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Windows Forum / Windows 98 / Setup / May 2004Starting Over
I would like to restore my old computer as if I had just installed W98SE on a blank drive, but I don't have the disks (it came with the OS installed). There is a folder on the drive called DISKS and I assume all the installation disks are in there. Is there a way to tell the OS to wipe the drive clean and re-install itself Alternately, what if I burned the folder called DISKS onto a CD? Could I then format my drive and re-install from scratch? Wouldn't I need a product key? Why not give some indication as to what is in the folder called DISKS? If it contains the installation media, you should see files like: BASE4.CAB BASE5.CAB BASE6.CAB CATALOG3.CAB DRIVER11.CAB up to DRIVER20.CAB NET10.CAB NET7.CAB NET8.CAB NET9.CAB PRECOPY1.CAB PRECOPY2.CAB WIN98_21.CAB up to WIN98_74.CAB WIN98_OL.CAB chl99.cab mini.cab As to the product key... If Win98 is still running, get it from the Registry with Regedit.exe The key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion The value is ProductKey ...Alan  SignatureAlan Edwards, MS MVP W95/98 Systems http://dts-l.org/index.html In microsoft.public.win98.setup, Davesmind <davesmind@att.net> wrote: >I would like to restore my old computer as if I had just installed W98SE on a blank drive, but I don't have the disks (it came with the OS installed). There is a folder on the drive called DISKS and I assume all the installation disks are in there. Is there a way to tell the OS to wipe the drive clean and re-install itself? > >Alternately, what if I burned the folder called DISKS onto a CD? Could I then format my drive and re-install from scratch? Wouldn't I need a product key? The folder contains all these cabinets, plus many other files, plus another folder called "TOOLS" which contains many other folders. If I simply copy the entire contents of the "DISKS" folder as is to a CD, will I then have an installation disk? Or should I copy only the ones you've listed Then how do I install after I've formatted the hard drive? I don't think I can set the computer to boot from CD (I'll check again). If I make a boot disk before formatting the hard drive, will that do it I found the product key, thanks. It sounds like DISKS is the folder to copy. Yes, copy all the files. I only gave you a list of the .cab files but you need everything there. No idea what TOOLS is, but keep that as well. There should be a SETUP.EXE in the DISKS folder. That is what you start the installation with. You should create a startup disk with CD drivers on it. You don't have to format. I haven't done a clean install for years, but when I did, I just cleaned out what I didn't want, so you could leave DISKS and TOOLS on the hard drive. For information on installing W98, go to: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/w98_restore.html ...Alan SignatureAlan Edwards, MS MVP W95/98 Systems http://dts-l.org/index.html In microsoft.public.win98.setup, Davesmind <davesmind@att.net> wrote: >The folder contains all these cabinets, plus many other files, plus another folder called "TOOLS" which contains many other folders. If I simply copy the entire contents of the "DISKS" folder as is to a CD, will I then have an installation disk? Or should I copy only the ones you've listed? > >Then how do I install after I've formatted the hard drive? I don't think I can set the computer to boot from CD (I'll check again). If I make a boot disk before formatting the hard drive, will that do it? > >I found the product key, thanks. Open the folder called disk and give us an idea of what is in it. Your Product Key Code can be found before formatting. Get this and it can give you a lot of valualed info before formatting and can be printed out. Get AIDA http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php >-----Original Message----- >I would like to restore my old computer as if I had just installed W98SE on a blank drive, but I don't have the disks (it came with the OS installed). There is a folder on the drive called DISKS and I assume all the installation disks are in there. Is there a way to tell the OS to wipe the drive clean and re-install itself? >Alternately, what if I burned the folder called DISKS onto a CD? Could I then format my drive and re-install from scratch? Wouldn't I need a product key? >. |
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