reinstalling W95

I'm trying to reinstall W95 on my old pentium I so as to give it to my grandson. I don't have DOS 5 or 6 (I think it was necessary to install a version of DOS before installing W95.) Does anyone know where I could download the appropriate DOS files - somebody who has the old disks might be kind enough to put them up on a personal web site for me to download?
Thanks in advance
Keith

 

No need to install DOS. Put your Win95 Cd in the drawer and run the Setup. All the files needed will be installed.

mopar.

 

Thanks for getting back to me

I thought I needed DOS installed or a DOS boot disk before installing W95 - there is nothing on my hard disk as yet so it can't even see the CD...
I'll try what you say anyway
Thanks
Keith

 

You shouldn't need anything more than your Win95 Cd.
It was about a year ago I did a format and reinstall of Win95 and I'm sure all I needed was the Cd.

mopar.

 

GAB's Proven fast Win95 install method

First Write down your current Win95 PID key!. This can be seen under the Name on the Computer Properties page. It is 5 groups of 5 letter and numbers.

Make a W98 boot floppy on a different system or download from bootdisk.com

Once you have a W98 boot floppy, test it. Put your W95 cd in the drive (leave the tray open) and restart. If the BIOS boot order points to the HDD first you will have to change it. During the restart the CD will close as part of the hardware polling. If your system does boot from the floppy, select the option ". . . with CDrom support ".

Find the W95 CD - because the boot floppy loads a ramdrive the drive letters may be shuffled. Once you find the proper drive do a dir/s to be sure it can read the CD. (nothing worse than getting half way thru and finding you can't finish the install.)

If everything else has gone OK... Lets purge the drive. - Goto the Ramdrive and type format c: /u . This deletes all existing data!

When that completes, type c:
then type MD WIN95
next CD WIN95
Now goto the cdrom drive letter.
next CD WIN95
next copy *.* c: (this will copy all the install files to the c:\win95 directory.)

Note: If your MBD is for a Intel MMX CPU 166MHz or higher it likely needs PIIX4 drivers. If you have a driver disk for bus mastering drivers - use it as directed. (if so the INF files can be copied to the C:\win95 directory also)

Remove the floppy and CD.
type C:
next setup

Have fun!

 

I'll try that!

I would never have thought of using the W98 disk to set things in motion - why not? I'll give it a try.
Thanks - I'll keep you posted.
Just trying the W95 CD as suggested earlier didn't work I'm afraid.
Thanks everyone
Keith

 

It worked!

I wasn't able to install anything on the 486 - I think there are other problems, but I installed the win95 in the way you said on to the hard disk using a pentium II computer. I hope to get that hard disk working in the 486 - your system works like a charm. Many thanks.
I can't as yet get the 486 to recognise the hard disk or the CD. I'm not sure if it's the way I formatted the HD on another machine. What's the best state I can put the HD into before trying it on the 486. Would it be best to remove all partitions for instance?

I also have problems with a pentium I that I'm trying to get going again. It utters repeated beeps when I switch on...

Thanks again for the W98 boot disk trick!
Bye now
Keith

 

I've tried

... the W95 hard disk onthe 486 but I just get the error message "operating system missing ". In setup the computer "sees" the hard disk. Very mysterious.
I've tried four or five hard disks I have around - same result more or less all the time.
I'm a bit stuck!
Be seeing you
Keith

 

486 BIOS limits

As computers progressed they made several jumps.

There are BIOS limits on what some older boards will recognise PROPERLY for a Hard drive config. - I will try to remember them. (anyone spot an error, point it out.)

BIOS limit of 512Mb - circa 486SX
FAT16 partiton size limit - 2.1GB (prior to Win95 OSR2)
BIOS limit of 8.6GB - Pentium (prior to pII)
FAT32 partition limit of 64GB - MS released and updated FDISK to handle this.

 

I'll check

all that out - though one of the hard disks I've been trying is the original one.
Ah - if I still had those W95 floppies!
I suppose it's possible to find them on the web.
Back to work...
Have a good day - whenever it starts for you - 8 am here.
Bye now
Keith