Sort of a DOS question [Installing Win 95 from floppies]

I'm wanting to install Windows 95 from a series of floppies I have onto an IBM Thinkpad. I've done this before however the floppy drive is having trouble reading the past disk 2.

I was able to load DOS 6.0 but. I tried my other copies of WIN 95 and the same thing happens. It may have something to do with the way Microsoft compressed the data to make it hard to copy and cannot read past a certain point.

Even though I found a program to make backup copies.

In other words, the floppy drive is bad and I can't justify spending $100+ for another floppy drive.

Is there anyway to connect an external floppy or CD rom using a cable connected to the COM port through DOS?
Or perhaps connect my laptop to a desktop PC and use the floppy or CD ROM from that computer?

Perhaps I should trash this laptop being it's so old.

 

hunt around for a floppy diskette cleaner
sometimes they will rescue drives
they use an alchohol type cleaner on a diskette that has a pad

 

This could be due to the age of these floppies, they really weren't designed to be usable for a period of over ten years.
Microsoft did a special format of those floppies, where they actually hold 1.6 Mb, instead of the usual 1.44 Mb.

 

Yes, if it reads disk 1, the drive is probably OK, it is the floppy disks that are breaking down.

You might want to be careful, the magnetic media on the surface of the disk could start breaking off (on the reading heads), that's when you need the floppy drive cleaner.

Matt