486 Laptop, 4MB, Win98 - Cant boot!

[Sean]

OK I know this sounds crazy but if anyone has any tips or tricks they can think of please take a moment to reply. I have this 486/33 Laptop, Color diplay. It has 4MB RAM (cant be upgraded past this ) and I want to run Win98 on it. It can boot into safe mode fine but not normal mode. I'm sure there is a way to make this work but I'll need some input from the experts out there! Thanks for any suggestions.

[Ziz]

Give it up. '98 wants a 486/66 and 16 meg memory bare minimum to run...at all...not to mention 200 meg HD space. '95 wants 8 meg memory and 70 meg HD. Use DOS and Win 3.1...that's about the best you'll be able to do.

[MikeTheTV]

Dude, try upgrading your system to about 200Mhz and at least 32megs. of ram (PC 66/100Mhz SD Ram recommended)because memories are at all time low, about 500 megs. of HD, any mobo would work(at least TX chipset because that the earliest mobo that I know that can support Ultra DMA/33 or EIDE)... OR buy a new system!

By the way what do u use that kind of system for(word processing, spread sheets)???

[Sean]

OK again this is a laptop I'm working with - I've upgraded it from a 486SX to a 486DX-33 and memory is maxed at 4MB. Using any TX mobo is outa the question - its a laptop!! At any rate, I've put a 1.3gig 2.5" HD into the machine so hard drive space is more than availalbe for the OS. Any ideas why Win98 can boot into Safe Mode perfectly if at least 16MB ram is required to run '98 in general. If anyone has any useful ideas I'd like to hear them. SERIOUS REPLYS ONLY PLEASE! Thanks.

[Eli]

Did you even get W98 to install? I tried once on a 486/60MHz laptop with 24 meg ram, and it wouldn't even humour me. Kept giving me the 66MHz minimum message, and kicking me back to dos. I'm afraid I'd have to agree with Ziz, and go with DOS 6.x and W3.x. Good luck...

[Sean]

Yep - Windows98 installed perfectly - not a glitch. I am surprised to have gotten things to work so far as they are on this Laptop. Anyone else have a suggestion or thought? Thanks again!

[dstackle]

I once tried to install Win95 on a older laptop, some NEC thing. It was a 486/33 with 4meg. I did get Win95 installed and working... the problem was with only 4 megs things were beyond slow. The machine was completely useless. It took 7 min to load solitare.... I thought I might actually get to see my hard drive explode into flames.... My guess is Win98 will only be worse.