a zip disk has a partition & table.
for a bootable disk, the MBR needs the boot code, often fdisk /mbr fixes this though i don't think that works on zip disks, and the partition, i think, needs to be primary and set active.

Yeah I guessed that I need to fdisk the mbr but I cant figure out how to make it visible to the Win98 boot floppy.

Any ideas how I do that?

Wow Im surprised. I thought there would have been a number of people who knew how to do it here.

Has nobody ever used a zip250 disk as a substitute for a 1.44 floppy disk?

Mobo model?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:11:

Has nobody ever used a zip250 disk as a substitute for a 1.44 floppy disk?

What I used to do was create a bootable DOS CDROM from a floppy image. That floppy image would load a CDROM driver and then you can access the bigger files from there. You could also have it create a RAM drive and put some boot files there.

That said, I think it should be possible to boot from the zip drive if the BIOS Supports it and the partitions are correct. I don't recall ever doing so when I had a zip drive though TBH.

Tried it in the past and just formated the ZIP disk in Windows 98SE and checked the box to make it bootable. Also copied some extra programs after that to the disk and it just booted right away (after changing the BIOS boot order).

So don't know why it's not working for you. But if I have to guess then it maybe is a BIOS problem. Had a problem in the past that some BIOS options on certain motherboards didn't work even though they were available (like CD-ROM boot).

Nexxen wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:22:

Mobo model?

Asrock 775i65G
E6700, 1Gb PC3200, X800XL, 120Gb SATA on SATA1, CDROM Master, Zip250 Slave. (set up to be SATA + Chan 1 in compatibility mode)

Ive edited the Win98 boot floppy to include Zip drive support (edit of config.sys and autoexec.bat) so when I boot up it has the option to boot with zip and or CDROM drive support...
But it doesnt seem to want to let me fdisk /mbr on the zip drive.
I can access the zip disk but no more...
So I can now use a zip disk instead of a CD to copy the cabs over

I dont think this is the way to do it.

Yoghoo wrote on 2024-11-22, 14:24:

Tried it in the past and just formated the ZIP disk in Windows 98SE and checked the box to make it bootable. Also copied some extra programs after that to the disk and it just booted right away (after changing the BIOS boot order).

So don't know why it's not working for you. But if I have to guess then it maybe is a BIOS problem. Had a problem in the past that some BIOS options on certain motherboards didn't work even though they were available (like CD-ROM boot).

Ive tried that.
I used Win98 to sys the disk, I copied over the files from the Win98 boot floppy and tried to boot with it, having set the zip drive to be the first boot device, it is a 13h device, but it just tells me its an invalid boot device or something and to replace and strike any key etc.

I must be doing something wrong in its creation.

Is the config.sys, command.com autoexec.bat files generic or particular to that media?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-11-23, 10:29:

Ive tried that. I used Win98 to sys the disk, I copied over the files from the Win98 boot floppy and tried to boot with it, havi […]
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Yoghoo wrote on 2024-11-22, 14:24:

Tried it in the past and just formated the ZIP disk in Windows 98SE and checked the box to make it bootable. Also copied some extra programs after that to the disk and it just booted right away (after changing the BIOS boot order).

So don't know why it's not working for you. But if I have to guess then it maybe is a BIOS problem. Had a problem in the past that some BIOS options on certain motherboards didn't work even though they were available (like CD-ROM boot).

Ive tried that.
I used Win98 to sys the disk, I copied over the files from the Win98 boot floppy and tried to boot with it, having set the zip drive to be the first boot device, it is a 13h device, but it just tells me its an invalid boot device or something and to replace and strike any key etc.

I must be doing something wrong in its creation.

Is the config.sys, command.com autoexec.bat files generic or particular to that media?

Just did a test as it was some time ago I tried it. Motherboard for this test is an ABIT PX5 TX with an IDE ZIP drive.

It's running Windows 95 OSR2.5 with the Iomega tools installed. I just right click on the B: drive in the file manager (which is the ZIP drive in my case) and select Format. This will bring up the Iomega format tool. In it just select the option to make it bootable. After that in the BIOS select the option to boot from a ZIP drive (in my case it is named: LS/ZIP). It then boots from the ZIP drive. It will reverse the drive letters btw. ZIP drive is then the A: drive and my real A: floppy drive is then B:.

I know from the past that the Iomega tools are not necessary for formating the ZIP drive. But I like to install those those tools for nostalgic reasons. The config.sys and autoexec.bat are always generic. In my test case they were not even there as the format tools from Iomega and Windows don't create them when making a media bootable.

Ill get Iomega tools and give it another go.

Iomegaware zip tools seems to have worked. I now have a zip disk I can use to install Win98 without any other media 😀

Cheers Yoghoo.