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cab files with 98se



 
 
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  #21  
Old November 25th 14, 03:35 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 128
Default cab files with 98se

Bill Cunningham wrote:

I waited and waited. No boot. I have bootsect.dos from XP or I
probably could from my old 98se disk get an mbr from somewhere.
Maybe use a VM. But I do have a USB 3.5" drive.


Any computer store will have a regular parallel floppy drive for $10 or
less. Go out an buy one - and a ribbon cable too.
  #22  
Old November 26th 14, 02:07 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
J. P. Gilliver (John)
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Posts: 1,554
Default cab files with 98se

In message , 98 Guy writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

I'm thinking it's a laptop, because it's trivial to install
a regularfloppy drive into a desktop.


Do modern mobos still have the 37 x 2 header then?


Cunningham said his computer was 10 years old. So yea, all motherboards
of that vintage had floppy drive connectors.


I think by the time you said the above, there had been enough snipping
that it wasn't clear you were talking about old desktops only. Anyway, I
thought it would be interesting to answer the question ...

If we're talking desktop motherboards with Intel CPU's, I would guess
that all socket 478 and 775 boards would have floppy controllers. That
would take us to about the end of 2006 at least.


.... which you have up to 2006 or so. (Do more modern mobos have a floppy
controller? I would hope so, but ...)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

- often six furlongs ahead of the field, but on the wrong racecourse. - Colin
Dexter on (his creation the character) Morse; Radio Times 12-18 May 2012.
  #23  
Old November 26th 14, 02:13 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
J. P. Gilliver (John)
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 1,554
Default cab files with 98se

In message , 98 Guy writes:
Lee wrote:

Do modern mobos still have the 37 x 2 header then?


Even my 2001 Dell Dimension 2400 has only a 1 x floppy cable


Having 1 floppy cable is and always was standard for any 486 or higher
motherboard. The cable had 2 connectors - one for 3.5" and the other
for 5.25" drives, which were spaced so that you could connect one under
the other.


Sometimes for two 3.5" drives; there was a weird arrangement on the
cable itself, where some of the connectors in the ribbon were split out
and crossed over between the connectors. You could even get dual (3.5
and 5.25) drives that had just one connector, but appeared as two drives
to the BIOS.
[]
Maybe 98guy never understood the el-torito method of emulated
floppy drives when using CDROM from the old days,


I've never heard of el-Dorito before, nor have I ever had any reason to.


(-: [IIRR, it was a way of making a CD look like a floppy to the BIOS;
you could only put a floppy's worth of data on it, though. Though I
_think_ if you included, on that "floppy", a CD-ROM driver, you then
_could_ use the rest of the capacity of the CD. It's rather a long time
ago, and I don't think I ever played with it.]

and now with USB doing a similar thing it's no wonder why he
can't get his head around booting a USB drive without drivers.


If I had any reason to dig into the issue, then I'd know all about it.
But because I've never had a reason to boot from a USB thumb drive, and
because I don't own any USB-connected hard drives, I just ignore it.


Now now!
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

- often six furlongs ahead of the field, but on the wrong racecourse. - Colin
Dexter on (his creation the character) Morse; Radio Times 12-18 May 2012.
  #24  
Old November 26th 14, 04:20 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 128
Default cab files with 98se

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

Do modern mobos still have the 37 x 2 header then?
I thought it would be interesting to answer the question ...

... which you have up to 2006 or so. (Do more modern mobos have a
floppy controller? I would hope so, but ...)


It would appear that a few of the Asrock "Fatal1ty" P67 motherboards
have floppy connectors:

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%...Specifications

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%...Specifications

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/P67%20Ext...Specifications

The Fatal1ty P67 Performance, Fatal1ty P67 Professional and P67
Extreme. They all support floppy drives - and the first 2 support IDE
drives. They also all have PS/2 style mouse and keyboard connectors.

They support 3'rd and 2'nd Generation Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Xeon /
Pentium / Celeron in LGA1155 Package.

Some of those boards were sold by Newegg as recently as December 2013.

There is one seller on ebay that is selling the Fatal1ty P67 Performance
motherboard - in the Netherlands. He apparently has 6 available, sold
4. Price is 40 euros. There are a couple of Fatal1ty P67 Professional
for sale - again in Europe, but for a ridiculous amount (over $200 USD).

The Asrock P67 Pro3 also has a floppy connector:

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/P67%20Pro...Specifications

I'm thinking that maybe quite a few LGA1155 motherboards with the P67
chipset might have floppy connectors, even boards made by companies
other than Asrock.

And then there's the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3:

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68%20Ext...Specifications

Also has a floppy connector - and no IDE.

What's clear is that if given the choice to add a floppy drive or IDE
(PATA) hard drive to new(er) boards, it seems the floppy drive wins.
  #25  
Old November 26th 14, 12:00 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lee
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 196
Default cab files with 98se

On Monday, November 24, 2014 12:12:07 PM UTC-8, Bill Cunningham wrote:
"Lee" wrote in message
...

[...]

So Bill's next question will probably be along the lines of if I have
freedos at C: then how do I run setup from the hard drive? My bet is that
with the emulated C: drive in place, you would copy the win98 folder to D:
and then change prompts to D: and change directories to run setup from the
cabs folder there. And the magic of the emulator will knock the letter down
for you automatically such that setup then thinks it's running from C: even
though the prompt says D: plainly - setup never knows about the emulated
drive being there. Will just have to try it and see what happens, but
that's my best guess until I go there myself and find out for sure. If you
actually need to boot drive D: and get it bootable from freedos we can do
that but not with MS-DOS software. I used aefdisk to partition and quick
format with, but it will only format FAT 32 partitions and it will allow you
to set the active partition flag to any partition or drive possible unlike
MS-DOS software.

There's alot to digest in your post. My BIOSs is accessed with F2. It
does recognize the USB sandisk I have but will not boot. XP sets it up with
I: so would I need to copy the win98 directory to that? I do have linux too
and have access to dd. What can be done with it now? I guess BIOS is being
phased out and they're going to UFI and EUFI and using UUIDs.

So how do I set I: to C: ?

Bill


That's actually a non-issue since you write files to it as I: but when you boot from it, the BIOS sets it up as C: anyway - you can't change this if you wanted to. It's the only way they can make the USB drive bootable. It is emulating a hard drive entirely and doesn't ever change drive letters as long as it's in the slot as described below, what I wrote before this was just hope and it was misplaced.

Your not booting USB might be from a few simple mistakes easily made. First you want to select the type of Boot you want - I chose BIOS in Rufus since I'm running an older machine, there is a choice for UFI and other NT types but I didn't bite on those choices. Then you need to be sure and use FAT for the file system and not FAT32 or NTFS, they really need to call it FAT16 there. And then select MS-DOS for the system to boot, try just that much to see if it will then boot the USB stick. If successful it will say you are using a USA keyboard and you will see a C:\ prompt below that text. Pull a directory (dir + ENTER) and indeed there is a drive there and it has folders with all your files in them that you wrote to drive I:\ back when you were in XP. I: has become C:, but this means you have to install files to D:, power down, remove the USB drive, power up to boot the real hard drive as C: and then do the actual installation from there.

It worked here and I was amazed, the first time thru I didn't realize I could select between freedos and MS-DOS which I know much better than freedos. First thing I did was enter the ver command to find out that it's Windows ME boot disk running the show. Not happy with that I went back to XP and copied 98se io.sys and command.com and dropped them on the USB stick and they settled right in and now boot 4.10.2222 version. So that was enough success for me to dust off an old 3.2 gig Seagate drive and go solo with just it and the USB drive with cab files on it. Plus some tools.

During that installation attempt the USB drive started blinking and the install hung hopelessly so it appears that even with a no boot to the USB, if it's still in the machine it can cause problems. And the USB drive is an emulated hard drive in it's own right so you'll have to set up the real hard drive as drive 81 or in other words drive D:. You'll have to make it bootable with files copied to it from the USB C: drive or another companion real hard drive and shut down the system, remove the USB drive and then boot to the real C:\ drive to do the actual windows installation. It turns out you CAN use MS-DOS software to do this with after all because the USB drive has only one partition entry in it's table and the real hard drive starts out in it's own partition table in slot one which MS will do all day long.

The scheme is to first fdisk and format the real hard drives. From the USB drive this would be done with fdisk 2 switch to force it to mount the real hard drive, once partitions are set up you then want to format drive D:, E:, etc so they can store files that will come from the USB drive C:. Copy io.sys to D: first, then msdos.sys, then command.com. Read only and system attributes must be applied to both .sys files at that point and then if you do fdisk 2 /cmbr from the USB drive, your real hard drive is now bootable.. That's not a typo, it's /cmbr for the second hard drive since /mbr is reserved for the first drive and we don't want to do that to the USB drive.

Msdos.sys at this level and point is just a filler text file, a hold over from real DOS 6 days if you will - it's still required and both io.sys and msdos.sys MUST have read only and hidden attributes or it will puke all over the place. To make a suitable msdos.sys one only has to do this from a command prompt:

echo ; ebd d:\msdos.sys

and the file is written to d: as directed by the greater than sign, almost too simple but it's all that's necessary. You then run the attrib.exe command:

attrib d:\*.sys +h +s +r

and that will cover both io.sys and msdos.sys files. They used to have to be the first two and in that precise order but with DOS 7 this requirement is no longer needed - I still like to do it anyway. You'll find io.sys renamed to winboot.sys in your cab files, precopy2.cab and again in BASE5.CAB which also holds all the ebd floppy boot disk files with CDROM drivers ect in there. BUT if you are using a drive larger than 127 gigs then you run the risk of overwriting your boot sectors if you get close to full on it. Which is why I went with the 48 bit LBA patched io.sys for my system since I WAS going there. For windows you also need the patched ESDI_506.PDR file since this is the one that will actually get you past 127 gigs, kinda hard to do with just DOS but I want the access routines in place within io.sys since I can have them. Put the patched io.sys file in your installation cab folder and also a copy of it renamed to winboot.sys and there is a good chance you'll find it running the show when your done installing windows. The patched ESDI_506.PDR placed in the cabs folder will also make windows installation use that one instead of the plain jane one. The command\ebd folder will have the old io.sys in it but you can just overwrite it with the good version, it's only used with bootdisk.bat file which is to be found in the command folder. And that's just for a DOS mode way to build an ebd floppy disk.

At boot up Io.sys by default looks for himem.sys in the windows folder along with ifshlp.sys and dblbuff.sys. If they are there then they are loaded and used letting you have the higher DOS memory aspects that might be required to run setup without hassles. This is something else I do, just because I don't need the troubles I might have if I don't do it. Win95 I know for a fact will not be able to run setup without these files loaded and running with io.sys, don't recall having the same troubles with Win98 but I don't go looking for these kinds of troubles and the 98 boot disk does this automagically every time. So since I'm 'forced' to have a windows folder in this manner, I might as well have a windows\options\cabs folder, put the cabs in there and let windows install from there so that all future access to windows installation files is seamless and trouble free.

So fdisk /mbr or fdisk 2 /cmbr first looks for io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com on the root drive. If found they are all linked to boot together, if they are not found then no joy, you don't boot that hard drive using this method. The other thing that is needed is the active partition flag, if it's not set then no joy even if you have all the files right. But MS-DOS fdisk will only set the first partition slot with an active partition flag but is still usable here since D: drive has it's own partition table and is not effected by the one on the USB drive. I see no reason why one couldn't use sys.com from the root of the USB C: drive either. Sys d: should do it, but sys.com has to be on the USB stick in the root or the LOCALE folder since it's part of the path statement as setup by Rufus.

I misspoke in my earlier reply, I should have stated that the floppy cable that came with my Dell has only one drive connector on it - of course the standard controller is capable of running two floppies, you just can't get there from here because the BIOS is running that show and it says NO, just the one and only a 1.44 3.5 drive. It does have the connector after the floppy cable twist for the A: drive at the end in full compliance with the normal two drive cable but no connectors for a B: drive. Cheap and one off, you bet. I got it for 57 bills and it came with XP and disk, keyboard, LCD monitor, and mouse. $5 for a 3.09 GHz Hyperthreading P4 and I'm set. 98 installs in 8 minutes and boots to a working desktop in about 20 seconds from power on. Quite a bit slower when using the 3.2 gig drive though, very surprised by that.

Last I knew only OEM versions of 98 were bootable, all retail were not. Doesn't matter if it's upgrade or full, OEM is the bootable CD. I have retail full and it doesn't boot, it also doesn't have the powertoys directory with tweakui in it. I despaired quite a bit about that until someone posted a link where I could download it - wow!! There has been a bit of water passed under the bridge since then.
  #26  
Old November 26th 14, 08:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Bill Cunningham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 52
Default cab files with 98se


"Hot-Text" wrote in message
...
"Bill Cunningham" wrote in message
...
I have a CD copy of 98se and it doesn't boot. Are there any cabinet
files that would contain mscdec.exe and some generic ms-dos driver? I'm
not quite sure how to boot this CD since it's not bootable. It's just a
copy. I know I will need io.sys and msdos.sys and autoexec.bat too atleast
maybe more files.

Bill



Upgrades CD of Windows 98 se
Are not DOS bootable

Yes cabinet files contain mscdec.exe
and some generic ms-dos driver

And

One problem I am having here with some of the files on my 98se is taht I
can't execute them because I am using a 64 bit OS. The XP is x64.

Bill


  #27  
Old November 26th 14, 08:15 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Bill Cunningham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 52
Default cab files with 98se


"Bill Cunningham" wrote in message
...

"Hot-Text" wrote in message
...
"Bill Cunningham" wrote in message
...
I have a CD copy of 98se and it doesn't boot. Are there any cabinet
files that would contain mscdec.exe and some generic ms-dos driver? I'm
not quite sure how to boot this CD since it's not bootable. It's just a
copy. I know I will need io.sys and msdos.sys and autoexec.bat too
atleast maybe more files.

Bill



Upgrades CD of Windows 98 se
Are not DOS bootable

Yes cabinet files contain mscdec.exe
and some generic ms-dos driver

And

One problem I am having here with some of the files on my 98se is taht
I can't execute them because I am using a 64 bit OS. The XP is x64.

Bill


And I can't use extract.exe with the cabinet files while using XP x64.

Bill


  #28  
Old November 26th 14, 10:11 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Bill Cunningham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 52
Default cab files with 98se

Hum...There seems to be another problem here. Rufus is not letting me
format my USB because it says device not compatible with cluster size. I
know what that means but I don't know why I'm getting that error. It must
have (or seems to look like) it has something to do with the USB.

Bill


  #29  
Old November 27th 14, 01:12 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 128
Default cab files with 98se

Bill Cunningham wrote:

One problem I am having here with some of the files on my 98se
is that I can't execute them because I am using a 64 bit OS.
The XP is x64.

And I can't use extract.exe with the cabinet files while
using XP x64.


(as I shake my head...)

You're not supposed to run the extract.exe from the CD. It's a 16-bit
program - no wonder it won't run on a 64-bit NT-based OS.

From your file-explorer, right-click on the cab file and select
"extract". It's that simple.
  #30  
Old November 27th 14, 04:30 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Bill Cunningham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 52
Default cab files with 98se


"98 Guy" "98"@Guy . com wrote in message
...
Bill Cunningham wrote:

One problem I am having here with some of the files on my 98se
is that I can't execute them because I am using a 64 bit OS.
The XP is x64.

And I can't use extract.exe with the cabinet files while
using XP x64.


(as I shake my head...)

You're not supposed to run the extract.exe from the CD.


Oh I copy it to XP. I don't try to extract from the win98 CD.

It's a 16-bit
program - no wonder it won't run on a 64-bit NT-based OS.

From your file-explorer, right-click on the cab file and select
"extract". It's that simple.



 




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