So my purchase from Amazon was a failure. The adaptor didn't fit. God damnit this is getting silly. 😀

I traced the cable it seems like that is the way it should sit.

I guess I could use a ribbon cable of some sort to be able to fit the adaptor.... 44 pin 2.5 inch male to female ribbon cables..? Common Dupont cables are too wide.

I might just buy an IDE drive but atm I don't see one I want..

Aaargh. Shame. Well there's no magic pixie dust in the rails if you just wanna carve a clearance into the one side there so it fits.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-21, 20:40:

Aaargh. Shame. Well there's no magic pixie dust in the rails if you just wanna carve a clearance into the one side there so it fits.

Yeah but that's not the big problem. In pic 2 I tried to show that the adaptor would be ca 10 mm outside the actual bay. I'm not that interested in carving into the motherboard! 😁

If anyone has a restore cd for Compaq armada 1750 for windows 98 could you please upload it on archive.org?

I'm not sure it exists but it said on the sticker it's made for windows 98 so I would guess so.

At the moment I'm installing the windows 95 version. Maybe I can upgrade it to 98. I might try calling the Compaq Support number but I think I might end up in a fake call center in India trying to scam me. 🙁

Joakim wrote on 2021-07-06, 19:07:

If anyone has a restore cd for Compaq armada 1750 for windows 98 could you please upload it on archive.org? […]
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If anyone has a restore cd for Compaq armada 1750 for windows 98 could you please upload it on archive.org?

I'm not sure it exists but it said on the sticker it's made for windows 98 so I would guess so.

IMG_20210706_212014.jpg

At the moment I'm installing the windows 95 version. Maybe I can upgrade it to 98. I might try calling the Compaq Support number but I think I might end up in a fake call center in India trying to scam me. 🙁

You can see if your compaq came with 95 or 98 by looking at its serial number, there is a pdf that shows what the letters and numbers represent.

But anyway, just install 95 and use a 98 upgrade. The serial numbers are considered abandonware, it is not very illegal for you to use one from the internet, as microsoft can no longer provide them Also, if at some point in your life, you bought a Windows 95 or 98 box, or a computer that came with it pre-installed, you are entitled to use any serial number, since you paid for it one day.

Yeah this is what I ened up doing. Id be quite happy with windows 95 but because of lack of wireless or LAN I want to use nusb (hack) and it only runs in 98 as I understand it.

The good news, nusb does work on it, the bad news, that port is incredibly slow. Seems slower than the one on my Thinkpad 385D which is a year older at least I think. Prism based PCMCIA (802.11b) cards work well on Win98 though. My optical drive did read burned CDs okay though for other means of getting data on it. It's possible that a 4 bit PLIP cable (Parallel Laplink, supported by windows ICS) would be faster than the USB.

I can't get windows 98 upgrade to install. Not sure if it's the disk or that it just won't upgrade this OEM installation. It failed when unpacking a cab file. Irritatingly it damaged the windows 95 installation.

Would it be possible to just format the c drive and install windows 98 normally, installing the drivers later? I'm just guessing they are on the disk...

I tried to install the unofficial xusbsupp or what ever but it would just work. Probably due to OEM version of windows 95.

Maybe it would be a better idea to install a pcmcia lan card and transfer files through there. In that case I might just keep windows 95.

You first need to know if it has a PCMCIA port, or PCCard. PCMCIA is very slow, but PCCard can handle wireless up to about 100mbps

The usb 1 or 1.1 protocol can power up to the amperage required for most of today's accessories. Some pendrivers don't work either because they require a higher amperage.

Joakim wrote on 2021-07-07, 14:08:

I can't get windows 98 upgrade to install. Not sure if it's the disk or that it just won't upgrade this OEM installation. It fai […]
Show full quote

I can't get windows 98 upgrade to install. Not sure if it's the disk or that it just won't upgrade this OEM installation. It failed when unpacking a cab file. Irritatingly it damaged the windows 95 installation.

Would it be possible to just format the c drive and install windows 98 normally, installing the drivers later? I'm just guessing they are on the disk...

I tried to install the unofficial xusbsupp or what ever but it would just work. Probably due to OEM version of windows 95.

Maybe it would be a better idea to install a pcmcia lan card and transfer files through there. In that case I might just keep windows 95.

Is your disk or your copy of Win98up damaged, why don't you download it again?

Rikintosh wrote on 2021-07-07, 14:28:

Joakim wrote on 2021-07-07, 14:08:

I can't get windows 98 upgrade to install. Not sure if it's the disk or that it just won't upgrade this OEM installation. It fai […]
Show full quote

I can't get windows 98 upgrade to install. Not sure if it's the disk or that it just won't upgrade this OEM installation. It failed when unpacking a cab file. Irritatingly it damaged the windows 95 installation.

Would it be possible to just format the c drive and install windows 98 normally, installing the drivers later? I'm just guessing they are on the disk...

I tried to install the unofficial xusbsupp or what ever but it would just work. Probably due to OEM version of windows 95.

Maybe it would be a better idea to install a pcmcia lan card and transfer files through there. In that case I might just keep windows 95.

Is your disk or your copy of Win98up damaged, why don't you download it again?

Well to be honest I doubt it is damaged but it can of course be if its put there by anyone. I really think it's more of an issue with the Compaq installation not being upgradable in this way.

I'd prefer doing a clean install of win 98 to be honest but the question is ofc the Compaq drivers..

Possibly a E500/M500 restore CD would work as the hardware is substantially similar. Though might need an E500 serial # for it. Mine seems to have a generic minimal 98 install, but audio was already working and I found service packs to fix up the video as mentioned on first page. All the drivers seem to be in the service packs if you hunt through them. You may need floppies though, they're a bit hit and miss about whether they need to be unpacked to floppy specifically or not or whether you can dump them in a directory and use from there.

Oh but I love floppies. They bring excitement. 😁

I guess I should clarify that the packed exe will inevitably try to install to a floppy when run, but with a 3rd party extractor winzip, 7zip, winrar etc, you can extract them manually to a directory.

Rikintosh wrote on 2021-07-07, 14:27:

You first need to know if it has a PCMCIA port, or PCCard. PCMCIA is very slow, but PCCard can handle wireless up to about 100mbps

The usb 1 or 1.1 protocol can power up to the amperage required for most of today's accessories. Some pendrivers don't work either because they require a higher amperage.

The manual did not really bring clarity to this. Haha. But I guess it is pcmcia.

I ended up installing a normal windows 98SE version. It is so much easier with usb capabilities. Kind of a shame I never got the windows 95 to work. It seems you need to install it from a clean install, which an OEM installation is not.

I read through page 1 again BitWrangler and I had forgotten about you posting this information about the graphics drivers. I havent recieved enough sleep lately with kids and work. I will also try the sp16706.exe driver package. Seems to be some drivers left missing but as long as sound and graphics are ok I can be without IR communication and modem drivers. 😁

Thanks to all of you for the help!

Generic ATI rage drivers may be an option as well?
For the modem you can probably install a windows standard modem just to get rid of that annoying yellow mark.
InfraRed I've no cheat driver but you can always disable in bios if you like having a "clean" device manager

Actually it is all installed except for the lpt port. Might be something in the bios because I noticed it was not installed even with the OEM installation.

Gonna try out transport tychoon deluxe and see if I can get thosw sweet midi tunes running.

Oh and the battery on this beast of a computer is actually working. After 15 mins it was 90 percent in windows 95 when idling.. O.O

Joakim wrote on 2021-07-07, 15:55:

Rikintosh wrote on 2021-07-07, 14:27:

You first need to know if it has a PCMCIA port, or PCCard. PCMCIA is very slow, but PCCard can handle wireless up to about 100mbps

The usb 1 or 1.1 protocol can power up to the amperage required for most of today's accessories. Some pendrivers don't work either because they require a higher amperage.

The manual did not really bring clarity to this. Haha. But I guess it is pcmcia.

Screenshot_20210707-175320.jpg

It's a Pentium II machine so it must be Cardbus/32bit PCCard. The transition from 16bits PCMCIA to 32bits Cardbus/PCCard happened in the 1st gen Pentium laptops.

Must be some kind of confusion about the naming convention even in manuals then.. Its a topic I have not delved into myself. Nothing a 15 minutes of youtube can't fix I guess!