On Feb 26, 5:12 pm, DJW wrote:
On Feb 26, 11:36 am, John Dulak wrote:



DJW wrote:
John,
The original post was because I could not boot using my hard drive C
and the internal DVD was faulty (been that way for some time) so I
wanted to know how to use the windows 98 install CD with an USB
external CD_RW drive. Never could get it done that way. Well sort of
gave up because I found and got a CDROM drive on ebay for 10 bucks.
That way I would finally have an internal optical again and thought
the whole restore process would be cut and dried.
So far all I can do is boot with the floppy. I did try to boot the win
98 install CD with the new CDROM drive without the floppy in it and it
went no ware. Above you are showing a lot of C prompt commands

**** "C:\" IS JUST AN EXAMPLE IF YOU ARE USING A FLOPPY IT IS "A:\"
OR WHATEVER DRIVE YOU ARE BOOTING FROM.

I guess

assuming that C drive is able to boot the machine. It said at startup
that no FAT or FAT32 could be found. So even if it is not bootable
could files still be accessed and used on C? Or were you quoting what
I could try if C was up and working. I am beginning to wonder if the
original DVD drive was OK and it is something else that also is not
allowing the new CDROM to work. However with the old DVD in it would
flash its lamp a few times at startup but never spin. The new drive
does the same but I hear a spinning sound in the beginning. When the
DVD went bad I talked to a tech at Winbook the Laptop's maker and he
lead me through some things and then came to the conclusion it was a
bad DVD drive. The crazy thing was that in the device manager it
always said the drive was functioning correctly.
I just talked to TEAC and even though I found a driver for I guess a
floppy the one I used in my try to get to the CD I also found online
associated with that model of CDROM at driverguide.com one named
Atapi_Dos.exe which when unzipped was much more in files and folders
and of course larger and it seemed only to be used to install the
driver onto a hard disk when I read the read-me file with it. I wrote
to Teac and they said and I quote
"There is no drivers required for internal IDE drives, as the drivers
are the generic IDE drivers within Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, and
even Windows Vista.
You can confirm if the drive is working by booting up from the drive
with a bootable disc inside (i.e. Windows 98 or XP disc). If the
drive is working fine then it will prompt you if you want to continue
with the Window XP installation. This means that the system is
properly configured and the drive is recognized by the system
(hardware), however, the current installation of Windows does not.
Then you need to reinstall Windows XP or ask Microsoft how to reload
only the generic IDE drivers."

First I know I told them that I was using win 98 must be a scripted
reply sent to me. I am guessing from what you stated above that
windows 98 installer CD should be able to boot the computer without a
floppy put in first?

****** Yes. The Windows 98se install CD is Bootable.

I will try to reorder the driver load command in

the config.sys file but I still am foggy on whether my AUTOEXEC.BAT
file read correctly due to me not editing any thing on it. I will also
make a new boot floppy from a working windows 98 machine and or also
visit bootdisk.com and get one there. Any help with the URL or name of
the boot disk I should pick up at the site for the best try at this?

It does not matter which boot floppy you use as long as it gets you a
command lline with access to the CD drive so you can run setup from
there. Once setup runs what is on the boot floppy is errelevent.

Thanks for all the help I am a bit of a novas at windows. Truth be
told I am a Mac person.

--
\\\||///
------------------o000----(o)(o)----000o----------------
----------------------------()--------------------------
'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - Gnomeway Services -http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6

Thanks for the help but I solved the CD problem I popoed it out of the
laptop and than back in again that did the trick the plug must not
have been seated firmly. I need to go off line now and try to install
windows on that machine stay tuned for the results. Thanks again for
all the help!

Well I got the new internal CD working but still can't get the Hard
Drive to Boot. Since this thread is getting long and one half of the
original question about getting an USB external CDROM to help install
win 98 is no longer a problem I am going to start fresh and repost my
question. I am not sure if I should post it here dealing with setup or
post or double post to a hardware forum?
Thanks to all above for all the help!