How can I load Win98 w/o bootable cd-rom

[meandmypc]

I figured out the bootdisk now I need to know why it won't find my cd-rom. Is it because windows doesn't have the driver for it. I have a driver for it on my windows 3.1 boot disk, but I don't know what to do with it. Thanks in advance for the help.

[This message has been edited by meandmypc (edited 11-08-1999).]

[This message has been edited by meandmypc (edited 11-08-1999).]

[Butchk]

Do you have a driver that came with your CD Rom? If not you can go to, www.DriverGuide.com (http://www.DriverGuide.com) and you should be able to down load a driver for your CD Rom. I hope this might help good luck ButchK

[chrisT]

If your using a win98 boot diskette, you shoudl be able to access your CD-rom with the actual drivers.
The boot disk gives you a menu, and it if you choose - Something with CD-Rom Support, it'll create a virtual drive giving you acess to your CD-rom with a generic driver.

Remember to add a letter to the amount of drives you have though. So if normally your Cd-rom D: With the virtual drive, it'll be considered E; until you have win98 set up.
Once win98 setup starts, it'll find your right CD-Rom Drivers.

[Target]

You have a couple options acutally. ChrisT was right with his answer, but that will only work if your CDROM drive is an ATPI standard compatible drive. Otherwise, when you choose that option, it will give you an error of sorts.

I am assuming that if you are upgrading from windows 3.1, your hardware is just as old, so its not likely that your CDROM will be an ATPI drive.

So, you have two options. (1) you can make a boot disk using the dos real-mode drivers for your CDROM (2) you can load windows98 from your hard disk after copying the *.cab files from the CDROM.

To perform option number 2 listed above. Boot your machine to windows 3.1 and open file manager. Create the following directory C:\windows\options\cabs

Place the windows98 CDROM in your drive and locate a directory on it called win98. Copy all the files and sub-directories from win98 on the CD, to the c:\windows\options\cabs directory on your hard-drive. Keep in mind, that doing this is going to require approximately 175Mb of free hard-disk space.

Next, exit windows, and boot with your boot diskette to dos. If using the win98 boot disk, you can choose to boot without CDROM support. At the dos prompt, rename the file WIN.COM if it exists. This file should be located in the C:\Windows directory. Rename it to something like WIN.BAK or WIN.MOC that will be easy for you to remember.

Next change to the c:\windows\options\cabs directory and then run SETUP.EXE

This will install win98 from your hard-drive rather than from the CDROM. As a bonus, it will also install faster as your hard-disk is likely to be much faster (even if its older) than your CDROM will be.

When it gets to the portion of the install where it asks what directory you want to install win98 to, it will provide you with two options. Either install to windows.000 or another directory. Choose another directory, and specify it to be Windows. It will then tell you that it already exists, and that files will be over-written and will want to know if you wish to proceed. Say yes, and the cab files will over-write themselves without issue.

[This message has been edited by Target (edited 11-08-1999).]