I've never had any luck getting a machine to boot from a CDROM attached to a PCI controller. And as slow as CDROMs are, I've never bothered since they aren't bottlenecked by ATA33 controllers.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-23, 03:36:

I've never had any luck getting a machine to boot from a CDROM attached to a PCI controller. And as slow as CDROMs are, I've never bothered since they aren't bottlenecked by ATA33 controllers.

I’m stuck as the only ide cable I have is a 80 conductor and I don’t want to break the pin on the motherboard and the one on the cable isn’t removable

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:10:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-23, 03:36:

I've never had any luck getting a machine to boot from a CDROM attached to a PCI controller. And as slow as CDROMs are, I've never bothered since they aren't bottlenecked by ATA33 controllers.

I’m stuck as the only ide cable I have is a 80 conductor and I don’t want to break the pin on the motherboard and the one on the cable isn’t removable

With some careful effort you should be able to drill out the pin hole in the cable's connector. I've done it by just pressing the cable in extra hard ( I wasn't paying close attention, and didn't realize it had a blocked pin hole!). I don't recommend trying that on a motherboard you care about.

You could try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_GEsE2_j4Y
I would be surprised if a motherboard that old could boot from USB though.

Heat up a safety pin with a flame.

texterted wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:22:

Heat up a safety pin with a flame.

Yep. Looks like this guy did it with a corn on the cob holder (skip to the five minute mark). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J9v2wn9MsA

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:40:

texterted wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:22:

Heat up a safety pin with a flame.

Yep. Looks like this guy did it with a corn on the cob holder (skip to the five minute mark). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J9v2wn9MsA

My instruments of choice are a metal paper clip and lighter . It also lets me pretend that Clippy is going through a trial by fire . 😉

I like this video where Clippy gets his revenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4taIpALfAo

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:48:

I like this video where Clippy gets his revenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4taIpALfAo

🤣! Nice, somebody worked really hard to make this . Thanks for sharing .

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-23, 04:48:

I like this video where Clippy gets his revenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4taIpALfAo

haha that's so cool!

okay so I did the pin trick as suggested and I got it plugged in and detected

buuuuttt.... I think the cd drive is defective because it sounds like a floppy drive and no change still won't boot and I made sure it was set to boot to the drive

I tried a boot loader cd that I still had from ages ago and a windows 95 cd (is that bootable?) in any case it isn't booting I think the drive is dead

I also don't have usb booting or any kind of floppy option as my only drive works in the computer I'm trying to make work an no others and none of my floppys are boot floppys

my best option I think is to make a hard drive that can boot and put it in the computer

and the fun part I don't have any ide hard drives I will soon have a ide to sata adapter but not yet

the scsi boot option in the bios is what I choose for add in cards right? cause I need to get windows setup on a hard drive and boot it from the sata card

okay guys I figured it out

but I need help

I need a hard drive image of a drive right after the setup files were copied but setup not completed i can use macrium reflect to restore it to a hard drive on my modern computer and transplant it into my retro rig

I am having a bit of trouble following exactly what you want to do .

a) What OS are you trying to install ?
b) Why don't you try booting the bootable CD with the CD-ROM connected to the integrated IDE controller ? Is it because the motherboard BIOS does not support this (you did not specify what board you have) .
c) Alternatively, are you able to temporarily connect the hard temporarily to a modern PC ? If you can, you might be able to copy your OS installation files to that hard disk and possibly even make the hard disk bootable using a virtual machine .
d) Do you have a floppy drive and a bootable DOS floppy disk or the means to make one?

i don't get it. You are using a sata drive correct? hook it up to another computer, and make a primary partition on it and format it fat32. Then go search the internet for a program called BOOTICE
In bootice process the MBR so its nt 5x 6x Then process the PBR and make it MSDOS. Copy command.com, msdos.sys and io.sys to the drive, along with the contents of a 98 boot disk.
Make a folder on the drive called 98 and copy the entire contents of the 98 or 95 install cd.
move the drive to the computer and after it boots to command change directory to 98 and run setup.exe from there.

Warlord wrote on 2021-01-23, 06:54:

i don't get it. You are using a sata drive correct? hook it up to another computer, and make a primary partition on it and for […]
Show full quote

i don't get it. You are using a sata drive correct? hook it up to another computer, and make a primary partition on it and format it fat32. Then go search the internet for a program called BOOTICE
In bootice process the MBR so its nt 5x 6x Then process the PBR and make it MSDOS. Copy command.com, msdos.sys and io.sys to the drive, along with the contents of a 98 boot disk.
Make a folder on the drive called 98 and copy the entire contents of the 98 or 95 install cd.
move the drive to the computer and after it boots to command change directory to 98 and run setup.exe from there.

I’m not sure, but I think this is exactly what I needed to know.

I used to do stuff like this 15 years ago but now I’m super rusty and have almost none of my old disks, cables, drives etc.

I’m going to try what you suggested thank you so much!

darry wrote on 2021-01-23, 06:40:

I am having a bit of trouble following exactly what you want to do . […]
Show full quote

I am having a bit of trouble following exactly what you want to do .

a) What OS are you trying to install ?
b) Why don't you try booting the bootable CD with the CD-ROM connected to the integrated IDE controller ? Is it because the motherboard BIOS does not support this (you did not specify what board you have) .
c) Alternatively, are you able to temporarily connect the hard temporarily to a modern PC ? If you can, you might be able to copy your OS installation files to that hard disk and possibly even make the hard disk bootable using a virtual machine .
d) Do you have a floppy drive and a bootable DOS floppy disk or the means to make one?

No floppy is not an option I have a floppy and a drive but this computer is the only one I have that it works on so since none of them are boot disks ai can’t make one on a computer that won’t boot 🤣

At this point any os would be an improvement.

But I think 98 is a good starting point

Booting to the cd is exactly what I tried after getting the cable to fit it but I have discovered that the cd drive appears to be bad. It sounds like a floppy drive and no disk I put in will boot. But it does detect

Yes making the hard drive bootable on a modern pc is my plan atm. I didn’t know how until that last reply, gonna try now.

Warlord wrote on 2021-01-23, 06:54:

i don't get it. You are using a sata drive correct? hook it up to another computer, and make a primary partition on it and for […]
Show full quote

i don't get it. You are using a sata drive correct? hook it up to another computer, and make a primary partition on it and format it fat32. Then go search the internet for a program called BOOTICE
In bootice process the MBR so its nt 5x 6x Then process the PBR and make it MSDOS. Copy command.com, msdos.sys and io.sys to the drive, along with the contents of a 98 boot disk.
Make a folder on the drive called 98 and copy the entire contents of the 98 or 95 install cd.
move the drive to the computer and after it boots to command change directory to 98 and run setup.exe from there.

okay, I tried this first on a 60gb ocz ssd
it froze the promise tx4 300 on the detecting screen so I performed the same steps on a 1tb hdd and nothing, it's like the bios isn't even trying to boot to the sata card

i have it set to boot to scsi in bios

any ideas?

the bios is detecting the micro drive on the adapter so at least that's working. too bad I have no way to load these files and bootice as it doesn't fit in my card reader 🤣 (too fat)

in the mail soon I should be getting a ide to sata adapter I can try and see if the onboard ide can pick up my 120 or 60gb ssd but everything else I have is going to be past the 128gb limit of the bios in fact this bios I don't believe is patched even that high I think it still has the 32gb bug as I haven't been able to boot to load the new bios yet

I wouldn't of thought about trying the 1tb drive thats never going to work and it isnt compatible, with that card. The 60gb drive should work so you have some other kind of unrelated problem there. You do realize you don't have to max out the partition. You can create smaller partitions like only 8gb in size.

Warlord wrote on 2021-01-24, 00:37:

I wouldn't of thought about trying the 1tb drive thats never going to work and it isnt compatible, with that card. The 60gb drive should work so you have some other kind of unrelated problem there. You do realize you don't have to max out the partition. You can create smaller partitions like only 8gb in size.

The 1tb drive dowsn’t work with the tx4 300?

On one of the attempts I used a 4gb fat partition.

My friend hooked me up with some different cd drives. And a bunch of windows disks and live cds.

Gonna try round two

Also I now have a usb to compact flash reader that I can try to make the microdrive work

I’m feeling optimistic! :p

One way to be sure you have a bootable CD of Win98 is to download one. "Important: Only the OEM Full version is bootable. LINK REMOVED
And here's a nice step by step if you cannot remember (or never knew) the steps for copying the Win98 files to your hard drive and installing it that way. http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install … dexfullpage.htm