Installing 98 SE on a memory stick - diskless workstation?

Hello all,

I am curious if this is at all possible.

Basically what I want is to install Windows 98 SE onto a 1GB memory
stick like it was a regular old hard drive. The workstation that the
memory still will be used with will not have a hard disk, and will boot
directly from the memory stick. The workstation has 1GB of RAM and so
the page file is not much of an issue. I've already made sure the BIOS
supports booting from USB devices.

Has anyone does something like this before? Is it possible?

-Edward

I have not tried it nor heard of anyone doing it; however, it should be
possible since at one time, there was a web site with instructions for
installing W98 to a CD. I think you might have to have a boot partition on
the hard drive and you would probably need a boot manager to make booting
easier. It would be fun to play with; however, my 64 mb stick is a bit too
small :-) If you decide to try, please post back with your results.

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello all,

I am curious if this is at all possible.

Basically what I want is to install Windows 98 SE onto a 1GB memory
stick like it was a regular old hard drive. The workstation that the
memory still will be used with will not have a hard disk, and will boot
directly from the memory stick. The workstation has 1GB of RAM and so
the page file is not much of an issue. I've already made sure the BIOS
supports booting from USB devices.

Has anyone does something like this before? Is it possible?

-Edward

I would recommend using the same technique used for CD bootable systems, as
Ron suggests. In this case the startup procedure creates a RAM disk and
copies a Windows image to it, and runs Windows out of the RAM disk. The
memory stick then drops out of the picture, which is necessary because
generally the system will not allow it to operate as the primary mass
storage device, even if you have disabled all the IDE controllers. The
exact same procedure used to create the bootable CD should work for the
memory stick.

The usual option for what you are trying to do is a solid state disk. In
this case the system really does boot and run from the primary IDE device -
it just happens to be a solid state device instead of a hard disk. Other
specialised systems will have custom-written BIOSes that are tailored to the
actual hardware that will be used.

If you can configure your memory stick to appear as a perfect substitute for
the primary IDE drive, then Windows won't know the difference and will
happily install and run. But this would require _complete_ BIOS support for
the memory stick as a substitute IDE device, and I suspect a generic
motherboard doesn't have that capability. They have enough BIOS support to
make it readable and bootable, but not much more. Remember that W9x, unlike
later operating systems, relies very heavily on the BIOS for disk access
procedures.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello all,

I am curious if this is at all possible.

Basically what I want is to install Windows 98 SE onto a 1GB memory
stick like it was a regular old hard drive. The workstation that the
memory still will be used with will not have a hard disk, and will boot
directly from the memory stick. The workstation has 1GB of RAM and so
the page file is not much of an issue. I've already made sure the BIOS
supports booting from USB devices.

Has anyone does something like this before? Is it possible?

-Edward

On 2 Aug 2005 17:44:49 -0700, wrote:

Basically what I want is to install Windows 98 SE onto a 1GB memory
stick like it was a regular old hard drive. The workstation that the
memory still will be used with will not have a hard disk, and will boot
directly from the memory stick. The workstation has 1GB of RAM and so
the page file is not much of an issue. I've already made sure the BIOS
supports booting from USB devices.

Has anyone does something like this before? Is it possible?

Yes it is, all is possible, but DON´T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT to do it
yourself! (taking care of yours sane mental status!) .. LOL .. :-)

[ I can run my w9x minimal (few MBs!) emergency setup booted diskless
from CDrom (4MB_set!) & running it entirely from Ram than (less than
9Mb!) /Ms-RamDrive/ ... ; I even ported it to an internal Atapi ZIP
drive instead of CDrom, but that setup needs 7 minutes to boot -
mazo----- :-| , while if set on 7200kRpm drive on C:\ to boot & work
there (as normal) it boots in 3 !!! seconds or less; mine working
w98SeLite does it in a bit more than 10 seconds on 1,35GHz 3y old
machine :-) ; my friends kids with superDuper newest gaming PCs
w/winXP can not believe it when they see it .. , looks also like
winXP-classic style .. :-)) ]

I strongly advice you to go via IDE-2-CF adapter way (cheap,
20$ or less) & some CF card, 500MB should be more than enough (they
are not expensive anymore) for w98seLite version (visit www.litepc.com
!) I would choose (like I did) micro install (IE5.01sp2 can be later
added as ONLY a bare browser /2Mb/ as a program if IE engine is needed
later)! This way CF on that adapter acts just like a "normal" HD ...

First I would use instead of CF (making it bootable later by
cloning MBR from HD /MBRwork program/ a normal old few GBs HD
partitioned to at least 2 partitions to install setup there to, when
finished could be copied/cloned to a CF card.
I would do a setup barebone, skipping ALL drivers & programs
unchecked in setup & than install ONLY minimum really needed later!
(some few /meantime working/ clones of OS is good to have in case
something goes wrong not to repeat the whole procedure)
Before finishing OS & cloning it to CFcard, I would tweak the
OS & progs as much as can be done (reg.&system.ini tweaks, deleting
non necessary MS-crap files, moving swap file & some other
files&folders too to next partition etc...) & prepaire boot files on
C:\ to load ramDrive@boot (to be D:\ or something else w/o HD). So CF
card, which has limited read/write cycles capability, would last for
good ...

Thats basicaly all, but there is another option available
(free for personal use-demo with mailed unlock code/registering)
running it "live" from CD if thats also Ok for you:
http://www.qualystem.com/en/produits.html#rescue

Hope I helped you avoiding USB hassle way .. :-)






















--
Regards , SPAJKY ®
mail addr. @ my site @ http://www.spajky.vze.com
3rd Ann.: - "Tualatin OC-ed / BX-Slot1 / inaudible setup!"

In ,
Jeff Richards had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I would recommend using the same technique used for CD bootable
systems, as Ron suggests. In this case the startup procedure creates
a RAM disk and copies a Windows image to it, and runs Windows out of
the RAM disk. The memory stick then drops out of the picture, which
is necessary because generally the system will not allow it to
operate as the primary mass storage device, even if you have disabled
all the IDE controllers. The exact same procedure used to create the
bootable CD should work for the memory stick.

The usual option for what you are trying to do is a solid state disk.
In this case the system really does boot and run from the primary IDE
device - it just happens to be a solid state device instead of a hard
disk. Other specialised systems will have custom-written BIOSes that
are tailored to the actual hardware that will be used.

If you can configure your memory stick to appear as a perfect
substitute for the primary IDE drive, then Windows won't know the
difference and will happily install and run. But this would require
_complete_ BIOS support for the memory stick as a substitute IDE
device, and I suspect a generic motherboard doesn't have that
capability. They have enough BIOS support to make it readable and
bootable, but not much more. Remember that W9x, unlike later
operating systems, relies very heavily on the BIOS for disk access
procedures.
Hello all,

I am curious if this is at all possible.

Basically what I want is to install Windows 98 SE onto a 1GB memory
stick like it was a regular old hard drive. The workstation that the
memory still will be used with will not have a hard disk, and will
boot directly from the memory stick. The workstation has 1GB of RAM
and so the page file is not much of an issue. I've already made sure
the BIOS supports booting from USB devices.

Has anyone does something like this before? Is it possible?

-Edward

Just to add to this, I have a number of MOBOs here and only one brand that I
have seems to support it and they're GigaByte. Another reason is the limited
writes that you can get with today's flash memory. Other than CE it looks
like it will be a while longer before we able to get an OS-on-a-Chip but I
do think that when that technology arrives in full force there will some
major market shifts and that should be interesting to encounter.

Galen
--

"But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world
without them."

Sherlock Holmes

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005 23:31:13 -0500, "Ron Badour"
wrote:

I have not tried it nor heard of anyone doing it; however, it should be
possible since at one time, there was a web site with instructions for
installing W98 to a CD. I think you might have to have a boot partition on
the hard drive and you would probably need a boot manager to make booting
easier. It would be fun to play with; however, my 64 mb stick is a bit too
small :-) If you decide to try, please post back with your results.

One thing to bear in mind is that USB sticks are slow (surprisingly
slow if you consider them as "memory"; less so if you think of writing
to them as programming an EPROM) and have a limited write life.

Now you can (and I'd say, should) locate %Temp%, Temporary Internet
cache, Spool, Application Data and swap file off the USB stick if
possible, but that still leaves the registry on the stick.

The other option is to max out on RAM, then try to "throw forward" the
Windows code base to a RAM disk and jump into it from there. I've no
idea how well that would work.

A lot of issues may revolve around at what point Windows establishes
drivers for USB stick (or perhaps the RAM drive). This has been an
obstacle to getting XP to boot and run from USB stick (we already have
a subset of it running off CDR) and as Win9x has even less native
support for USB sticks, I can see this as being a problem - unless you
can paradoxically use "DOS Compatibility Mode" to force Win9x to
accept and use whatever "disk" handling is in effect at the BIOS level

As Ron says, I'd love to know if/how you get this right :-)



--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
"We have captured lightning and used
it to teach sand how to think."
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll let you all know it works out
when its done.