Put it in a different PC, install DOS, copy over the Windows 98 installer from the CD to the hard drive, put it back into the laptop, boot up DOS and install Windows.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-02-18, 19:07:

Put it in a different PC, install DOS, copy over the Windows 98 installer from the CD to the hard drive, put it back into the laptop, boot up DOS and install Windows.

but dos allow only a 2gb partition… my disk is 80gb

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-18, 19:58:

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-02-18, 19:07:

Put it in a different PC, install DOS, copy over the Windows 98 installer from the CD to the hard drive, put it back into the laptop, boot up DOS and install Windows.

but dos allow only a 2gb partition… my disk is 80gb

Yes, so you have to use a lightly modified procedure.
So put the drive in a different PC and boot from a windows 98 startup disk! Of course with the option that you have a CD drive.

CD ROM support has to work. It is normally not a problem when you use an IDE CD rom or DVD drive.
So then you have a running DOS 7 environment with FAT32 support. Not sure if you can use the full 80GB, there could be a bios limitation. You have to check.

So when your harddisk is ready use, you can copy the whole Windows installation CD to the harddrive. So a slightly modified Windows 98 boot disk with xcopy.exe or xcopy32.exe is helpful, it allows copying all subfolders.

Then put the drive to the machine without CD drive. Either boot again from a Windows 98 floppy or when you made it bootable before you could boot directly to the MS DOS7.

EDIT: In principle RandomStranger was right with his answer. Install DOS! But the DOS from Windows 98 or 98SE, so a DOS with FAT32 support.
<fixed formatting>

The OS doesn't need much. Only allocate what you need for the first parition, create other partitions as needed.

Finally I installed windows98 on a second computer (IBM Netvista P4) using another disk (travelstar 60gb 7200rpm) and then put the disk inside the travelmate. After rebooting it found components and installed the various generic drivers. The only thing I've noticed that it hasn't found is the sound card, but the strange thing is that it doesn't even see it with the yellow exclamation mark or even making it search… what could have happened? I don't think that having installed win98 on a P4 and then transported the disk has blocked the detection of the sound card itself.

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-19, 10:39:

Finally I installed windows98 on a second computer (IBM Netvista P4) using another disk (travelstar 60gb 7200rpm) and then put the disk inside the travelmate. After rebooting it found components and installed the various generic drivers. The only thing I've noticed that it hasn't found is the sound card, but the strange thing is that it doesn't even see it with the yellow exclamation mark or even making it search… what could have happened? I don't think that having installed win98 on a P4 and then transported the disk has blocked the detection of the sound card itself.

Hello,

Ah sorry, there is not only no cd-drive but also no floppy.

You can click on hardware and then search for new hardware. Don't know the wording in italian windows 😀

CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:06:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-19, 10:39:

Finally I installed windows98 on a second computer (IBM Netvista P4) using another disk (travelstar 60gb 7200rpm) and then put the disk inside the travelmate. After rebooting it found components and installed the various generic drivers. The only thing I've noticed that it hasn't found is the sound card, but the strange thing is that it doesn't even see it with the yellow exclamation mark or even making it search… what could have happened? I don't think that having installed win98 on a P4 and then transported the disk has blocked the detection of the sound card itself.

Hello,

Ah sorry, there is not only no cd-drive but also no floppy.

You can click on hardware and then search for new hardware. Don't know the wording in italian windows 😀

Is "Aggiorna" sound like update, and i have altready tried with no success

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:19:

CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:06:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-19, 10:39:

Finally I installed windows98 on a second computer (IBM Netvista P4) using another disk (travelstar 60gb 7200rpm) and then put the disk inside the travelmate. After rebooting it found components and installed the various generic drivers. The only thing I've noticed that it hasn't found is the sound card, but the strange thing is that it doesn't even see it with the yellow exclamation mark or even making it search… what could have happened? I don't think that having installed win98 on a P4 and then transported the disk has blocked the detection of the sound card itself.

Hello,

Ah sorry, there is not only no cd-drive but also no floppy.

You can click on hardware and then search for new hardware. Don't know the wording in italian windows 😀

Is "Aggiorna" sound like update, and i have altready tried with no success

No. I meant this:

Follow these steps to start the Add New Hardware Wizard:

"....
Choose Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click the Add New Hardware Wizard icon. The Add New Hardware Wizard screen appears.
Click Next. The next wizard screen tells you that Windows 98 will now look for any new Plug and Play devices on your system.
Click Next. Windows 98 searches and installs any Plug and Play devices (your screen might go blank for a few seconds) and presents you with the Add New Hardware Wizard screen. Here, you can see the devices Windows 98 has detected that need to be installed. If your new hardware device is included in the list, select the Yes, the Device Is in the List option. Click Next, and Windows informs you of which drivers and devices are set up. Click Finish to complete the installation stage.
.... "

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-18, 18:51:

I have this beautiful laptop with Pentium MMX 266 but no floppy drive or cd-rom. I could remove the hard disk, put it in a second system and install windows98 from there, then put the hard disk back in the travelmate, but the hardware would be different and even if I could show it all the peripherals of the travelmate, it would be in my opinion a “dirty” installation. I can't somehow install win98 directly from the travelmate?

The hardware being different is not an issue (can be fixed from failsafe mode).
I would try something like that :

1. Put the disk in another system (preferably without AIB and disabling most devices in the bios (sound, network, USB) to avoid installing too many pointless drivers.
2. Once installed, install DaemonTools + copy the W98 iso in your C: disk
3. Reboot (required after daemon tools installation)
4. Mount Win98 disk. Now Daemon tools will automatically mount it at startup
5. Copy your laptop drivers installers (do not install them) + everything that is required to unpack them (7zip, ...)
6. Reboot in safe mode
7. In device manager, delete everything but SCSI driver (used by daemon tools). Some devices cannot be deleted (Disks controllers)
8. Power off
9. Install disk into your Laptop
10. At startup, it will detect all the new devices and daemon tools will normally allow you to install the drivers from the virtual cdrom.
11. Continue installation normally.

It is not as clean as an install directly from the laptop, but I think it's close.

Another solution would be to install a lightweight Linux on a small partition on the disk. Boot it and write the Windows system from the network on a nother partition in the disk.

1Laptop:
2root@laptop:~# netcat.traditional -l -p 5555 > /dev/sda1
3
4Another computer:
5user@linuxbox:~$ nc theLaptopIpAddress 5555 < Windows98.img

CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:30:

No. I meant this: […]
Show full quote

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:19:

CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-02-19, 11:06:

Hello,

Ah sorry, there is not only no cd-drive but also no floppy.

You can click on hardware and then search for new hardware. Don't know the wording in italian windows 😀

Is "Aggiorna" sound like update, and i have altready tried with no success

No. I meant this:

Follow these steps to start the Add New Hardware Wizard:

"....
Choose Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click the Add New Hardware Wizard icon. The Add New Hardware Wizard screen appears.
Click Next. The next wizard screen tells you that Windows 98 will now look for any new Plug and Play devices on your system.
Click Next. Windows 98 searches and installs any Plug and Play devices (your screen might go blank for a few seconds) and presents you with the Add New Hardware Wizard screen. Here, you can see the devices Windows 98 has detected that need to be installed. If your new hardware device is included in the list, select the Yes, the Device Is in the List option. Click Next, and Windows informs you of which drivers and devices are set up. Click Finish to complete the installation stage.
.... "

yes! absolutely, i forget this because too many years ago... so, i have installa everithing and seems to work... now i try to doing dual system: win98 for handle file and DOS7 for a true old DOS Computer. with these characteristics I think it is an excellent retrogaming machine, combined with the fact that it is really microscopic.

Other issue is this...

It says “Save to Disk partition not found .. Run Phdisk for information. FILE: create new.” if you can find the original driver page for that laptop you might find a utility to create that file. I’ve solved it another way on my laptop (YMMV) which was in my bios in the power settings there was a standby/hibernate to file setting that I could disable which makes the error go away.

I get the same message on my Panasonic CF-71. It's used for hibernation that also works in DOS.
I think any copy of phdisk works. To make it happy, use the utility to create a hibernation partition on a blank HD. Then you can create a new partition (FAT etc) for your OS.

i just did this. if your laptop can see all 80gb of the drive then you're good; otherwise, use drive overlay software.

1 - attach hdd to bootable pc and partition as desired. i typically use a 2 - 8gb primary partition for win98. use an extended partition logical drive for your data partition.

2 - copy the win98 folder with the cab files and setup.exe to hdd

3 - boot from win98se floppy (or floppy image file from cd/usb) and execute 'sys c:' replacing c with the appropriate drive letter if more than 1 hdd

4 - execute 'fdisk' and make the primary partition active on hdd

5 - transplant hdd back to laptop, boot and run setup.exe

if your laptop has a non-pnp sound card just install the drivers. i have an opti930 isa card that win98 can't detect, but works with the drivers installed.

Windows 98 starts to initialize the hardware during installation after the first reboot. You can move the hard disk to any other system with floppy CD-Rom, Partition the disk, copy the installation CD to your local HDD and start installation process from your hard disk folder. Right after the first reboot shut down your system, move the HDD to your target machine, boot it up and continue the process. It then start to recognize your hardware and trying to install them.

I have done it many many times. To be honest I already created an image of the installed Windows 98SE right after the first restart with "BootIt Bare Metal "and use it for the new installation on other machines. Works like a charm.

a_h_adl wrote on 2023-02-22, 04:27:

Windows 98 starts to initialize the hardware during installation after the first reboot. You can move the hard disk to any other system with floppy CD-Rom, Partition the disk, copy the installation CD to your local HDD and start installation process from your hard disk folder. Right after the first reboot shut down your system, move the HDD to your target machine, boot it up and continue the process. It then start to recognize your hardware and trying to install them.

I have done it many many times. To be honest I already created an image of the installed Windows 98SE right after the first restart with "BootIt Bare Metal "and use it for the new installation on other machines. Works like a charm.

Very clever way! which software you use for creating and restore the “half installation image”? because i think it must adapt at the different har disk size: if i install on my dx4 i can use maximum to 8gb HD, if i use it in my P4 i can use 60gb HD and so on…

Here's how I've usually been doing it when there's no CD drive available in the computer I want to install Windows on:

- Install the HDD in another PC with CDROM. Disconnect any other HDDs to be on the safe side.

- Boot from the Win98 setup CD, do not launch the setup.

- Change directory to the win98 directory on the setup CD.

- Format the HDD, use the system transfer switch:

1format C: /S

This transfers a very basic DOS system to the HDD and makes it bootable.

- Copy the setup folder from the CD to the HDD, iirc the folder you want is called "win98". You don't need the rest of the CD content.

- Now you should have a bootable HDD with the Win98 setup files. Remove it and install it in the laptop.

- Boot from the HDD, you'll end up in a DOS prompt.

1cd win98

1setup

And from there it's just the normal Windows setup 😀

The problem with some laptops phdisk is that they require you to create a hibernation partition, not just file _before_ installing any OS. So boot from floppy/CD is necessary here to fix this issue. Otherwise you will see that warning every boot. And not every phdisk program similar, some could be not compatible with machine bios.

You can left some partition space on the hdd before OS installation so later phdisk will have room to work with.

i need to investigate what phdisk IS

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-02-22, 06:27:

Very clever way! which software you use for creating and restore the “half installation image”? because i think it must adapt at the different har disk size: if i install on my dx4 i can use maximum to 8gb HD, if i use it in my P4 i can use 60gb HD and so on…

I use BootIt Bare Metal https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-bare-metal/ and in the last few years I can't stop using it.

It is arguably the best boot manager and backup/restore software for my retro systems. It might look a bit comprehensive and complicated at first but once you get familiar with it you will love it. Can't recommend it more.