win 3.1 on one floppy

[steppenwolf]

i bought a compaq 286 laptop thinking i could use it for words only and i see it has no harddrive or the cmos battery is dead and i dont know how to get into cmos and what the parameters are anyway

so how do you make the disc for win 3.1 for a floppy so i can use it for words? thanks

[Eeyore]

See Minimum Sized Windows (http://www.geocities.com/politalk/win31/slimwin.htm). While a working copy can be stored on one disk, I don't recall of you could run from one disk. Your 286 most likely has very little memory as well. If there were 4 or more mb of RAM, you could create a Ramdrive Windows 3.1 (http://www.geocities.com/politalk/rmdrv/win31.htm). Without a hard drive, you could only do it using a ZIP drive.

You should have a separate boot disk with the drivers needed to boot to the DOS prompt with the drivers loaded (himem.sys). The second disk would have the Windows files on it (Windows Directory) as well as the COMMAND.COM. If the computer has two 1.44mb drives, it may be possible to use a JOIN command or have both drives in path and run Windows. Once running, one of the disks could be removed to insert the program you want to run and/or save files.

Hope this helps.
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Dennis
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[steppenwolf]

ok thanks

it only has 2 megs memory

i can write words in a thing called logitech popdos and read in windows 98 but its tedious and silly waste of time i guess

im just useing one a drive

[Eeyore]

You might try Lotusworks (http://www.geocities.com/politalk/lotus/index.html). This is a DOS based program which I use as my primary word processor/database program. It should work in a 286. It only needs about 550kb conventional memory. So you have more than enough.

Again, using a RAMDRIVE, you can have full use of the A drive after boot for saving files. You can run Lotusworks directly from the floppy drive (slow). Again,you should have a COMMAND.COM on the disk.

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Dennis
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[steppenwolf]

i dont even know what a ramdrive is

maybe ill figure out something . the thing has a modem in it

it must have a hardrive .. its just the cmos battery is dead and its lost

thanks

[steppenwolf]

http://www5.compaq.com/support/files/obsolete_diagnostics.html

thats supposed to be some zip file for diag but i dont know how to use it

[Eeyore]

With most desktops, you press F10 in boot. Usually you will see a white square in the upper right corner flash on and hear a couple of beeps. At that point press the F10 key to enter the BIOS. This may work for you old laptop.

Ramdrive is a file with most DOS that uses memory to make a virtual drive.
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Dennis
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[Eeyore]

From what I read on one of the maunals, the Setup is run from a floppy disk. So hopefully, what you downloaded will do the trick.
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Dennis
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[Eeyore]

The question was asked if Windows could fit on a single disk. The answer is yes!

After I got my 386 back up, I created Windows 3.11 Run From A Floppy (http://www.geocities.com/politalk/win31/slimwin.htm#floppy). I use a Boot floppy to start the computer and load drivers, then a Windows floppy to run Windows. Both disks are DOS 6.20 DOUBLE SPACED. I do not know if Double Space will work on a 286 computer. If so, Windows 3.1 could work as long as there is a 1.44 floppy drive and enough memory. I believe 4mb is the requirement for Windows 3.11.

Having multiple floppy drives would of course increase what it could do. This can work whether or not there is a hard drive present. I hade a CDROM and Network loaded. Could have added a ZIP Drive. Tried same disks on my Pentium and it could not initialize the video card. The Pentium has PCI video. I was using SVGA drivers. Maybe simple VGA would work.

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Dennis
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