One last try - Kruzin and Rab and anyone else too :)

[Muad'Dib]

Ok, windows has started doing some really funky shit so I've decided to clean house. I want to format my c drive and keep my d running as is (games/music). How do I format my c drive and get my bios to boot win 98 from the cd? Someone please tell me how to do so. Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

And also, what will be the first things for me to download? I will get win98 installed, then install 98 S.E. and then??? Should I reinstall mobo drivers now too?

Kruzin/RAB, you know the problem I've been having so do you think it will help to reinstall mobo/chipset drivers?


Dimitri

[This message has been edited by Muad'Dib (edited 12 January 2000).]

[SwAmPlAdY]

To get booted up with your cd, you must configure your system bios to boot from the cd drive.

Before doing so, boot into dos and reformat c.

Then boot into your system bios and make it boot from your cd drive. Then you will install 98se and then your motherboard patches if you have to. Then install and configure your I/O cards and its drivers if PnP didn't detect anything.

SwAmPy

[Muad'Dib]

Ok, I wanted to be sure about this working before I did anything, so I checked booting with the cd. Nothing happened. Will it boot from cd when there is "no hd" to take over or am I missing something? I changed the bios settings to cd boot and then when it looked at the cd, the light when on and then it continued to boot. Please explain where I went wrong. Thanks again.

BTW, I realize that I probably should have put this under gen. hardware. Sorry.

[Zwisch]

In my opinion the intelligent way to install windows is to boot from a floppy, copy all the cab files to your HD and run the setup from there. this way you will never be asked for the CD again and all will go much easier. Try installing win98 SE right away if you can't... OS upgrades and never that good, go with the real thing is you can.

Z

[Rags]

Actually the best way I have found is to use your zip drive to copy the setup files to a clean drive and set it up from the hard drive.

Rags

[Meek]

Your system should boot from the CD, if you have specified so in the BIOS setup and you have a bootable CD on the CD drive.

I guess you had you official Win98SE CD on the drive when you tried out?

That failing, it is not a bad idea to do as the guys told you to do, copy the installation files to your hard disk and install from there (with a floppy boot).

M.

[Io]

Just an opinion..for me I would think starting up from a boot disk would be more hassle free..

Just go to the add/remove programs and create your startup disk and you're set.

Just a note though.. I much prefer Win98 1st Ed (with SP1) compared to SE.. Got driver probs and shit with that. But it could be just me.

[ahartman]

I've only done a complete reformat & reinstall (several times...) so maybe i'm off base here.

Won't he still have to reinstall all the applications on the D: drive after the reformat? With the reinstall of Windows, won't his registry be gone? I suppose he could export the registry or parts of it as it relates to the apps he wants to keep, but I'm guessing the registry is one of the reasons he's reformatting in the first place.

Am I wrong? Seems like the data would still be usable, but the apps wouldn't work anymore (or at least work as expected).

BTW, I recently reinstalled Win98SE and got all the updates to the windows environment (critical patches, DX7.0, etc.) I wanted and then backed that up so I wouldn't have to go thru the reinstall/download process next time I pooch my setup. Just an thought.

------------------
PIII @ 550
IWill Motherboard
VIA Chipset
128Meg
G400 DH 32MB (5.41 Drivers)
DirectX 7.0
SB Live! Value
8x DVD (Toshiba)
6x4x24 CDRW (Sony)
Optiquest V95 19"
Surround Sound w/two subwoofers

[NauTiLUS]

I think it's most preferable to make a boot floppy with CD-ROM drivers and the cool MSCDEX.EXE Boot up with floppy create an install directory put the files in, install. After the first start you can see your CD, partitions and disks. Complete the install and be happy. If you have registry dependent program - almost the all Windows 9x specific program do so - you must reinstall them to the same location.
If you don't need the advantages of Win98 SE, you might try out the Win98 Lite 2.0 IMHO this is the most usable Win98 configuration by means of speed and weight.


------------------
NauTiLUS master of .ASP programming )

My system looks like:
ABIT Bh6 MOBO
Intel PIII500@560 MHz
128 MB Kingston PC133 SDRAM
Matrox G400SH 32MB
Adaptec 2940 SCSI HBA
Creative SB Live!
with 5 long awaited Creative speakers
2*4.3GB ATAPI HDD
1*2GB SCSI-2 HDD
HP 4/8 GB DAT SCSI-2
Windows 98 Lite
Windows NT 4.0 Server SP4

[rob_b]

I agree with Nautilus, Boot from a floppy with the cd dos drivers on it so you have access to the CD from dos. I also like to have the format and fdisk programs on the
floppy too. You can change the bios to boot
from a CDrom drive, but the CD itself has to have the right boot files on it to work. I
know of at least two people that could not
boot from the win98 CD ... Rob_b

[Kalzus]

Windows 98 Full Version does not have boot code on the CD. Booting from the floppy is a requirement if you bought your Win98 in a store.

Windows 98 OEM version has boot code on the CD, and will start up without the floppy.

I do not know anything about Win98SE. But if SE has to be installed after a Win98 install (I do not believe this is how it works, but after all, I do not know then you must proceed accordingly.

[Guyver]

Copy the win98 cd contents (win98 subdirectory only is sufficient) to the second hard drive.

If your win98 is an upgrade from win95 then copy the win95 directory from the original source cd as well)

you should now have either 1 or 2 subdirectories on your second drive (d:\win98 and possibly d:\win95)

from a prompt, type sys d: (this will transfer the system to the second drive).

copy the fdisk, format, sys commands to the 2nd drive.

reboot in dos mode command prompt only.

switch to 2nd drive.

format c: /s

sys c:

reboot in dos mode only (that should be the default now)

switch to 2nd drive, cd into the win98 subdirectory that you copied from the cdrom.

xmsmmgr (loads an extended memory manager for installation)
smartdrv (loads a disk caching program, will improve installation performance)
setup (will proceed with the setup)

if setup prompts you for your old version of windows, point it to the d:\win95 directory....

It sounds more complicated than it is...

Hope this could help...

Guyver

[RAB]

Hi Dimitri,

Have you got your C: drive reformatted yet?

If you haven't and still need some help after all the good instructions here, could you tell us exactly what type of Windows program disks you have and how you have your hard drive(s) partitioned.

RAB

P.S. Did you send the G400 back yet?

[Marshmallowman]

to boot from the CD(thats how I installed win98 and win2000)
Make sure you have enabled your IDE controllers in bios, and in bios defaults set the ide controllers to auto config on boot up.

Then go to your boot sequence setting in bios and set it cd-rom,C:,A or whatever)
The setting is usually in you second bios setup screen (for award anyway)

But copying the cd to your HDD, is good for a quick install