Installing Win95 on notebook w no floppy drv

I didn't realize new notebook cptrs have no floppy drive!!!I want to install
95B in a partition I have created with Part.Magic, but without a floppy drive how do I do it?Whenever I have installed 95 I have started with a floppy.I have seen some seemingly complex procedures for creating a boot CD.

While I have a floppy to parallel port "adapter ", that requires that there
already be an OS(I am,as mentioned,installing into an "empty "partition).

The "main "partition of this notebook uses XP Home.

Tks for any help.

 

I can't be of much help, been trying to make easyboot work:
http://www.ezbsystems.com/easyboot/index.html
Really wish there was an easy way to simply make a bootable CD from a boot floppy ! Maybe there is an iso of 98se floppy out there somewhere ?
Or maybe ghost 2003 can make a boot CD ? I seem to remember ...
Don't see that you have any other method to install 95B other than a boot CD with a floppy image on it (i would use a 98se startup floppy).

Think you will have to hide the old primary during install (pqbw can do it).
Normally, XP installs after 9x so that you get the boot loader but you can use pqbw to switch the active primary or try one of the many boot loaders if you dare.

Best

 

Tks.

I noticed you said TRYING to get easyboot to work!

Wish someone had a floppy drive adapter which could be used without software.

Yes,I know about hiding/making partitions active using PM.

 

I did a little looking around. CdrWin and Nero BurningRom can both make bootable CD's .... neither one of them free of course. Bart's way (free) which you have already mentioned i believe.

Best

 

Do you have a cd burner? If so, what kind of software do you have for it? In addition to the two programs that jubalsams mentioned, Roxio's Easy CD Creator can also make a bootable cd. If you have a floppy drive that you can use in XP you can maybe use it and your cd burning software to create the disk. Am I understanding you correctly that you do have a floppy drive that will work in Windows? If so, go here and download a Win98 bootdisk. Then put a floppy disk in the drive and double click on the file you downloaded and it will write the bootdisk image to the floppy. Then, if that works, download a copy of Winimage and use it to create an iso file from the boot floppy you made. Once you've done that you can use your cd burning software to make a bootable cd from the iso image file you made. How you do that depends on what kind of software you have. If you don't have burner software that can do this you can download Deepburner . It's free and will burn iso files. It's actually quite a nice program.

If this all works for you, you should be aware that installing 95 after XP will overwrite the XP boot sector and more than likely your XP will become unbootable although there are ways around this. Does Partition Magic still come with Boot Magic? If so, you can probably install that before installing 95 and use it as a boot loader. I say probably because I've never used it with XP and Win9X so I can't really say for sure what the proper procedures are. It's probably something I shouldn't even mention but it's somethng you can look into, so.... You'll probably have to make another bootdisk though. If you install Boot Magic there should be a shortcut in the start menu to make a bootable Boot Magic rescue disk. Once again, if it only allows you to make a floppy disk (that's the way it used to be) you'll have to go through the routine of making the floppy, then an iso file, and then burn it to a cd. You want this bootable disk in case things get messed up from the 95 install. Once you install 95 you can boot from the rescue cd and use it to straighten things out (hopefully). If you don't have Boot Magic there other boot loaders available on the net (some free) that you could use. I don't have any experience with any of them though.

I know that "hopefully doesn't sound too good but I hesitated to say it will work for sure because when I've done this I've always installed 9X before XP and then just used XP's boot loader. My guess is you can use it but it's just a matter of knowing the proper procedures. Have a look in the Partition Magic folder in windows explorer and see if there's any doc files included (used to be). If so, I'd take time to read through the Boot Magic one first to see if you can use it and how to go about it. There most likely will be something there about installing 9X after XP. You might also want to look at the one for PM too. It may say something about this somewhere in it.

If you don't want to use a 3rd party boot loader and if the drive XP is installed on is FAT32 there's a procedure here that you can use to repair things but it should probably only be tried by experienced users. If your XP drive is NTFS you can't use this procedure.

One last thing. If you decide to install 95 make sure you back up any files you have that you don't want to lose. Burn them to a cd or whatever. If you take the time to read the help files that come with whatever boot loader you decide to use you most likely won't have any problem. But.... you never know.

 

Thanks for interesting info!

Zander,

Your posting is very interesting and has a lot of "meat "in it which I'll study.

OK,as to partitions I have used Partition Magic many times and know how to insure OS installation where desired by setting partitions active or hiding.One of my desktops has XP-PRO,W2K- PRO and 98SE on one HDD and 95 on a second HDD and yes I do use Boot Magic.

I am not sure the BACKPACK floppy to parallel port adapter will work under XP but I also have a floppy to USB which will function.

Can you clarify for me why simply copying files from a bootable 95 floppy to a CD won't "do the trick? "

Finally,I have also found a commercial pgm called WinIso which claims to be useful in creating bootable CDs.

Tks to all for your comments.

 

CD burner

Not sure without quoting entire message whether reply will go where intended but "Zander" though my notebook is too new for me to know yet what software is used by SONY,I do have Nero 5.5.7.8 for use with a TDK CD burner on one of my desktops and Gear 6.3(I recall) for use with SONY CD/DVD burner

Admin: Please don't quote the whole message when there's no need.

 

You should use a 98 bootdisk because it comes with drivers for your cdrom drive. The 95 disk doesn't have them. Without them, you won't have access to the drive in dos and won't be able to install 95. Also, just copying the files from the floppy bootdisk to a cd won't make the cd bootable. When you boot from a cd it does it using a process that's called floppy emulation which requires an exact image of a bootable floppy, boot sector and all. You won't have that by just copying the files themselves from the floppy to the cd.

If you need help creating the cd using Nero, there's instructions available here .

 

After the bootable CD is created..

Tks to all and especially "Zander. "So,after I create a bootable CD using the 98 boot disk and after using Partition Magic hide the "main" XP partition and make active the empty(already created partition),I assume I re-boot using the bootable CD,but after that what?

Ordinarily,when you boot up using a bootable floppy,there is a choice as to install from CD,etc.Do I immediately remove the bootable(98) CD and insert the 95B disk? When I remove the boot CD,will "it "notice? Also. won't "it "recognize that I am not using a 98 install CD? Further,there is a point when "we "are asked about making a backup floppy and we are told to remove the original boot floppy.Won't "it "know there is NO floppy in and well " scold "me,for lack of better word?

 

When you boot from the 98 boot cd your cdrom drive becomes drive a. So, boot from the cd and it'll stop at a menu with three choices. Choose the one that says "start computer with cdrom support ". Then, when it stops at the a: prompt you'll have to change to your cdrom drive. What letter this is depends on how many drives and/or partitions you have. Even if you only have one drive your cdrom drive will be drive E because the 98 bootdisk creates a ram drive and it becomes the D drive (when you reboot the ram drive will be gone and everything will be back to normal). If you watch, after you select to boot with cdrom support you'll be able to see what letter your cdrom drive is. Should be just before the a: prompt.

To change drives, at the a: prompt, simply type the drive letter and then hit enter. If your cdrom drive is drive e just type e: and then enter. Once you change to the cd drive, remove the boot disk and put the win95 cdrom in the drive. I don't remember for sure what folder the setup file is in but I think it's called win95. So, assuming this is correct, at the a prompt type the following lines (using the enter key after each one).

cd win95
setup

Setup should run assuming win95 is the folder where the setup file is located. You should probably have a look at the disk in windows first and see if it's there.

No. It makes no difference whether you use a 95 or 98 bootdisk. The advantage to using the 98 bootdisk is that it comes with cdrom drivers. If you used a 95 bootdisk you'd have to add them to the bootdisk yourself. Otherwise, your cdrom drive wouldn't work.

If I'm remembering correctly I believe you can just click the cancel button to skip making the floppy disk. Once again, it's been a while since I've installed 95 so that may not be quite how it's done but it seems to me there is a way available to skip making the disk.

 

Tks for further assistance,Zander!

One thing at a time but assuming I get 95 installed OK(95 works OK to 2.4 Ghz with the AMDK6 patch/update so hope it "works "to abt 3),next issue is a need for serial input.I have SOCKET(brand) adapter for serial to notebook slot but software claims 98 OK with no ref to 95,but that's for..another day.There is are serial to USB adapters but at least where 95 works OK for me,on several (home-built) desktops,I don't think the 95 install included USB.

Tks again to you and others.

 

Have a look at this page to find out how to enable usb support in win95 .

 

USB serial port under 95

Afraid my various 95 CDs are one service pack too early(all in the 4.00.950 series) per the listing under link you suggested so I'll still have to hope the serial I/O card will "work "under 95.

 

WinIso

I purchased WinIso which claims usable to make bootable CD.Under bootable CD,I clicked make bootfile from floppy.I saved as,for ex,win95boot and file type is shown as WinIso boot information file(*.WBT).Next,under bootable CD(in WinIso program),I clicked load boot info from file which was saved in My Docs as win95boot with file shown as boot information file.At the bottom of
WinIso it now showed bootable CD. I used nero to create a CD-R disc which showed as win95boot.WBT and size 1,474,560.

I don't know EXACTLY what I created on CD as I could not read any file names(by contrast to the original floppy).Properties show as file type CDFS.

Anyone know this program?Did I create a bootable CD and WHY(!!!)don't I see any individual file names(from the original floppy)shown?

 

This all sounds normal to me. The size of the disk is right (1,474,560) so more than likely it's ok. The reason you don't see the files you normally see on a bootdisk is because when you do this you actually burn an image of the floppy to the cd and the computer boots from the image. However, once you've booted from the disk all of the tools that are usually available on a 98 floppy bootdisk will be available to you. Try booting from the cd and when you get to the a: prompt type "dir" (without the quotes). You'll then be able to see all of the files that you see on your floppy. I know it sounds kind of wierd but that's the way it works. To reboot the computer at the a: prompt, remove the cd and ctrl>alt>delete.

 

Giving up!

"Zander "
Well though I did buy WinIso,I couldn't get it to work ,but I followed your directions and I DID successfully install 95 into one of my partitions.That's the good news.The bad news is that while the display area of the notebook is about 13x8,the total display size using 95 is...about 6 1/2 x 5,so it would appear what I wanted to do isn't feasible.Installing an available vid card driver didn't change anything.Only 16 colors possible and as mentioned the VERY tiny image area.

I guess if SONY didn't intend for users to do what I wanted to do,then it's likely not possible!

Tks for your and other contributors' suggestions anyway.

 

seashore

Bummer ... no vid driver available. Nevertheless this thread has been educational thanks to Zander and yourself. Now i have a boot CD which boots 10 times faster than my floppies. I always hate the 120 second boot time for floppy ! Thanks again.

Best

 

Video driver,followup

I originally was SO(!!!) frustrated with the VERY small desktop area inside a much larger display area that I posted to two different 95 forums believing different folks would read each one but the administrator removed one(OK).You can read under W2K(small desktop inside larger display area or some such title(can't recall as I write).

Suffice it to say,I DID use link to SONY site and was able to at least install a driver but it appears was/is only usable with XP.

I TRULY wanted to have a 95 partition but if SONY(ATI)only intended XP,I guess that's they way it'll be.

Again,tks to all for help.

P.S.
Yes,unbelievable how simple it is to create a bootable CD using at least built in possibility using NERO.Some procedures seem VERY involved!

P.P.S.
Sorry, but though apparently not mainstream these days I miss floppy drives in notebooks(and serial port but that's another matter)

 

Well, if you change your mind you could also borrow an external Floppy drive from someone if you know anyone. Or, if you feel you may need to use floppies on this machine again, you could pcik one up new for around $50 maybe???? Or ebay might sell one for $20.00. Shop around and see if you can one.