Loading operating system

[paulw1]

Hi advise neaded please

I bought a cheap laptop for mrs to use and it was running win95 and i wanted at least 98se loading on it.
I went through the procedure of reformatting the hard drive as ive done on numourous occasions with main pc.
The problem is its not letting the windows load onto the laptop and think its down to having interchangable floppy/cd as before when ive done it on pc i have floppy in reading and then cd starts of when neaded.
on laptop i put floppy in and then its aborting as it cant find drives etc then its wanting cd and its not there until i pull floppy out and change with cd device.

Is there anyway round loading the os on it or is it ready for the bin.

Many thanks
paul

 

[Lord Kalthorn]

It sounds like a Bin Job, most Computers need a Floppy Drive to boot, not so much recently, especially not with Dell throwing them out but certainly back with Windows 95. Of course you could get a USB CD Drive, it may boot from that but I wouldn't know, if the Laptop has a USB.

If you're interested, I am selling a Laptop here. Its Windows XP, so I don't know if it was more than you were planning to buy. They do sell some amazingly cheap Desktops at PC World recently, pure Tower ones without any Peripherals, extremely useful. May be worth looking into that if you were not specifically after a Laptop.

I hope you can find what you're looking for.

 

[BuzzStPoint]

Get your self a bootable cd.
EBCD is a great one.. Boot with that then you'll be able to run the windows 98 cd.

I hav ethe same trouble with my hotswap when reloading an OS.

 

[Wombät]

Get your self a bootable cd.
EBCD is a great one.. Boot with that then you'll be able to run the windows 98 cd.

I have the same trouble with my hotswap when reloading an OS.

Which you can get here,

Emergency Boot CD link... http://ebcd.pcministry.com/

 

[ste231191]

have you tried changing the BIOS ?

 

[root]

it's not really a bios problem, he just needs an external floppy drive that will plug into the parallel port.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/laptop-floppy-drive-cable_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8

 

[BuzzStPoint]

Why buy a 2nd Floppy drive? Wasted money in my book. Boot cd would be the wise choice.

 

[setishock]

YO GUYS>>>

The win98se cd has everything on it to install it WITHOUT a floppy. Change the boot device to the cd drive and just follow the instructions that come up on the screen.

 

[root]

Why buy a 2nd Floppy drive? Wasted money in my book. Boot cd would be the wise choice.

I didn't say to buy a second floppy drive, I said to get a cable that would link the floppy drive to the parallel port, (you'll notice that I even went as far as to search ebay and provide links to where he might buy such a product)

The win98se cd has everything on it to install it WITHOUT a floppy. Change the boot device to the cd drive and just follow the instructions that come up on the screen.

Many old machines CANNOT boot from a CD, you'll notice that EVEN though the windows 98 cd has everthing on it to install WITHOUT a floppy, this is technically useless if he can't boot from the CD anyway?

whilst he didn't say he'd tried to boot from a CD, I accredited him to at least have tried it first before asking for help.

 

[BuzzStPoint]

OH.. Calm down..... No need to get testy... Take a nap..

I can relate to this guy,, I have "HotSwapable" drives and I know that if you boot with floppy you cant swap the cdrom over, Because it didnt find it.