MusicallyInspired wrote:

That's probably because the BIOS doesn't support CD-ROM booting.

Exactly. The BIOS has to be able to boot from ATAPI devices, a feature which came along during the Pentium era. 486 BIOSes usually don't support this.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

I can run the setup from the command prompt easily enough, but it wouldn't be under DOS 7.10's boot operating system and I don't know how well that would work.

What kind of DOS flavour is this? MS-DOS? Novell? If you have the possibility to create or obtain boot floppies, it's probably the safest way to install it. If the setup program is worth anything, it should give out at least a warning in case running in the wrong environment caused problems.
Be careful when installing onto a disk with data you still want to use, better make a backup first.

It's MS-DOS (it's the version of DOS that runs on top of Windows 95/98). I've tried formatting a disk with the DOS 7 IMG file that the bootable CD uses to boot with, but for every disk I try that on it says there's errors on it (cyclic redundency check), that happens a lot when I'm trying to read some DVDs too, actually.

And it does recommend that I boot from the CD, but the problem is I can't. I tried running setup without booting in any way (just my main autoexec and config files) and it seemed to go through everything fine enough. I didn't actually install it I just wanted to see if it would be alright with installing without booting into it first and it seemed to. I might try it later on, but for now I'll stick with Win95 for that computer.

Here's a question, I know that it's possible to update your BIOS by flashing it. Is it possible that there's a BIOS firmware update to make it able to boot from an ATAPI device?

MusicallyInspired wrote:

And it does recommend that I boot from the CD, but the problem is I can't. I tried running setup without booting in any way (just my main autoexec and config files) and it seemed to go through everything fine enough. I didn't actually install it I just wanted to see if it would be alright with installing without booting into it first and it seemed to. I might try it later on, but for now I'll stick with Win95 for that computer.

Here's a question, I know that it's possible to update your BIOS by flashing it. Is it possible that there's a BIOS firmware update to make it able to boot from an ATAPI device?

No need to update your BIOS to get an ATAPI CD-ROM boot with an older computer which has a floppy drive. Here is what to do:

Go to the old page for Smart Boot Manager v3.7.1 here. Most of the links are dead, but here is the download directory for the v3.7-1 (last) release of Smart Boot Manger. Since your are in the DOS/Windows world you will need the file: SBMINST.EXE and the USER-GUIDE-3.7.tqz files.

The SBMINST.EXE file can be used to create a non-DOS/non-FAT bootable floppy diskette with the command: SBMINST -d 0 which will create this special Smart Boot Manager v3.7.1 floppy diskette on any floppy loaded in drive A: on your PC workstation. You may then configure your older PC BIOS to boot from floppy drive A: (most PC BIOS have supported this since 1981) - then the Smart Boot Manger takes over. You may then get the Smart Boot Manger to boot from your ATAPI CD-ROM drive if it has a bootable CD loaded. You're in business.

To repeat:

New PC: BIOS to CD-ROM Boot. Insert CD. Reset PC. CD boots.

Old PC: BIOS to Floppy Boot. Insert SBM diskette. Insert CD. Reset PC. Floppy boots. Use SBM menu to choose CD-ROM. Select. CD Boots.

The SBMINST.EXE file size is 68KB dated 20-Feb-2001.

Best of luck,

dvwjr

Edit: Updated SourceForge download directory

Thanks! I'll give this a try.