reinstall win98 without cd : files on hd

[pcblues]

Hi there!My girlfriend's laptop has no cd rom drive and no floppy.The one hard drive is split into two partitions c & d.The win98 files are on drive d.To do a clean install would I just do a restart into dos and then format c followed by d:setup?

When I reinstall on my own desktop pc I use a floppy start up disk and type format c: /s.I believe this copies some system files across?Being that I won't have the floppy on the laptop will it work okay?

Can anyone tell me why a start up disk is needed if you have the win98 files on a second drive.I thought that you only needed a startup disk to gain access to your cd.If you can boot into windows okay then I can't see why you couldn't just restart into dos and go from there.

Hope this babble makes sense!Thanks for your time!

[druggas]

To answer your question, I think the disk provides system files that your computer needs to begin loading your OS. In your case, with no floppy or cd-rom, how do you add anything to it? I would take out the hard drive and format it on another pc. That is what I would do. Not to suggest that is what you should do. Good luck and may the force be with you.

[pcblues]

Thanks for your reply druggas.Actually I forgot to mention that the laptop has an external pc card cd rom but no internal drive.There is also an internet connection.I am going to look in the bios to see if I can change the boot sequence to start with the cd(doubtful.)

I have a boot cd that works with my desktop so I was hoping to use this.Thanks for your time

pcblues

[AllGamer]

pcblues, it does work

you can install Win98 without the CD
but you have to make sure you have all the cabs files inside the
..\Win98
directory of the CD

after that

just boot with ANY boot disk

www.bootdisk.com

then you can go and run SETUP.EXE

[smelanson]

You could also try format c: /s which would turn your c: into a bootable partition after formatting then you can run setup on the d:.

[AllGamer]

that works too
but if he does that
then he'll lose his CAB files on the C: drive

[smelanson]

According to the first message he had the .CAB files on the D: drive, which he said he wasn't formatting.

[AllGamer]

i thought D: drive was his CD drive

[FijiJohn]

Uhh guys, how does he use a boot floppy with no floppy drive (in his first post)?

pcblues, I would think a CLEAN install could be done as you suggest. However, that does mean you lose any drivers on that C partition. Many laptops are fussy about things like that. (FWLIW, this is why I have an external HD that connects via parallel or USB. I can both backup the current drive and install a new OS from the external drive when there is no CD or even a floppy drive on the target machine.)