760XL would be from the W95 OSR2 (early 1997) era so I wouldn't call that mint. El Torito hadn't fully caught on yet.

You should have a docking station (to use both a floppy and a cd-rom) and you'd put in a bootdisk containing CD-ROM drivers so you can then load setup off the disc.

You might just have to get one. I have some ideas but Im not sure if you have the gear to pull it off. Also I wouldn't bother with the restore CD myself. I would download the latest drivers, and install a fresh copy of 98se thats been un touched, by anything.

So In your situation where you don't have any gear than Id create a second partition enough to store the contents of a windows 98se CD from MS not a restore CD.. that I would just copy there, and all my drivers.

Then I would burn a CD that has MS DOS system files basically Command.com, MSDOS.sys, IO.SYS FDISK, format.com, himem.sys, sys.com edit.com, MSCDEX, and a CD rom driver. Like the panasonic one.

I would edit my autoexec.bat and my config.sys and add DOS CD rom support, and I would point the command interpreter to command.com on the Drive letter that Im going to mount the CD also add a path for the Drive letter of the CD rom in dos that youre going to assign it.

Then Reboot computer and F8 before windows and command prompt make sure I could access my CD rom drive and all my files from DOS and at that point navigate to the CD drive lertter and format C: /Q /sys

Use edit .com to create a New config sys and add himem.sys to it. Reboot the computer and run setup from the files on the other partition which should be D:

Otherwise just go get a floppy disk. or pull out the HDD from the laptop and get a adapter so you can hook it up to a modern PC and prep the drive there and then put it back in the laptop.

laptop has been upgraded to 98 from previous owner. laptop looks like new.
i dont have a dock i only have the laptop and charger + a pcmcia cd-rom.

i have to find a way to install erase drive,install msdos and copy the win98 instalation then run setup
so my best way will be with other laptop or adapter
should i install 95 or 98se ?
i cand find drivers for video card

well i think I just explained how to do that. If you don't have enough room on the disk to make a 2nd partition than id use partition magic to shrink the main partition and add another one.

You must not of looked very hard.

http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/b656.htm

Then it says the file name is vftpgw95.exe

I googled vftpgw95.exe and this site popped up https://archive.org/details/FWVMW058

Then I searched the text ctrl F with this filed name vftpgw95.exe

then this popped up https://archive.org/download/FWVMW058/VFTPGW95.EXE

i tried something different.
i installed smart boot manager but i could not get to boot from cd. so i took the hdd and put it in another laptop same specs.
booted a floppy and formated hdd then i installed msdos. once done i get "sbmk bad" !
i tried formating with fdisk,removing partitions and creating again still "sbmk bad".
i tried booting hirens cd and running smart boot manager and installing it again so i can remove it but still "sbmk bad"!
how to remove smart boot manager ? what to use to format and get rid of it ?

Ive never used it. might be right in the manual.. https://btmgr.sourceforge.net/docs/user-guide-4.html

run /MBR switch with fdisk. fdisk /mbr then format /sys

if after reading the manual and doing that doesnt fix it. try gparted linux live cd and see if you can fix the pbr and mbr with it.

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-17, 01:08:

Ive never used it. might be right in the manual.. https://btmgr.sourceforge.net/docs/user-guide-4.html

run /MBR switch with fdisk. fdisk /mbr then format /sys

if after reading the manual and doing that doesnt fix it. try gparted linux live cd and see if you can fix the pbr and mbr with it.

it worked! "fdisk /mbr" fixed my problem
removed but.. im stuck with other problem 🙁

hdd from thinkpad got it inside a toshiba 4000cdt
i installed ms-dos (created startup disk from 98)
did copy windows 98 to hdd and then put hdd back in thinkpad (worked fine on toshiba,boots ms-dos)
thinkpad gave me disk i/o error replace the disk,and then press any key
hdd is fine but i guess it does not like what i did install 🙁

likely it is caused by bios lba translation issues. It shouldn't matter but it could be the way the Toshiba and IBM bios read and write to the drive is different and not compatible. the problem probably isnt with the IBM but the Toshiba. I probably would try using a USB adapter and preping it in windows. if that doesn't work I have nothing else for you.

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-17, 20:44:

likely it is caused by bios lba translation issues. It shouldn't matter but it could be the way the Toshiba and IBM bios read and write to the drive is different and not compatible. the problem probably isnt with the IBM but the Toshiba. I probably would try using a USB adapter and preping it in windows. if that doesn't work I have nothing else for you.

ill try using an adapter. and install ms-dos and copy win98 install. Should i try in another thinkpad ? i have a t20
thank you

id try t20

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-18, 00:27:

id try t20

well. i cant in t20.. hdd doesnt fit.
so my last option is USB Adapter.
how can i install msdos on hdd with usb adapter ?

use a program like diskpart to create a partition and mark it active. use format in with fat or fat 32 arguments in XP or win 7, 10 etc... Youre limited to a minimum for 32 gb partitions but it wont make a difference in youre case. Download BOOTICE and manipulate the MBR and PBRs with that if needed. Just compy COmmand.com io.sys and msdos.sys to the disk afterwards.

If you want to get crazy you could try installing windows 98 in a virtual machine and mount the disk there and use Native 98 or dos tools.

not very complicated.

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-18, 16:11:

use a program like diskpart to create a partition and mark it active. use format in with fat or fat 32 arguments in XP or win 7, 10 etc... Youre limited to a minimum for 32 gb partitions but it wont make a difference in youre case. Download BOOTICE and manipulate the MBR and PBRs with that if needed. Just compy COmmand.com io.sys and msdos.sys to the disk afterwards.

If you want to get crazy you could try installing windows 98 in a virtual machine and mount the disk there and use Native 98 or dos tools.

not very complicated.

thank you. ill try tomorow. i hope it works 😁

aLinux wrote on 2022-12-18, 16:36:

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-18, 16:11:

use a program like diskpart to create a partition and mark it active. use format in with fat or fat 32 arguments in XP or win 7, 10 etc... Youre limited to a minimum for 32 gb partitions but it wont make a difference in youre case. Download BOOTICE and manipulate the MBR and PBRs with that if needed. Just compy COmmand.com io.sys and msdos.sys to the disk afterwards.

If you want to get crazy you could try installing windows 98 in a virtual machine and mount the disk there and use Native 98 or dos tools.

not very complicated.

thank you. ill try tomorow. i hope it works 😁

i used diskpart to clean,create partition primary,active,assign,format fs=fat32
i used bootice to process mbr nt 5x and pbr ms-dos boot record fat/fat32
i did copy IO.SYS,COMMAND.COM,MSDOS.SYS
reinstalled hdd back to thinkpad and i get "Disk I/O error replace the disk and then press any key"

i really dont understand.. if i put the hdd in vmware and start it says "operating system not found"

so i did another try. i tried installing windows 98 in vmware until first restart to continue on thinkpad but got the same error "Disk I/O error replace the disk and then press any key"

what am i missing ?

idk are you putting the hdd in the right way? theres some firmware updates for the hdd if its the original part on this page.
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … /ddfm/760e.html

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … es/fwhd34en.txt

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-20, 21:37:

idk are you putting the hdd in the right way? theres some firmware updates for the hdd if its the original part on this page.
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … /ddfm/760e.html

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … es/fwhd34en.txt

yes . there is only one way to install it.

will it allow me to update firmware if install hdd on another laptop ?

so i keept not losing hope for this laptop
and turns out the hdd is bad so i had it replaced.
so i installed msdos 6.22 on hdd and thinkpad boots fine. after that i did a copy of 95 or 98 files on a directory named as the os.
started the setup and after first restart i get stuck.
on 95 i get "-" forever and on 98 i get "disk i/o error replace the disk,and then press any key"
whyyyyy ???? i really dont understand. msdos boots fine but after running setup and first restart its gone !!!
i dont understand this laptop.

i know this is old.. but i still cant fix this laptop to boot 95 or 98. it came with 98 but i wanted in english, anyway...
if i install ms-dos 6.22 it boots fine. 🙁 as i stated before if someone know why or what is going on.
i have another compaq with p1 cpu and i take the hdd and put it in thinkpad it boots fine 98.
🙁
please someone help me out on this.

Boot from a win 98 bootdisk and then run setup (make one on your running win98 system).

If i remeber correctly the bootdisk creates a ram drive wich is needed for the install.... or something like that.