Are all Win98 Startup Floppies the same?

Yeah, I saw that 6-disk option at bootdisk.com, but wasn't sure it was to be
used for installation, that it wasn't only for a "maintenance OS" platform.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User

"Lil' Dave" wrote in message
...
Makeing 6 boot floppy diskettes is an option with XP for PCs that do not
have a boot CD option in the bios setup.

If done by the user, would have XP installed by now.

However the user is at this point addressing the boot CD failure at this
point with one particular supposedly bootable CD. This could be simply
media failure as addressed by attempting boot from known bootable CDs.
Wonder if he/she is going to attempt that?

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message
...
"Ed" wrote in message
...
Thnaks, Gary. I'm trying to migrate (gracefully) to XP Pro on the
laptop.
The plan is to free up sufficient HD space to allow a dual boot,
preserving
Win98SE through at least the first few weeks/months of getting XP set
up
and
populated with needed software. I have just completed this on my
desktop
and am very happy with the outcome.

The problem on the laptop is it's failing to boot from the XP
installation
CD.
Even though I have the BIOS boot sequence set for CDROM/floppy/HD
it rushes past the inserted bootable CD and continues on into booting
Win98 off the HD.

I assume you know this disk is bootable because you can boot to it on the
desktop machine. Do you have any other bootable CDs you can use to test
the
laptop? To see if it's just the XP CD that won't boot or if it's any
bootable CD? Because if no CD will boot on that machine, it's a matter
for
research at the laptop manufacturer's site--BIOS update, perhaps? Or some
other odd known problem.

HOWEVER: Many machines prompt for a key press to launch a bootable CD.
You
have 5 seconds, perhaps, to press the key, otherwise it skips the CD boot
and proceeds to the next device in the list. Perhaps you aren't seeing
the
prompt? Try repeatedly pressing the Enter key as your system is booting
up. (Don't hold the key down or you may get a stuck-key error.) For
convenience, put in any NON-bootable floppy disk, first, so that if the
CD
boot again fails the process will be halted with an error when the floppy
can't boot, instead of continuing on to a full Windows startup.

I believe I've trace to missing DOS-support DVD-CDROM drivers.
I say this because I get an error "can't find MSCD001" when trying to
create a Win98 setup floppy on the machine. The floppy thus created
will
boot the machine, but recognize the DVD-CDROM. This bears enough
similarity
to the failure to boot from CD that I think the root cause is the
same...
somehow
the DOS driver has become corrupted or deleted from the machine. THe
DVD-CDROM
works fine under Win98.

Assuming you have a standard XP installation CD, DOS doesn't have
anything
to do with it. The XP CD has its own operating system that doesn't use
DOS
at all. Only issue that might involve DOS drivers is if you're booting
from
a DOS-based OS, whether on the hard drive, a floppy, a CD or any other
bootable device. Doesn't apply to XP Setup.


I'm aware of a couple alternatives, e.g., install XP off of floppies,
or
using
the Winnt installer from the XP installation CD after copying the i386
dir
to the HD. However, I'd like to fix the basic problem if I can.

I'm not aware that XP can be installed from a set of floppies. I'd be
*very*
surprised if this is true. I'm also fairly certain that you can't use a
standard Windows 9x floppy Startup disk to access the XP install CD and
install. I'm guessing that perhaps it's possible to load something from a
floppy that will do the job, but again, I'd be surprised. Floppies simply
aren't big enough.

I'm not familiar with installing WinXP from the HD, I just haven't done
it--maybe once several years ago. Sorry, can't help you there.

Here's another idea: If you've already repartitioned your drive to create
a
partition for the XP system (or sufficient free disk space in which to
create a partition, since XP Setup has its own partitioning tools) why
don't
you just run the XP installation CD from within Windows 98? If I recall
correctly (which isn't a given, considering my current memory
difficulties)
Setup will offer you the option to install XP clean to the new partition,
place the boot manager files on the Win98 side (like it always does
unless
it can't see the 98 side), and you will have what you desire, exactly the
same as if you'd begun installation by booting the CD. I may be wrong, it
may yet require a step involving booting up to the CD, but it's worth a
try.
Go slowly, and if you're not absolutely certain that Setup is doing what
you
want it to, Cancel out immediately.

Oh, and since this is primarily an XP issue, you should be asking in an
XP
Setup newsgroup, s. A vast number of the tricks and solutions involving
Win9x systems are absolutely inapplicable to XP Setup. Hardly anything at
all in common. Posting to this NG has, from what I can tell, distracted
you
into more than one inapplicable solution.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User

If done by the user, would have XP installed by now.


You're right. I did it yesterday. It was a bit of nostalgia, reminding me
of the old days installing Win 3.1, but also painful in other ways.


Ed

Thanks, Dave.

Concerning the 98 startup diskette, the mscdex.exe line doesn't need a
MSCDXXXX switch if you only have one CD device you intend to access and
don't need to delegate a non-sequential drive letter if its singular. Its
possible that oakcdrom.sys is not finding a cdrom device to begin with.
In
that case you need a replacement for oakcdrom.sys that works with your CD
reading device in real mode msdos.

I think the problem is I explained to another person a moment ago... The
Dell
needs a special DVD-CDROM driver, I have messed up the files needed
to create a suitable boot floppie.


Is the XP install CD retail, or a borrowed/copied one meant for another
brand name notebook or PC?

It's a full XP Pro CD meant for installation on any machine, unrestricted.

Are you trying to do an upgrade, or write over the current operating
system
and all its files entirely?

I'm doing a full installation into a fresh partition, retaining the existing
Win98SE
as a dual boot, using BootMagic. Worked fine on my desktop.

Ed