-Remove at least 512MB of RAM
-Install 98SE
-Install drivers
-Install "Unofficial SP3"
-(Optional) install 98toME
-reinstall RAM

should be good if you do that.

Windows 98SE, without unofficial SP3, can be problematic with >256MB of RAM. Some people have claimed to run 512MB w/o unofficial SP3 but others have had instability that SP3 fixes. So as far as I'm concerned it is necessary for >256MB. There are also some tweaks in config.sys and system.ini you can try, like the MaxPhysPage setting, which may allow you to get 1GB RAM working without SP3.

I don't know much about your particular laptop but if I can find a bit more time I'll look it up and maybe edit my post with more info if I can. Obviously I only focused on one potential issue above, and I didn't look up what drivers you'd need for that laptop.

Looks like Win98/ME drivers do exist for that model:

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … t/ddfm/T42.html

I do notice that the operating system dropdown only lists ME and the audio driver is listed for 98 and so you have to manually look through the listing to find it, as selecting ME doesn't list it.

Thanks.

I opened it today to install a new bios battery. I also checked the RAM. But i cannot remove any RAM, cause this Model has no removable RAM (I checked a Youtube Video how to change RAM for my Model, and i have no soft installed RAM) 🙁

Fexel wrote:

Thanks.

I opened it today to install a new bios battery. I also checked the RAM. But i cannot remove any RAM, cause this Model has no removable RAM (I checked a Youtube Video how to change RAM for my Model, and i have no soft installed RAM) :(

OK well you will definitely want to look into config.sys and system.ini tweaks related to that amount of RAM to give yourself the best chance of everything working properly.

You can try this guide (I found it via Google; I didn't write it) http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/129983-how-to … more-than-1-gb/

Oh, that sounds interesting. I have no Floppy in this Lap, but i guess i can use a USB Stick for this method (as a Boot Disk).

You might be able to use a USB floppy, depending. I've booted from a Matshita one on a laptop of similar vintage.

Fexel wrote:

Oh, that sounds interesting. I have no Floppy in this Lap, but i guess i can use a USB Stick for this method (as a Boot Disk).

you can also burn a CD and attach a floppy disk image for booting. The "old style" of booting from a CD. Where it came across as a virtual floppy disk, and you'd still need to load the CDROM drivers to actually access the disk.

I can't remember for sure if the 98SE CD itself is bootable in such a way, but I think it is.

Nah, the Win98SE cannot boot (sadly). Sorry, i dont know how to do that kenrou. I keep testing at the moment^^

Fexel wrote:

Nah, the Win98SE cannot boot (sadly). Sorry, i dont know how to do that kenrou. I keep testing at the moment^^

take an ISO of your CD, and get an image of the boot floppy

open the ISO in Imgburn (which is free)

on the advanced tab of Imgburn, select the "Bootable Disc" sub tab

select the boot disk image, and tell it to emulate 1.44MB, then go ahead and burn it. Really did think it did have this, but it's been a while (except the time I did install it on my Dell Pentium 3 a month or two ago - but I used the boot disk that time).

...but if you can get it loaded with your USB drive, that's fine. But if you need to load any drivers during setup, you may have trouble doing that from a USB drive.

It was possible to boot via usb stick with win98 bootdisk Image on it. Problem was, that i had my real HDD as Drive D and could not change it as the primary partition via fdisk. I guess, that it is necessary to burn a cd. Well, i have no cd-roms. I need to buy some of them tomorrow (it is night in my Town here^^). Damn.. hate it to wait 😁

Okay, i bought CD-R Discs.

I tried it the way, you wrote. Problem is, that it only copy the Floppy Files. i specified the files for w98 in imgburn and then i activated the adv. part. But i only have the floppy files on the cd-r.

With the Floppy-Image on the CD-R it was possible to format the disc and create this .ini File similar to this Page:
Anyways, i tried to install win98 with http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/129983-how-to … more-than-1-gb/

With rufus-tool i made a freedos USB Stick. I also copied the win98se files onto it. Then i copied after some other Restarts the win98se files (Disc-Drive was d: on while i started with the usb-stick).

After all that, i was able to start the win98se setup and it dont stopped with a error because of the 1gb rams. But now comes the problem:
On the first Restart it says no system found. i tried the cd-r floppy and the usb stick.

I dont know what i have to do now.

Note:
If something i wrot isnt clear, feel free to ask me (im not from a english-speaking country).

Thank You.

you have to both select the iso of the CD itself as well as the floppy emulation image... then the boot disk (the image you select) needs to load drivers to see the CD portion of the disc

anyway follow the guide I linked above, just change how you boot rather than booting from floppy. You have to edit some files.

Damn - I think this is to high for me.. i dont know what to edit. 🙁

Boot from USB Stick (c:) und then transfer Boot files to Harddisk (d:)
with
SYS C: D:

What Modell of Laptop you have? I have an T42P

Hello,
i guess, i was to tired yesterday. Now i got it. Windows 98 SE on my Thinkpad T42 works now. Thank you so far!

Graphics, Audio, Lan. USB-Mouse, too. But, i don't know why, but there are 4 Items in the Device Manager which are not installed. My USB-Harddrive and the USB-Stick are not accepted.

Note:
I found a driver which gave me the ability to use fat32 formatted USB-sticks. Ive tested it with a 2gb and a 32gb ram stick so far. Sadly, SATA formatted wont work 🙁

I have an adapter for SATA drives, to plug them onto USB. Sadly this adapter wont work on the laptop so far 🙁

kenrouholo wrote:

Windows 98SE, without unofficial SP3, can be problematic with >256MB of RAM. Some people have claimed to run 512MB w/o unofficial SP3 but others have had instability that SP3 fixes. So as far as I'm concerned it is necessary for >256MB.

In my experience, 512mb is the point where problems start, whether I use unofficial SP3 or not. The only program to ever give me trouble with 512mb is Longbow 2, and its issue with more than 366mb is well documented.

kenrouholo wrote:

There are also some tweaks in config.sys and system.ini you can try, like the MaxPhysPage setting, which may allow you to get 1GB RAM working without SP3.

Check here for details:

http://thpc.info/ram/vcache98.html

Also, I wrote up a nifty Win98SE install guide here:

Generic Win98SE Installation & Setup Guide