a collectors' item someday.

Definitely a collectors item. Since Win95 was 26 floppies
I can't imagine how they got win98 on 33 floppies considering there are
about 68 .cab files up in the 1.7 meg range.

Or is it perhaps some sort of minimal install?

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Gary S. Terhune - 24 May 2008 17:02 GMT

I miscounted. There are 38 of them. I have the Upgrade version, because I
bought the Upgrade Win98 the day it came out and it was via that purchase
that I also got the floppies (just had to ask for them.)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q191054/

Unfortunately, that article doesn't explain the apparent magic. Only lists
the contents of a few disks. I'm not going to unpackage them to review, and
I wouldn't stick any of them in the POS floppy drive that is currently
available to me. Now that I've and used that Auto-Patcher to test (it lived
up to every one of my negative expectations), I'm gonna have to flatten the
box, anyway, so I may as well see if I can find a cleaner floppy drive in
the pile.

Signature

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

>> Found it. There are 33 floppies for Win98 Gold. I have a set I've never
> had
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Or is it perhaps some sort of minimal install?

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philo - 24 May 2008 18:20 GMT

> I miscounted. There are 38 of them. I have the Upgrade version, because I
> bought the Upgrade Win98 the day it came out and it was via that purchase
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> box, anyway, so I may as well see if I can find a cleaner floppy drive in
> the pile.

Yes I did find a little bit of info on Google and must say that 38 floppies
is a lot less then I would have expected...
but still a heck of a lot of floppies to load.(IIRC, the cd version of win98
has a number of extra folder that would not be needed
for a normal install, so I imagine they are not included in the floppy
version.)
Just one bad floppy and the installation would probably fail.

I have the non-DMF version of win95a on floppies and I think it's 29 total
and I have used them many times. The quality of the Microsoft floppies is
excellent however
and I don't think I've had to re-make more than a few over many years of
use.

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