windows 95 install problem!

[syphon]

Hello,

I need help!!! I'm trying to install Windows 95 on my old laptop, but I only have a floppy drive! Any suggestions?

[breakology]

Wow, Win95? jeepers thats old. If I recall correctly, I believe you can make installation floppies using the win95 disk, but you need a working PC to do it on first.

I could be wrong, I hav'nt seen a win95 disk in about 5 years.

[linuxcomando]

You can actually get the win95 on install floppys.....so if you have the cd copy the files to a floppy....you dont need the cab files then boot up on a boot disk and run the setup

[syphon]

do i copy the files from only the win95 folder or all folders

[dspeidel]

One of my first jobs was providing tech support for w95. If you make an install set it is 32 floppies. The directory c:\windows\options\cabs contains all the need install files and a setup program. The intention was to allow you to rebuild w95 if it every died.

Hope that helps,

Cheers,

-D

[syphon]

thanks guys

[sumdumguy]

wow.. that sounds kinda tedious.. copying the files to floppies..

I have another way that'll work if you have another box that's running FAT16 partitions.

there are these old dos files called interlnk.exe and intersvr.exe (of which i can provide)
using a "laplink" parallel cable hooked up between the two pc's and running intersvr on your laptop and interlnk.exe (which is invoked from your config.sys file) on your other box..
you'll be able to drag and drop (using explorer or filemanager) all the files from the other boxes cd to your hard drive of the laptop. then you can just install from the hd.

the entry in your config.sys file would be this.. (if you put the interlnk file in windows\command dir)

DEVICE=c:\windows\command\interlnk.exe /drives:4 (or 5, or more)

the /drives command isn't neccesary unless you need to connect more than 3 drives.

If you want to try this method.. send me a pm and I'll attach the two files zipped up.
I also have a pinout of the laplink cable if you want to make one.. but I've seen them for sale at my local dollar stores.

note: if you do plan on running win95 and are planning on going online with it, you'll have to grab M$'s dialupnetworking upgrade (at least version 1.3)

[The3ntropy]

You can always do a ghost or just a plain install over the network. Does your laptop have a network card? PCMCIA 10/100 cards are pretty cheap, would never hurt to have one.

[sumdumguy]

yeah The3ntropy.. a network would be good, but that would mean the laptop would have to have some sort of OS on it.. maybe making a boot disk for dos, with dos networking drivers.

6 of one, half dozen of another on the time taken to do this..

you also could get one of those "laptop hardrive to standard ide cable" adaptors and then throw it in another box.. it's about 5-10 bucks for one of those adapters..

[The3ntropy]

Doing an install off of a network would imply doing a network boot. You can boot up a computer off a network without it having a hard drive or removable storage device. If you set up the BIOS to boot from network or LAN, then you can boot into a temporary OS without installing anything, then copy over a ghost image, or do an install from there.