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cant install windows 98

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First post, by scroeffie

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i dont know why i cant install windows 98 so far i tried this

i have tested both cd rom drives in a duocore systems via ide incl the cd i burnt and they both work perfect ! but in the pentium 160 they both wont get past the select 1 for hdd select 2 for cd screen ! i can pres 1 or 2 and than nothing blackscreen computer is not frozen i can control alt delete and reboot ! i tried the original hdd i can see it in the bios same thing /tried ssd same thing tried sd card same thing cf card same thing /cd rom is master and hdd is master same thing they dont use the same ide cable i use difrent ide slot on the motherboard samething /itried another pentium 150mhz same thing ! wtf i tried with 1 stick of ram same thing etc etc all the hdd's and flash mem i tested is seen in the bios installed a new cmos battery nothing change ide cable nothing iam missing something
i even tried to boot windows 98 on a pentium 3 same thing see picture hope the picture is uploaded but after i press 2 nothing just black screen and i see this > - < not a dot but a line and its falshing fast new cmos default bios settings etc etc

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Reply 1 of 25, by Jo22

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Not sure what's the issue, but these are some ideas that come to mind:
1) Write a new CD. Write it in 1x to 4x mode. Make sure the disc is fully "finalized" (hope that's the right English term).
2) Update the firmware of the CD-Drive that's installed in the old PC. This should it make more compatible with current CD-Rs.
3) Boot DOS 6.x or Windows 95 (or DOS 7.x) to access the D:\Win98 directory and launch Setup.exe (switches documented here).
4) Get a second-hand Windows 98SE CD-ROM (more compatible).

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 2 of 25, by scroeffie

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the cd i burnt works its the oem version of win98 i know it works because i have tested it in another computer windows 7 i5 and windows xp duocore ! so the problem is not cd or cd rom drive / i burnt it at 2x speed / do you see the picture when i press option 2 boot from cd rom nothing happens the cd spins but black screen

Reply 3 of 25, by Jo22

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Well, sorry then. If you've got a floppy drive, you could create a start-up floppy in Win XP.
That comes with DOS 8.x and CD-ROM drivers, I believe. Maybe this one works better.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 4 of 25, by clueless1

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Google 'windows 98 startup floppy'. You may need to boot up with the floppy first.

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Reply 6 of 25, by clueless1

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Yeah, that's part of what the floppy provides. Give it a shot.

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Reply 7 of 25, by scroeffie

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i installed free dos finaly /than i booted windows 98se oem than i say the install screen but it says windows 98 needs 16mb of ram but i have 32 ,how do i fix this
any one can help me please i just want to install windows 98 thats all ,

Reply 8 of 25, by clueless1

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It might be how freedos is interpreting your hardware? Have you tried the Win98 startup floppy I recommended a few posts up? If you google that name, you'll find floppy images.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 10 of 25, by clueless1

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Not that I'm aware of, but maybe someone else knows better than me. Does your Pentium even have the ability to boot from CD in its BIOS? If not, then you'll need to boot from floppy first to set up the CD-ROM driver.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 13 of 25, by .legaCy

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Its not complex it is quite simple, boot from floppy with windows 98 bootdisk with cd support, insert the cd, go to the cd, type install(if the hdd is already formatted).
Well if you don't have a diskette well, im pretty sure that you can still buy some boxes.
You can also remove the disk, format /s , copy the cd contents to the disk inside one folder and install from there.
If you can also upgrade it to a sd to ide solution so its easier to format and transfer the files.

Reply 14 of 25, by scroeffie

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i downloaded the oem version of win98, the download site told me its selfbooting ! i choose option 2 nothing happens ,i have tested the burnt cd and the ide cd rom in my i7 computer and it works perfect ,but in this old computer it wont boot the cd rom drive is 56x speed u burnt the cd-r with imgburn 2x speed
so i dont know any more wat to do ,can i pay someone to install windows98 for me i live in the netherlands

Reply 15 of 25, by Qjimbo

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scroeffie wrote:

i downloaded the oem version of win98, the download site told me its selfbooting ! i choose option 2 nothing happens ,i have tested the burnt cd and the ide cd rom in my i7 computer and it works perfect ,but in this old computer it wont boot the cd rom drive is 56x speed u burnt the cd-r with imgburn 2x speed
so i dont know any more wat to do ,can i pay someone to install windows98 for me i live in the netherlands

Interesting issue.

In all the cases the CD does boot, so all the systems do support booting the CD from BIOS, so that is not an issue. A boot diskette isn't needed.
You tested on your i7 computer, the CD is self booting and burnt correctly, so no issues there.
On the Pentium 1 and Pentium 3 system, you get stuck at the Start Up screen where it asks you to select which to boot.

Part of me is suspecting the disc itself. Some older CD ROM drives have trouble with cheapy CD-Rs. I use Sony CD-Rs with my old machines without issue, perhaps you could buy some of these and reburn the disc?

scroeffie wrote:

i installed free dos finaly /than i booted windows 98se oem than i say the install screen but it says windows 98 needs 16mb of ram but i have 32 ,how do i fix this
any one can help me please i just want to install windows 98 thats all ,

This is the Win98 setup trying to detect your hardware, you can try setup /im /is to skip the RAM check and skip scandisk.

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Reply 16 of 25, by Jo22

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That version of Win98 sure is self-booting, but something apparently goes utterly wrong when MS-DOS 7.1 is trying to
load or access the CD-ROM drivers or process autoexec.bat and config.sys in general.
Just what it really is, that's the question. While unlikely, it could be related to a 1.44MiB floppy image that's a part of Win9x CDs (see EL-Torito).
That's why I recommended to try a real diskette, too - just to make sure that's not the culprit.
If it is related to something else, like the IDE controller (host controller), changing the BIOS settings could help:
As a last resort, someone could try to disable all advanced IDE settings (32-Bit access, block mode, Ultra-DMA, PIO modes lower than 4).
Connecting the IDE drive to it's own cable could also help (no master/slave setup).

Speaking of FreeDOS, I don't know if it uses a similar floppy emulation or a something else.
In either case, I'm afraid it is not very compatible or stable if used as a foundation for Windows.
It may boot Windows 3.1 (in Standard Mode), which Mini.cab of Win98 is based on, but I'm unsure what happens after this stage.
Win98 setup may or may not be able to copy DOS 7.1 to the hard disk if it was started from FreeDOS.
Sorry, that's all I can say for now. 🙁

Edit: I remember MS-DOS 6.2x was released on CD-ROM, too. Perhaps it can be installed on that machine more easily.
If it boots, it's just a matter of copying the win98 setup directory to the DOS partition (C:\Win98) and afterwards
run setup from there. The copying can also be done from another computer (with an SD/CF card as HDD this is easy).
Later on, the partition can be converted to FAT32 and enlarged by Gparted (0.8 or older).

Edit2: Sorry, I forgot - Some versions (OEM or non-update) of Win98 refuse to install if an OS is present on C: .
In this case, skip installation of MS-DOS. Instead, just create a primary partition using FDISK and run FORMAT C: /B .
Then, just re-boot MS-DOS from the CD-ROM, leave DOS setup (press F3), go to C:\win98 and run setup.exe .
The /B parameter of Format reserves space for a future DOS boot code, but doesn't copy system files.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 17 of 25, by oeuvre

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Another solution is to use an IDE to USB adapter to copy the CDROM's WIN98 directory to your C: drive and then install from there by booting off a floppy. No CD drive required for that.

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Reply 18 of 25, by Jade Falcon

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oeuvre wrote:

Another solution is to use an IDE to USB adapter to copy the CDROM's WIN98 directory to your C: drive and then install from there by booting off a floppy. No CD drive required for that.

This. I ran into odd problems with 9x and this tends to fix the problem, its a band aid fix. But who cares once 9x is installed.

Reply 19 of 25, by Jo22

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Jade Falcon wrote:
oeuvre wrote:

Another solution is to use an IDE to USB adapter to copy the CDROM's WIN98 directory to your C: drive and then install from there by booting off a floppy. No CD drive required for that.

This. I ran into odd problems with 9x and this tends to fix the problem, its a band aid fix. But who cares once 9x is installed.

Yup, good idea. Just make sure the IDE-USB adapter is compatible with the HDD.
I once tried such a converter device with a fixed disk that complied to the original IDE specs.
It was a ~40MB drive and it wasn't recognized by the adapter, but worked perfectly fine in a 586 Pentium machine with on-board IDE.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//