First post, by Zephyris
Hi, people.
Tl:dR - There're steps how to get everything required for win98 installation without USB/CD/FDD directly on your IDE device / PLS help with ACORP 5ALI61
I am relatively new to retro pc building hobby. For me it is not for a sake of retro gaming but close to learning through a cut of the whole historical layer.
I got some pieces of old but working iron to play around. Among other stuff it includes Dell Optiplex GX150, Acopr 5Ali61 Aladdin V and ATC-5000 motherboards.
My inital idea was to build a powerful (for late 90th) PC with my capabilites (no overclocked overpriced cards and processors included) based on Acorp Ali, because it can consume a lot of RAM, it has ATX power supply support (which basically lets me power it with a modern modular ATX PSU).
Sorry for being talky, getting closer to the point. All in all I began assembly with simple parts just to make things work. Drivers and more powerful cards/CPU can be put there later. I started with Pentium MMX 166, S3 card to PCI and also tested MX440 AGP card (just because I own it). Everything worked'ish on the system with old IDE HDD. But hell it is slow. It made me hours to test something and is completely unusable.
Okay - I stated and decided to use a CF to IDE adapter with a CF card Trancend 16 GB. HDD is also close to 16-20 GB so technically system can eat it.
Main issue - I don't have a normal CD-ROM/FDD (only in Optiplex, that I decided to disassemble as a last resort). Also no support of usb natively. Which cuts like 98% of guides "installing a windows 98 on a not so retro gaming pc with 3ghz processor and native usb support).
My main idea was somehow to place everything to a CF (bootable image, normal image and stuff), partition it correctly and try booting from it doing everything without USB sticks, floppies and CDs.
I think I've read every guide on a planet and watched every video but it did not help.
Now I will tell someone who may occur in same situation what to do. And moreover what I've face with Acorp Ali.
You see first stuff I tried is just to RUFUS this CF card with free dos. And Acorp told me - hard disk failure (Despite showing it in bios on load).
Like 3 days I was googling and trying to find a correct way to partition it correctly without having a working FDISK underneath my hand.
I ended up doing following steps:
1) Put USB drive to main PC.
2) Mount win 98 bootdisk (making it basically unseen by Win10 filesystem)
3) Put CF drive to main PC. (I did it via CF to IDE -> IDE to USB with powering CF-IDE with my AT PSU separately, but you can use CF to USB if you have this reader, I just didn't)
4) Partition CF at least to 4 gb (out of 16), and create a bootable free dos on this (through rufus)
5) Open Partition Wizard and copy the whole Partition from invisible USB (from step 2) to unallocated space of CF. This actually lets me see the list of the files and utilities - MEM, MOVE, FDISK, SYS
6) And finally copy Win98 installed files near free dos
Then using dell optiplex I just replaced it hdd to my CF, bios have seen it nicely and allowed me to boot from free dos. FDISK worked from there btw, but seems that I really did not need it.
Because what I've thought is that Ali does not see my CF because I didn't run commands of FDISK on it. I saw Phil and other guys suggested to use sys C: to make it working or stuff like that.
But all in all I managed to just install Windows 98 CDing to it's directory and running SETUP /NM /IS
Okay now - I have a CF partitioned correctly, with working and loading win 98. I put into ACorp Ali V and what I see - hard disk failure 😀))
That's when I decided to take AT-5000 from my bookshelf and build system quickly around it. And it just worked. Intel chipsed easily consumed this CF card and booted windows from this.
Now to the purpose of me creating a post here. I wanted conceptually to create a COMPLETE CF CARD without using USB/FDD/CD-ROM. Initally I wanted a way to install everything from win10 pc, but I assume the only way is try using VM with windows attaching to this CF. This was also my last resort.
So if someone wonders how to get those boot files having only working win10 - You can use my steps. I believe there're simple ways, but when you google and learn for 4 days in a row your mind may be cloduded so forgive me. At least this works.
The second purpose is to ask a question to some GURU.
What do with Acorp? I mean it's working and can handle a 20 gb hdd, so apparently something I made wrong. I inteded to test it with 4 and 8 gb cfs when I get them from post delivery. I really want to build my art project around ATX super socket 7 motherboard, and this is what I have right now. I checked - it has latest bios available. 3.3.66. But maybe there is a patch? I checked the whole 70 pages of manual but didn't find a correct explanation of what can I configure except manually marking all IDE devices as "Large" instead of "Auto". Also did not manage to find same issue from other people.
Thank you in advance. I hope I did not violate local rules or manners with this wall of text.
