Yeah this isn't going to be easy.

I am not familiar with MS-DOS, does it come with any CD-ROM drivers? You could try installing an incorrect driver, sometimes it will work, allowing you to get programs and drivers into the computer.

DOS 7.1 though, why are you excluding Windows 98SE? Having that accessible would make your life a lot easier.

Niezgodka wrote:

There was Win95 on it, however now, after multiple errors, Wing95 boot screen it lands in DOS.

Isn't that what you want..?

In any case, Windows 95 should store its emergency boot disk files in C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD, including a DOS CD-ROM driver. You should be able to use those files to access your CD-ROM.

Should I break the disk into two pasterns, and try to run installation from second one?

It is possible to copy all the files from a Windows 95 CD-ROM to a hard drive and then install Windows 95 to the same partition.

As long as it can boot from the cdrom I would suggest downloading Hiren's boot cd or equivalent, then You can boot from one of
the dos configurations available. Nether Windows 95 or 98 cd's are bootable as far as I know.

get one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/281773241664

They work just fine, and i haven't had a single issue using them. I did upgrade to a usb 3.0 model, but that's not important here. Its going to let you do anything you want to that drive.

As for getting the hard drive out of the thinkpad, suck it up buttercup.

luckybob wrote:

As for getting the hard drive out of the thinkpad, suck it up buttercup.

I tried. It has very bad engineering design. I would love to change it into CF adapter, but it is simply no option 🙁
I would rather buy external floppy.

I will transfer cdrom drivers via lpt in Dos Navigator, and try to boot new install of Windows.

Can you access the PC-Card slot from DOS ?
Sometimes the needed drivers are loaded before Win95 starts.
If not, maybe your ThinkPad can boot from it.

Then all you need is a CF card and an adapter.

Unless I'm missing something, you can boot from a win95/98 cdrom which will load the drivers. Then you can copy everything you need to the HDD, including the cdrom drivers and create your own config.sys/autoexec.bat to include them.

Can it boot from CD? Yes/No..... There are cdrom versions of the normal Win98 floppy bootdisk out there.

This Thinkpad does not boot from cdrom. In Bios there is setting for floppy, but "this is premium cd rom model" damn it 🙁

I decided to gently cut out bottom of the plastic, to access hdd. I will install CF adapter there anyway, so I need to access the card. I will post the picture.
Thank you IBM for making it so hard in 1994 or whatever.

Did you miss what I posted before..?

Jorpho wrote:

In any case, Windows 95 should store its emergency boot disk files in C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD, including a DOS CD-ROM driver. You should be able to use those files to access your CD-ROM.

I would also be concerned about whether a standard CF card adapter will be able to fit in whatever space the hard drive is using. I have not heard of people using CF-to-IDE adapters in laptops before (though I can see that it might work in theory).

Niezgodka wrote:

This Thinkpad does not boot from cdrom. In Bios there is setting for floppy, but "this is premium cd rom model" damn it 🙁

I decided to gently cut out bottom of the plastic, to access hdd. I will install CF adapter there anyway, so I need to access the card. I will post the picture.
Thank you IBM for making it so hard in 1994 or whatever.

Was it really necessary to destroy the casing to just get to the hard drive? Surely it wasn't that difficult to take apart carefully and get at the hard drive! 😢

Personally, I would have done as these guys suggested - use the EBD contents to get the cdrom drive working, then copy the contents of the win95 set up cd to a location on the hard drive and reinstall win95 from there. Then you can use (at the very least!) a laplink cable to transfer the contents across to another system. Failing that, I'd use a generic PCMCIA ethernet card to connect it to the network.

Having said that, I'd probably just use it as an excuse to clean the machine inside and out, so I'd put a good movie on, and carefully disassemble the laptop and remove the drive and use another machine to transfer stuff across.

*grumbles* cutting the case to get to the hdd, pfft *grumbles*

This could have been of some help:
http://cd.textfiles.com/pdasoftware/HP95_100/UTILITY/ZIP/