Just grab the 98se oem from this site: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

meljor wrote:

Just grab the 98se oem from this site: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Exactly how do I boot using it?

It's fine when installing Windows, but other operating systems that don't have a DOS setup binary on the disc I am not sure how to boot from.

I've used Smart Boot Manager before, it can be installed on a hard drive or floppy which is then booted, then gives you a list of devices to boot from next, and can handle El Torito via IDE (and I guess SATA but only if it's running in compatibility mode) even if there's no BIOS support for booting CDs.

Try this
http://schierlm.users.sourceforge.net/bootdisk/

It works for.me very well. It allows you to boot from cd and has some other tools like memtest.

Have a look at isolinux http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISOLINUX

It allows booting from El Torito CDROMs, and while it's primarily aimed at booting Linux CDs it supports booting other OS CDs.

I've not used it, but Boot Floppy might be what you're looking for:

http://www.freedos.org/download/

Just use the 98se floppy to boot to dos and load the cdrom driver (this goes automatically). From the dos command promt you can start whatever .exe to start from your cd/dvd.

it's that simple or am i missing something in your question?

meljor wrote:

Just use the 98se floppy to boot to dos and load the cdrom driver (this goes automatically). From the dos command promt you can start whatever .exe to start from your cd/dvd.

it's that simple or am i missing something in your question?

It doesn't boot El Torito. If I were to put DSL on there it wouldn't be able to do squat.

meljor wrote:

it's that simple or am i missing something in your question?

He does not want to boot DOS floppy and start DOS exes from CDROM.

He wants to boot from the CDROM, on a machine so old that BIOS cannot boot from CDROM, so he needs to boot something from a floppy that can boot from CDROM.

I recall I've used SmartBootManager in the past for this.

Yea, thanks. I need to try some of these out, I'll get back when I have the time.

You can also try PLOP Boot manager

stamasd wrote:

Have a look at isolinux http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISOLINUX

It allows booting from El Torito CDROMs, and while it's primarily aimed at booting Linux CDs it supports booting other OS CDs.

Isolinux is an El Torito compatible "boot sector" for CDs though. You use it to make your own bootable CD. You still need BIOS support for bootable CDs to actually load Isolinux off the CD and start running it, so it wouldn't work in this case where the BIOS doesn't have El Torito support.