ONE PROBLEM SOLVED! Problem: I have a Windows 98 disc and can get to the main setup easy, but when checking for available disk space it stops at 61% and asks me to 'insert diskette for drive B: and press any key'. Solution: I turned on 'Legacy Diskette A' (at 1.44MB). As for the rest, I nearly got there, but both my processors were too fast and the onboard sound isn't compatible anyway.
Have you partitioned and format the hard disk ? IIRC with Windows 98 you have to do this manually. Is the BIOS set to none for floppy disc, no FDC controller ? Have you tried copying the setup/install files to the HDD and running them from there ? Maybe this guide will help.
A quick bit of Googling seems to suggest that you need a Windows 98 Startup disk (i.e. a floppy disk) to install Win 98. There seem to be a few workarounds out there but they appear to be pretty limited in terms of sucess. Can I ask why you're looking to install such an old version of Windows? Is this for the PC that you've recently assembled?
Yes, 98 formats it anyway before going into install but I also did it with MS DOS. It was changed to FAT32, apparently 98 is no good with NTFS. The floppy was disabled anyway. Don't know what I'd do about FDC controller if it's there. How do I copy the setup and install files to the HDD? Installing a different OS isn't an option because if you try to install 98 while on a newer OS through the CD (rather than boot), it denies you because you're on a newer OS. Trust me, I've looked at lots of guides. All handily have no reference to this issue. That very guide that claims it works without a floppy also had this issue. All the steps in the guide appear to do is make you do manually what the disc already does automatically before starting the install. The problem occurs in Part 2 (ctrl + F: "Setup now checks disk space", picture below, the bottom bar reaches 61% then asks about drive B. Apparently I need a boot disk on a floppy, but since I have no floppy drive I wanted to see if there was a CD-only option. It appears there should be somewhere out there. You can ask but I don't want the topic to get sidetracked. It's my older computer, and it's to play an old game. No compatibility mode, virtual PC or editing makes it work. The only way is a regular old install on an actual machine using either Windows 95 or 98. Yes I've Googled this a lot, and for this specific issue no one seems to know and all solutions are guesswork. I thought it'd be handy if there's someone here who has managed to get 95 or 98 installed.
Perhaps you could create separate partitions on the USB drive for where the original disk breaks were, and assign new drive letters to them to simulate all of the discs? I don't actually know if that would work, but i thought I could try giving you an idea to try, at the very least.
Disabled or set to none ? By following the guide i posted... You don't need a floppy to install 95/98 the setup disc was only meant for people who were installing on a blank HDD without the files needed to read data from a CD drive.
Disabled as I recall. I'll look again. EDIT: 'Legacy Diskette A' and 'Boot Up Floppy Seek' are both 'disabled'. Oh yeah, well I tried that and it didn't stop it asking for the drive B diskette. In the automatic installation I think it "copies Windows 98 files" to the hard drive. From what I've read, except this guide, you need the floppy stratup disk and the CD. *shrug*
A bit of googling suggests that this error may be a result of defective install media, so if you haven't already done so, it might be worth double checking the install CD is ok. I seem to recall that Win 98 is horribly fussy when it comes to hardware - for example, it won't install on a computer with a CPU running at >2.1 GHz iirc.
The only thing the boot disc that comes with Windows 98 does is load a command interpreter (command.com) and CD Rom support, if it's of interest the files it loads are listed here. What size did you make the FAT32 partition ? Did you mark it active ? When you copied the files from the CD to the newly partition and formatted HDD did you run the setup from the files you just copied to the HDD ? Have you checked any of the log files that are created during setup ? http://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-98-log-files-and-utilities-help-you-troubleshoot-your-hardware/ Bootlog.txt Detlog.txt Netlog.txt Setuplog.txt Detcrash.log @bawjaws yea bad install media can do it that's why i suggested copying the files to the HDD, I'm guessing that if it was bad install media it would error when copying wouldn't it ?
I've fixed it. See opening post edit. Ah geez, I'm using a Q6600 which is 2.4GHz. Also it can't take 1GB+ of RAM, though there's a workaround for that. Hopefully my older parts work.
I think the >2.1GHz issue only affects Win 98 and not 98SE, so you might be ok. Unfortunately, it can be a real battle to get old software to play nicely with modern hardware.
98 is what I'm using. Something messed up because I ended up just getting a blinking cursor. I'll see what reinstalling Windows does.
I have an old first gen itx Athlon XP with 512MB DDR, nvidia gts6?00 512MB, and 16GB ide SSD in. It's super tiny and all passive. I use it for retro games that don't play nice on current Windows, and are too much hassle to get running in dosbox or some other kind of vm solution. It has no floppy drive, no optical and I don't own externals of either of those drive types either... so... I learned how to install Win98 off a USB stick. It requires some special preparations but it's not too much trouble. First, you need a USB flash drive no larger than 4GB. Larger drives seem to have more issues getting things to go along smoothly for whatever reason. Next you want to go into diskpart and set up an active partition and format it in FAT. Then, I use rufus to set up bootable DOS using an image of DOS 8 I have. Then you'll want to add in the USBASPI HDD driver to the config.sys so it's aware of itself as USB as it helps being able to see and work with the internal disk as instal target later. Add diskpart utility as it's more useful and easier to use to prepare your target disk if needed than the crappy old fdisk... or in my case I use gparted instead from a live linux so I can make sure the partition is mib aligned on SSD. Then, copy over all the contents of the Win98 CD/image to a directory on the USB you just prepared. Slipstreaming in USB HDD support is a really good idea. I also like to make another directory with any relevant device drivers so I have them ready. Boot it up, prepare the target disk if needed, then cd to the Win98 directory and enter setup. Sometimes it takes a bit of faffing about to get it to see the internal disk as valid target but keep at it. Otherwise it will install to the USB stick if fails to see the internal... though that can be potentially useful too if you like, such as if you don't have a dedicated system for 98 and don't want to fool around with a dual booting scenario which can be a real mess with current and ancient Windows version. If all went well it will install 98 in a few minutes. If not, alternate method is to reboot with livelinux and using gparted to a disk to disk partition clone from the USB stick to the internal drive. Don't forget to make sure the internal drive is marked as active so you can boot it.
