In my experience, a drive controller card with its own BIOS should be bootable. Just make sure it uses a PCI revision that's compatible with your motherboard.

Alternatively, you could also try a floppy-based booting solution.

I know that Windows 95 and 98 usually came with boot floppies, otherwise you could try the floppy version of Plop Boot Manager.

https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

Yes if the SCSI adapter has it's own BIOS and allows boot from CD. Some controllers have issues with booting off the NT4 cd...
("The Adaptec 1540 series does not support the bootable format on the NT 4.0 bootable CD. ")
Which IBM do you have ? May be easier to just use an IDE and boot from floppy disk to install as mentioned.....

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-01-01, 22:54:

my IBM 486 allows me from BIOS only to boot from A: or C :. would using a scsi controller allow me to boot from cd-rom in order to install operating systems? win95 / 98 os / 2 winNT etc .. tnks

YES - provided you used one with a bootable bios chip, as mentioned above.

The 1542CP is my go-to for ISA systems.

That said, unless you already have the parts, its just going to be cheaper and easier to boot from a floppy.

Thanks for the replies..

1) Wow! I saw on ebay that 1542 is very expensive! There are no alternatives as a card?

2) How should you set up your computer bios to boot from these scsi cards if it allows me to boot from floppy only or from "hard disk 0"? How do you bypass the ibm bios setting?

3) In case I used the Win95 boot floppy, with that I can install anything such as win98, os / 2 or start for example ultimate boot cd? Or I need a "generic" boot floppy that doesn't conflict with the s.o. on the cd that I want to start?

4)My computer is an IBM330 DX4

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-01-02, 04:33:

Thanks for the replies.. […]
Show full quote

Thanks for the replies..

1) Wow! I saw on ebay that 1542 is very expensive! There are no alternatives as a card?

2) How should you set up your computer bios to boot from these scsi cards if it allows me to boot from floppy only or from "hard disk 0"? How do you bypass the ibm bios setting?

3) In case I used the Win95 boot floppy, with that I can install anything such as win98, os / 2 or start for example ultimate boot cd? Or I need a "generic" boot floppy that doesn't conflict with the s.o. on the cd that I want to start?

4)My computer is an IBM330 DX4

I'm not familiar with your specific machine, but the W98 floppy is somewhat backward-compatible with W95, you can get both boot disks from WinWorldPC.com

https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-wind … boot-disk/98-se

Plop typically works for booting most CDs in older machines in my experience, but I haven't tried using it for formatting or other pre-installation tasks that are supported by the Microsoft disks.

Wait?AHA 1542 is expensive? When did that happen?

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-01-02, 04:33:

Thanks for the replies.. […]
Show full quote

Thanks for the replies..

1) Wow! I saw on ebay that 1542 is very expensive! There are no alternatives as a card?

2) How should you set up your computer bios to boot from these scsi cards if it allows me to boot from floppy only or from "hard disk 0"? How do you bypass the ibm bios setting?

3) In case I used the Win95 boot floppy, with that I can install anything such as win98, os / 2 or start for example ultimate boot cd? Or I need a "generic" boot floppy that doesn't conflict with the s.o. on the cd that I want to start?

4)My computer is an IBM330 DX4

1 - $30 isn't expensive. It't not a "DEAL" but I wouldn't classify it as expensive. When you buy the whole kit, controller, cable, cd drive. You're likely to be out about $100.
2 - remove/disable anything IDE. let the bios on the scsi card handle it.
3- anything that can give you a dos prompt and a cd driver will work. - protip: copy all the CAB files from the cd to the hard drive. (including setup.exe) you can then install from the hard drive, and in the future, if you do any hardware changes, you won't need to find you win9x cd.
4- ibm machines are neat!

luckybob wrote on 2022-01-02, 05:56:

1 - $30 isn't expensive. It't not a "DEAL" but I wouldn't classify it as expensive. When you buy the whole kit, controller, ca […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-01-02, 04:33:

Thanks for the replies.. […]
Show full quote

Thanks for the replies..

1) Wow! I saw on ebay that 1542 is very expensive! There are no alternatives as a card?

2) How should you set up your computer bios to boot from these scsi cards if it allows me to boot from floppy only or from "hard disk 0"? How do you bypass the ibm bios setting?

3) In case I used the Win95 boot floppy, with that I can install anything such as win98, os / 2 or start for example ultimate boot cd? Or I need a "generic" boot floppy that doesn't conflict with the s.o. on the cd that I want to start?

4)My computer is an IBM330 DX4

1 - $30 isn't expensive. It't not a "DEAL" but I wouldn't classify it as expensive. When you buy the whole kit, controller, cable, cd drive. You're likely to be out about $100.
2 - remove/disable anything IDE. let the bios on the scsi card handle it.
3- anything that can give you a dos prompt and a cd driver will work. - protip: copy all the CAB files from the cd to the hard drive. (including setup.exe) you can then install from the hard drive, and in the future, if you do any hardware changes, you won't need to find you win9x cd.
4- ibm machines are neat!

1) find the cp version for less than 80 € only card is not found

2) So mixed scsi - ide is not possible? boot from scsi cd-rom and install to ide disk is not possible if I have not misunderstood with my computer.

3) it seems the cheapest solution and paradoxically the most flexible. I thought that autoboot cds required computers to start from the cds themselves in order to function properly.

4) I did not understand

1- I looked at ebay, there are several availible for ~$30. I can't control prices. Double so for non-us locations.
2- oh, its quite possible. HOWEVER. Unless you enjoy dicking around with memory addresses, IRQ's and DMA's, disable or remove IDE. Its just going to make your life easier.
3- nope. At least with windows. the cd-boot was just something for convienence.
4- wat?

ok i will try the boot floppy win95 and look what happens… thanks for now