Slowly we go!!

[jaym]

After the battles of "Missing Operation Systems" we are moving forward at getting the brother in laws computer operational. I know have access to A,B,C,&D drives, but, the C was so corrupted I reformatted. Now I am in new water and am intending to tred slowly. Could you please advise me on what steps I should take and possible dowloads which might be availlable?? He would like to move forard to windows 95 or 98. I have both versions which came with computers I purchased. Will these work??

Awaiting you reply
Jay

[Robert M]

If you want you may still be able to recover the data on the formatted drive with an unformat command executed from floppy, depending on your version If not keep reading...
Only the "full version" of 95 will work.
The "upgrade" version of 95 cannot be used on a barebones DOS system.
The Windows 98 CD will work but I do not advise using it because it is your copy and Microsoft will not support it. He should buy his own copy of 98, that way he is entiitled to some free support from Microsoft for a limited time, and ongoing fee based support anytime.
For a Windows 98 system the following steps are needed:
Version 5 or later of DOS needs to be put on the machine.
If the machine has a CDROM drive and you bought 98 on a CDROM:
Access to the CDROM drive needs to be arranged.
After CDROM access is arranged, then Windows 98 can be installed.

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I never say thingy.

[eyesee]

The 95 upgrade will install on an empty hard drive. Ive done it many times & mentioned how to do it here before.
I installed the upgrade on an empty hard drive last night. Works fine
Theres something to keep in mind with that though: its version 4.00.950 (original 95). You should at a minimim install the kernel32 update from the microsoft site to bring it up to 4.00.950A
If you opt for 95 the best way to install it is to make a folder on the HDD called win95 & copy the contents of the win95 folder on the CD to the win95 folder on the hard drive. Always install 95 off the hard drive & never from CD
98 is a different ballgame
Let up know what you decide to do

[Double_Dutch]

Eyesee is right.

The Dutch upgrade version of W95 however needs Win.com. You can make that from the prompt with: rem >c:\win.com

When you're installing on a slower computer (<233 Mhz) with limited RAM (=<32 Mb) I would choose 95.

Ate

[Robert M]

You cannot install the upgrade version of windows 95 to a bare bones DOS system without the original windows 3.1 diskettes on hand.
The upgrade version is designed to upgrade the existing windows 3.1 installation or windows 3.11 installation without reformatting. Since the user has formatted and reinstalled DOS without reinstalling Windows 3.1 and no access to windows 3.1 diskettes I advised making sure to have on hand the full version of Windows 95, not the version of 95 which upgrades an existing 3.1 installlation. Both are available. It is possible to install windows 98 to a bare DOS system providing you meet the other hardware and software requirements.

[leeo]

Jaym can use the Win 95 upgrade version on the formatted drive if he has the first WIN 3.1 diskette. Start the installation, when it asks you for your prior WIN version, put in youf WIN 3.1 setup disk. It will look at it for a few seconds and then finish the WIN 95 installation. Good luck jaym.

[eyesee]

Again, you CAN install the 95 upgrade on a freshly formatted drive. You DONT need the 3.1 diskettes for the upgrade check
to do this from a C:> prompt type
copy con win386.exe & hit enter
hit enter
hit enter again
hold down control & hit Z
it will say one file copied
thats all you need to do
Win com is one of the files it checks for as well. All the upgrade does is to check for the presence of certain files (or A file). If it finds anything it wants, it installs
Ive done it countless times
Also be sure to copy the win95 folder on the cd to a win95 folder on the hard drive & install it from the hard drive. Theres many reasons for this

[jaym]

Hey, sorry I ahven't had a quick reply to the suggestions, but, here is where I stand.
I am still having trouble getting this PC in a usable state. When I run a check on the hard drive as windows tries to load, I get the following messages (yes, pluralP
XMS driver not loaded, Extended memory (XMS) manager not loaded, HMA not availlable, EMM386.exe not availlable. This is making me quite testy since the problem seems to be that I can't access the extended memory. I have it in the config.sys and have made sure the Autoexec.bat is correct, yet, the message still appears. I also am using my back pack cd for this installation, but, I can't seem to keep the drive availlable. almost everytime I reboot, I loose it. This should get me a few more point's on the stupid meter, I know, but, I'm perplexed.

Thanks
Jay

[Robert M]

Maybe Himem.sys does not exist on the drive even though you reference it correctly in the config.sys. Same is true of the EMM message.
This is to be expected if the drive has been formatted. Also the full location has to be specified in config.sys for example:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE
DOS=High, UMB
COPY HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE onto the drive if not already there. Send more info; are you still going to install windows on the portable?

[jaym]

Well, the going is good for the most part. The system is set up and we are trying to install windows95. I had to partition and create a D drive so the brother in law wouldn't continue to format and discard everything I created.

Question- - when I install, it tells me that there isn't enough drive space. I have deleted virtually everything on the C: partition and still cannot install on it. Should I do away with the C or D drive and take my chances?? I have the same configurations on both sides, but, the B-I-L had copied alot of useless information trying to find something that would work. I need some input.

Jaym

[Robert M]

A couple of questions..When you say the system is up and running, is it booting from the internal hard drive? Do you get to a c: prompt? What drive are you trying to install 95 on? What does a Dir [enter] command produce from the c> prompt? For information on software and hardware requirements, installatiion instructions, as well as installation problems, see the Windows 95 Resource Kit Book from Microsoft Press.

[jaym]

Thanks for getting back to me. I'll address your questions 1 at a time

1: Yes it is booting from the internal drive.
2: Yes it is going into c prompt.
3: As I stated previously, I partitioned the system to keep the B-I-L from deleting everything I had accompolished. I have attempted to load this both onto the c & d drives with the same result (not enough disk space)
4: Off the top of my head, the c drive contains the config.sys, autoexec.bat, himem, emm386, the the load for the back pack. There may be more that I don't recall.
The d drive is a mess with alot of nonsense the B-I-L copied onto it.

Question - I believe I read somewhere that it is easier to copy the information from the windows95 disk and then install, is this correct??

Thanks for the help
Jaym

[Eeyore]

Hi!
In some installations, after the initial files are copied from the CDROM, the system reboots. When it restarts it doesn't load the CDROM. So it can't find the rest of the files it needs to install.

So if you copy the contents of the CD disk's WIN95 directory to a directory on your hard drive (can be WIN95) it isn't interupted if the CDROM doesn't load. Also the installation generally progresses faster. And since you don't need a CDROM driver loaded, more memory is available for the installation program.

The drawback is if you have limited hard disk space to files are using it.

So copy it over if you have the space. Your previous question said you got an error of insufficient space. I dn't know what is with that. I have gotten that when installing on a compressed drive.
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Dennis
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[jaym]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try and keep everyone updated.

Jaym