Herb wrote:
On 07.03.2006 18:29 UK Time, ***** charles wrote:
Hi Herb, I am hoping you will log in and read this
even though the thread is over.

Hi Charles,

yes, I'm still around :-)


I just started reading this thread this morning, so I appoligize
for the monday morning quarterbacking and I am glad you
got your laptop up and running. Just a couple of points:

1. the M$ standard erb disk made from a W98 machine
does not include FORMAT.COM on the floppy. This
being the case, whenever I make one, I always copy the
FORMAT.COM from
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\FORMAT.COM to
A:\*.*/V
This way you don't run into the problem you had in your
ordeal.

I have a feeling that mdp suggested something like this very early on
in this thread, but if I remember correctly I couldn't find
FORMAT.COM at the time on my C drive - not sure why - I probably didn't
look
properly :-[
mdp subsequently sent my FORMAT.COM in a private message - it sounds
as if this thread could have been much shorter if I had copied it on the
floppy! Oh well, I guess at least we learned a few things as part this
thread - I certainly did :-)


2. It was VERY fortunate that you didn't have anything to
save from the old configuration which allowed you
to do a clean install. If this were not the case, the
process would have been a bit more complicated.

Yes, it was fortunate. By the way, I haven't yet used the laptop
intensively after the 98SE installation, but it feels like a new
machine, and it is *much* more responsive than before, so I think the
whole exercise was definitely worth it!


3. I was hoping that you would have created 2 partitions
on your 6.1G hard drive. A big C: say 5.6G and a
small D: say 500M. The reason mdb suggested that
as I would have also is that you could copy the cab
files from the oem cdrom and installed from the D:
drive. One benefit is speed but the main reason for
doing it this way is so that you can copy all the
relevant drivers (video, audio, nic, and others) to the
D: drive so that the NEXT time you have to reload,
the only thing you need is a generic boot floppy that
can "see" the hard drive since all the stuff you need is
on the D: drive, no hunting around for things that might
have gotten lost, stollen, etc..... As time passes, it
gets more and more difficult to find drivers for particular
models from the Internet. Some companies are better
at it than others. Remember that official support stops
for W98SE in June which means manufactures will no
longer have to supply anything for the OS after that.

Thanks for the additional info - I hope mdp isn't too upset that I
ignored his advice at the time - I guess I was looking for the easiest
route. I can now see the benefit of 2 partitions. I better put these
drivers etc. in a safe place!


And yes Gary, I was rooting for you to get him going. A
very interesting read. Thanks.

One last thing, someone mentioned that the oem cd has
oem in the key id string and that is one way to tell oems
from others. THIS IS NOT THE CASE with W98SE.
W98SE oem cdroms have a 25 item alpha numeric
string that is broken up into 5 groups of 5 numbers/letters.
Only the W95 oems had the oem string in the key id.
I hope this folklore will die. ALL of the W98SE I have
seen follow this rule. If I am wrong, show proof.

Thank you for your comprehensive message!

Regards

Herbert Eppel

None taken. Still enjoy reading, learning, and occasionally helping when I
can.