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hey guys, this is my first thread so hey.
K well heres the thing, i formated my C drive and got a boot disk cuz i wanted to wipe everything and just restart with windows 95. Well like i said i formated C drive then typed d: and it said invaled drive(or something like that). So yes its not detecting the D drive so i cant install windows with the cd. I dont really know alot about dos so i'm lost here. any help would be greatly appreciated.
Just a couple of questions here first, and Im sure a few others are going to be asking several as well. Do you have a hard drive that is partitioned into a c and d drive? Or do you have two seperate hard drives? Are you using a boot cd for the windows 95 or is it just a standard cd? Not sure where the d drive command is coming from, i.e what your trying to do on the d drive if all you have is c.
OK, the D drive is the CDROM drive, right?
You have to go to another computer.
Go to Start-->Settings-->Control Panel-->Add Remove Programs
There should be a tab there for creating a startup disk.
If all goes well, this startup floppy will have the necessary
CDROM driver so you can access the CDROM from DOS
and start the installation.
:cool:
Smacks head as he was over analyzing the problem.*L*
ya heres to answer some or ur questions, my hard drive is just c:, my d: is the cd rom and i made the boot disk from the add/remove programs. and ya i formated everything and ran dos off the boot disk and went to go look at d: and it said invalid drive. As for the windows cd its just the installation cd, u might be able to boot from it but i wouldnt know cuz i cant use the d: drive. help
Rcgreen's got the right idea. It sounds like you're trying to install via your CD when you boot the computer off of an empty C: drive, and that won't work because then no CD drivers are loaded into the memory. If you have a BIOS which supports booting off of a CD-ROM, try that. Otherwise, as rcgreen suggested, make a boot disk (a Win95, Win98 or WinME boot disk will work fine, as long as you don't do format c: /s with it because you may install the wrong DOS version).
AJ
Edit: Actually, this all depends on what sort of CD-ROM you have. If you're running Windows 95, you may be using a CD-ROM which isn't attached to the IDE port on the computer (it may have it's own ISA card). If this is the case, you'll have to dig up the floppy disk that came with your CD-ROM and, once you're in DOS, install it. Then, when you restart, booting off of the C: drive, it should load the necessary drivers for the CD-ROM. It sounds as if the bootdisk you're using isn't recognizing your CD-ROM drive, and this is most likely the culprit.
ha and thats exactly what i did, format c:. So i guess i have no Cd drivers on it, well can someone help me on fixing this?
If you read the edit to my last post, I think it should solve your problem.
Note: (not directly towards you, but in general) Always know exactly what your hardware configuration is before formatting because if you don't, you may be surprised when nothing works if/when you finally install Windows...
AJ
Well, as avdven said, is it attached to an IDE controller, or is it attached to a proprietary controller card? If it's the former, a standard Windows boot disk should work fine. If it's the latter, you either need the driver disk that came with the drive or you need to search Google and find some drivers.
Basically, you're stuck unless you can find the right drivers for it somewhere.
If you can find the disk, you can boot from the Windows boot disk and format c: /q /s to transfer the system files to C. It doesn't matter about it being the wrong version, because Windows will overwrite it with the correct version during the installation. Then install the drivers from your disk and reboot from C. You should have a working CD-ROM. At least in theory. :/
I just zipped a Win98 boot disk for you and am uploading it. Unzip it to a floppy and you'll be just fine. Call me crazy, but I don't remember Win95 boot disks having CD drivers included. BTW, after booting with this disk you're about to make, your CD will be your E: drive...D: will be a virtual RAMdrive.
Well done allenb!!!!
Now i am going outside to kick my ar## for not thinking of that;)
Mike
Like Allenb said D: most likely won't be the CD-ROM drive, when I installed my OS after re-formating with a Windows boot disk, it sometimes made my CD-rom drive R: or X: or even Z:
What boot disk are you using and where did you get it?
allenb is right.. there are no cdrom drivers installed on a w95 boot disk..
it can be done if you edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat on the diskette to point
to the dos cdrom drivers (also on that diskette, but put on there by you)
but a win98 startup disk is an easier way to go.
if c is your only partition.. and d: becomes your ramdrve.. then e: will be the cdrom.
(the boot disk will display what drive letter is assigned during loading)
acid.. i was gonna say that url.. and i tried to go there just before you posted..
but it appears someone hijacked the domain, I'm getting other crap and it asks me
if I want to set my homepage to www.FindOnline.com..
well ya i went to www.bootdisks.com too and nothing. I tried that 98boot.zip file and put it on a floppy and it just came up invalid system diskette or something. should i rename the floppy?
try unzipping it into a folder on your hard drive, then copy the individual files to the floppy.
haven't tried this but at http://home.freeuk.com/tobs/boot98.html
there's this bootdisk http://home.freeuk.com/tobs/Win98_Boot.exe
edit: a friend on another board had suggested this.. he said his bother had
made this disk and was selling it.
this friend claims that his 9 yr old daughter completely reinstalled her os
by herself.. this disk will supposedly even partition the drive.
from the site, it looks like he is selling it for 4 bucks.
http://ezreload.netfirms.com/
I am in no way associated with this.. other than I saw it posted by my
online friend on this other forum.
ha yes i did unzip the file and used it and still no luck, i just think i need to get the drive for it(cd drive) somehow cuz ya its a really old comp, and i have no clue what kinda cd rom it is. the kinda comp it is is a Ledgend 27CDT by packard bell. If anyone knows how to find the driver or what the cd rom is or where to find it please help. I appreciate yalls help.
only other advice I can offer is to try all drives thru z: if you can boot into dos, or go on a driver hunt at www.driverguide.com . Good luck!
A 98 boot disk isn't going to work for 95.
Go to www.bootdisk.com and grab a disk for 95. Make certain you get the right one, either 95 a or b as one is not compatible with the other. The boot disks there have cd drivers on them.
If the computer really is that old, I would suggest checking out the disks that came with the computer (both floppies and CD-ROM) to see what you can find. If it's a proprietary controller, you're going to have to open the case and figure out what sort of CD-ROM drive it is and what sort of controller you have and hope that someone online has drivers for it. Otherwise, you're going to have to find a CD-ROM drive that is compatible with the boot disk you have and use that instead. You didn't happen to make a backup of everything before you formatted, did you? If you do have a proprietary controller, the autoexec.bat and config.sys would tell you what file(s) you need for the CD-ROM to work...
AJ
I used to have a packard bell like yours. It is about impossible to get cd drivers for it, because the cd drive runs through the sound card. There is a special driver that you have to get for it. Let me check my disks....I think that I may still have it some where....If i find it, then ill zip it and upload it to you.....I ran into the same problem, because the mobo didn't support atapi drives and the only way to get the cdrom to work was through the special drivers that were on the packard bell boot disk......If i can't find it, google for the pacard bell boot disk and see if you can find it....if you can't your pretty much S.O.L....
edit: I could be wrong, but i think the cd drive is a mitsubishi-non atapi drive. I don't get home from work till late, so it will be about 8 hrs before i get it online for you. Also, is this an old 486 desktop computer? The one that I had was......LOL, i had win 98 and 32mb ram in the sucker.....I even had mandrake 7.2 on it, however, the video sucked...LOL...anyways, pm me if you have any specific questions......Ill look for the boot disks when i get home
EDIT: (AGAIN) lol....go here.... this program should get you up and running :) let me know if it works http://www.computers.pcc.edu/~troubl...plus/cdrom.htm This is cdrom god 5.0 i tried to upload the file, but the site said it was too big...grrrrrrrr
If the Win98 boot disk in the previous post doe not work for you I can upload a Win 95 boot disk with CFD driver for you.
Which version of Win 95 do you have?? (Original, Win95B, Win95B1, or Win 95C)
sorry TC.. but I have to disagree..Quote:
A 98 boot disk isn't going to work for 95.
Go to www.bootdisk.com and grab a disk for 95. Make certain you get the right one, either 95 a or b as one is not compatible with the other. The boot disks there have cd drivers on them.
First, as mentioned on the previous page, that url now points to an underwear site.. lol
Second, a win98 boot disk would work for most cases, as it's only to load the cdrom driver to access the cdrom, but not in this case as this cdrom goes thru the sound card.
Regardless, i think there is enough info here now thanks to all you folks for blindkornkid8
to get it working..
Most times you won't have issues but 95a vs 95b you will. My mistake.
bootdisk.com works great for me, no undies here.
OMG.. TechieChick.. thanks for checking that bootdisk.com again.
now it looks as if the problem is at my end.. but for the life of me, I don't know what
it is.. I tried it with IE,opera,smartalec voyager and offbyone browsers and I get a
Onewear, Inc site..
but i just went over to one of my other boxes and I get the bootdisk site correctly..
oh boy.. what the, who the, why the ?