I'm working on a pal's IBM PII computer which was extremely slow so I
tried to format it but now I cannot boot from CD . I have check all
setup BIOS but nothing shows or states how to change the boot
sequence. Can anyone help pls.

wrote in message
...
I'm working on a pal's IBM PII computer which was extremely slow so I
tried to format it but now I cannot boot from CD . I have check all
setup BIOS but nothing shows or states how to change the boot
sequence. Can anyone help pls.

More than likely it doesn't support boot from CD. That is a feature that was
not implemented in a lot of older computers. You need to boot it from a
floppy. Search online for win98 boot floppy or find the original win98 setup
floppy disk.

Mike

"Michael Kennedy" wrote in message
. ..

wrote in message
...
I'm working on a pal's IBM PII computer which was extremely slow so I
tried to format it but now I cannot boot from CD . I have check all
setup BIOS but nothing shows or states how to change the boot
sequence. Can anyone help pls.

More than likely it doesn't support boot from CD. That is a feature that
was not implemented in a lot of older computers. You need to boot it from
a floppy. Search online for win98 boot floppy or find the original win98
setup floppy disk.

Mike



Yep, that's how things used to be. In a clean machine there are no CDROM
drivers, so that's why you can't boot from it. The Win 98 floppys Mike
mentions install DOS routines and a generic CDROM driver. Amongst DOS is
FDISK for proper formatting and partitioning before installing Windows.
Your CDROM may now appear as an odd Letter, look carefully at the text on
screen, and you may notice it telling you that CDROM is drive R: or some
such random letter. Type R: to get onto the drive, then you can type Setup
and away you go.



Gareth.

"gareth magennis" wrote in message
...

"Michael Kennedy" wrote in message
. ..

wrote in message
...
I'm working on a pal's IBM PII computer which was extremely slow so I
tried to format it but now I cannot boot from CD . I have check all
setup BIOS but nothing shows or states how to change the boot
sequence. Can anyone help pls.

More than likely it doesn't support boot from CD. That is a feature that
was not implemented in a lot of older computers. You need to boot it from
a floppy. Search online for win98 boot floppy or find the original win98
setup floppy disk.

Mike



Yep, that's how things used to be. In a clean machine there are no CDROM
drivers, so that's why you can't boot from it. The Win 98 floppys Mike
mentions install DOS routines and a generic CDROM driver. Amongst DOS is
FDISK for proper formatting and partitioning before installing Windows.
Your CDROM may now appear as an odd Letter, look carefully at the text on
screen, and you may notice it telling you that CDROM is drive R: or some
such random letter. Type R: to get onto the drive, then you can type
Setup and away you go.



Gareth.




Just a warning - last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why. Could just have been
my PC or the disks. Anyway I have one here that definately installs Win98
so if you have any bother I can email you a copy.



Gareth.

Last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why.

The CD ROM -- such as the one for W2K -- should have a utility that creates
the required floppies.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
Last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why.

The CD ROM -- such as the one for W2K -- should have a utility that
creates
the required floppies.




Just had a look on my Win98SE disk and can't find the utility amongst the
zillions of files. I know there is one that launches during setup, but can
you launch it just off the CD?



Gareth.

gareth magennis wrote:
"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
Last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why.
The CD ROM -- such as the one for W2K -- should have a utility that
creates
the required floppies.




Just had a look on my Win98SE disk and can't find the utility amongst the
zillions of files. I know there is one that launches during setup, but can
you launch it just off the CD?



Gareth.



William is correct that there is a utility on the Windows 2000 (and XP)
cds for creating the set of floppies required to initialise the setup
process if your system can't be booted from a cd. AFAIK there was no
such utility on the Win98 cds.

To the OP: I am surprised that a P-II system does not support booting
from cd. Be sure that your cd was made to be bootable. If it is an
original operating system cd it should be. If you cannot find where to
change the boot sequence there is often a hotkey that you can press at
boot time to give you a menu of bootable drives to choose from. IIRC on
IBM systems you need to press F12.

--
Tim Phipps

replace "invalid" with "uk" to reply by email

On Mon, 26 May 2008 14:33:29 +0200, gareth magennis
wrote:


"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
Last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why.

The CD ROM -- such as the one for W2K -- should have a utility that
creates
the required floppies.




Just had a look on my Win98SE disk and can't find the utility amongst the
zillions of files. I know there is one that launches during setup, but
can
you launch it just off the CD?


With win98 and earlier, yes. Use the boot floppy to load cdrom drivers
and format the hard disk (if necessary), then just enter "D:\setup"

Assuming that the cdrom is mounted as D:, of course.

Many computers from that era were supposed to be bootable from CD, but
weren't. Presumably this came down to limitations in the BIOS's cdrom
drivers. Seldom a problem in newer equipment.

As to boot images not working, the chances are very high that the disk,
or drive, or both are faulty. I always found floppy disks to be a very
delicate medium, with frequent failures of both disk and drive.

gareth magennis wrote:

Just a warning - last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why. Could just have been
my PC or the disks. Anyway I have one here that definately installs Win98
so if you have any bother I can email you a copy.

Gareth.


http://www.bootdisk.com/ was OK the last time I needed to boot a
corrupted 98 system.


--
http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in
your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm

Sporadic E is the Earth's aluminum foil beanie for the 'global warming'
sheep.

" wrote:

I'm working on a pal's IBM PII computer which was extremely slow so I
tried to format it

And how did you think that would help ?

Did you consider using 'disk clean up', defragging, or inspecting the
number of programs automatically loaded at start-up ? Norton AV is a
system performance killer for example especially on a PC of that vintage.



but now I cannot boot from CD . I have check all
setup BIOS but nothing shows or states how to change the boot
sequence. Can anyone help pls.

Is the CD drive even listed in the boot sequence options ? Booting from
CD wasn't always possible.

Graham

gareth magennis wrote:

Just a warning - last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why. Could just have been
my PC or the disks. Anyway I have one here that definately installs Win98
so if you have any bother I can email you a copy.

Google bootmec.exe for an ME boot disk maker program.

Graham

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


gareth magennis wrote:

Just a warning - last time I downloaded floppy boot disks from the
Interweb,
most of them (95 and 98) wouldn't work, don't know why. Could just have
been
my PC or the disks. Anyway I have one here that definately installs
Win98
so if you have any bother I can email you a copy.

Google bootmec.exe for an ME boot disk maker program.

Graham
Possession of a known good ME Floppy Boot Disk.
Can supply confirmed good copy if requested.
E_Mail appropriate information.
Also Dos 6** Floppies if you so desire??