Installing Windows 98 SE

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gemillam

Junior Member
I have a Windows 98 SE Full install disk that I got off of eBay, just with the idea that I was going to use it on my new Intel iMac once some genius figured out how to make Vanderpool work on it ;). Well, I got Workstation configured and it's seeing my CD drive, but it isn't recognizing it as a bootable CD. Isn't all Windows SE Full Installation disks bootable? Is there something I need to do that I am unaware of?
 
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Probably your CD isn't bootable. To solve the problem you should boot from bootable DOS floppy (you can use image) and make some preparation before installation.

Make new FAT partition on your virtual HDD by FDISK and format it by using FORMAT C: /S.
If you want that Windows 98 is installed faster don't forget to add EMM386 in the CONFIG.SYS.

Now you are ready to launch setup.exe from your Win98 CD. :)
 
Hmmm... it didn't come with a boot floppy, just the CD. How can I create a boot floppy image for Parallels that will boot the VM and let me run the setup? Thanks for your help, BTW.
 
OK, I've downloaded the Windows 98 startup boot floppy image... but its an .exe file. I am doing all of this on my mac. Do I need another PC for this? Sorry to be such a pain here... I really appreciate all of your help.
 
gemillam said:
OK, I've downloaded the Windows 98 startup boot floppy image... but its an .exe file. I am doing all of this on my mac. Do I need another PC for this? Sorry to be such a pain here... I really appreciate all of your help.
Click to expand...

Here is a boot floppy disk image. Please boot from it and in the menu choose "Boot with XMS and CD-ROM drivers"
 

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Nadine,

I'm having the same issues. I got XP installed, but my WIndows 98 or Windows 95 disks won't boot, and I can't seem to be able to download the freedos.fdd file you posted, I get kicked back to a log in screen. I can't get Parallels to recognize my physical floppy drive, so I believe I too need .fdd files of both, unless you can tell me how to create an .fdd file.
 
How is the floppy attached to your system? If there's a /dev/... file that points to it, you can create a .fdd file by doing "dd if=/dev/... of=file.fdd bs=18k" in a Terminal window. I don't have a floppy drive on any of my Macs, so I can't get more specific than that.
 
ymaynard-

I tried that and parallels did not like my resulting .fdd file. This is frustrating because XP went so smooth, but I can't get 95 or 98 to go.
 
OK... now we are getting somewhere. I used the FreeDOS image to boot the VM, and loaded it as instructed. For some reason it didn't see the physical CD, but it DID see an .iso I made from it.

It started doing its thing, but then it stalled, saying "Windows Setup requires 7340032 bytes available on your C: drive." From this, I gather that FreeDOS set up C: as a ram disk with enough space to install a bootable system, but the stupid Windows setup app wants to install on C: and expects a hard drive.

So, now what do I do? How can I fool this thing into doing the right thing? BTW, thank you VERY MUCH for your help.
 
After booting from freedos.fdd you should do following prior to Win9x installation:

1. Run fdisk.exe and create partiotion and make it active.
2. Reboot VM and format disk C:

Win9x setup are stupid - it can't make partition on raw disk and can't even format it :rolleyes:
 
Hmmm... I think those more knowledgeable about DOS and Windows who are helping us poor Mac users assume certain skills we Mac users lack. :)

When I ran fdisk, I expected it to launch and to see the hard disk file that was made by Parallel Workstation during the VM creation. Instead, it is fixated on the idea that there are only 3 drives...

a: the FreeDOS boot floppy
c: A RAM disk called "TURBODRV" that has just enough space to install FreeDOS and run it, and
d: the Windows 98 SE .iso image that is pretending to be a CD-ROM drive.

Because of this, fdisk never runs. If I go to any of the drives and type "fdisk", it thinks about it for a minute, and tells me "Invalid drive designation...Operation Terminated."

So I guess what I need to ask is how to get FreeDOS to recognize the Hard Disk file, and give it a drive letter, which is preferably "c:".
 
Maybe a good clue in finding out how to cajole FreeDOS into finding and setting up a drive letter for the hard disk file is to look at my settings and the Config.sys file FreeDOS uses when it boots up initially. Attached to this post (hopefully) are two screen captures that show the pertinent information.

Boy, once all this gets worked out, I hope I will be able to help others in this forum in the future who go down the same path.
 

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Alright. I've gotten closer. Here is how, and here is also where it stops now. Maybe some Windows guru can help.

The freedos.fdd file provided in an earlier post will not work with my Win98SE CD because setup.exe (and Workstation, for that matter) expects the hard disk file to be the C: drive. But the software on the freedos.fdd file uses a ramdisk app called TDSK.EXE or Turbodisk that automatically sets itself up as the C: drive. Because of this, fdisk won't work, setup won't work, it all falls apart.

So, what I did was to find out how Turbodisk does its thing on the net, and along the way, I found a different ram disk called xmsdsk.exe. This one allows you to set the drive letter for your ram disk. I edited the FDCONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files so that it ignored the original ram disk software and used the new one. It took some jumping through hoops to get the new files downloaded, put in an .iso, and installed into the .fdd files, but I did it. I never thought I would need my ancient DOS skills, but its all coming back to me. <shiver>

Well, anyway, once the FreeDOS floppy booted, made its ram disk and installed a full system, I was able to run fdisk on the hard disk file, assign it a drive letter and format it. At that point I ran SETUP.EXE from the Windows 98 SE .iso file I made from my CD. It began hopefully, and ran scandisk, found no errors, then began copying files it said it needed to install Windows. After a good deal of time (20-30 minutes) it finished, and the screen flashed then went back to black with a line that says "Error loading PROGMAN.EXE", and then it dumped me back into the D: drive (the Win98 .iso).

That is the farthest I have gotten in my quest to run Windows on an Intel Mac, for sure, and I have a feeling that I may be very near the end. As for this PROGMAN.EXE, the 'net says its a program shell used in Win 3 through 98, and can be found as an option in almost all other versions. Is this PROGMAN.EXE supposed to be present in the FreeDOS system running the VM? Anyone know what I should do about this?
 
Well, I gave up and called my Windows IT-man brother, and he has a copy of Windows XP SP1 Full Install he never got around to installing. He is sending it to me monday, so Windows 98 SE is out.

But, on the good side of things, while I was waiting for Windows to fail, I downloaded the 1386 distro of Ubuntu, and it installed with flying colors on Beta 2! It even sees my WiFi! The only problem I have is that it doesn't recognize my "floppy". But as an old Mac user, I think floppies suck anyway. Parallels is great!
 
Duke,

I was finally able to get Windows 98 SE installed by using the physical disk that shipped with the product, I had a disk that apparently did not require the floppy to load.

I never did get Windows 95 to load, but I'm pleased to have loaded both 98 and XP.

Unfortunately the time it took to install Windows 98 SE was about 2 hours. I'm not sure if using an .iso image would be quicker.
 
TheLorax said:
Duke,

I was finally able to get Windows 98 SE installed by using the physical disk that shipped with the product, I had a disk that apparently did not require the floppy to load.

I never did get Windows 95 to load, but I'm pleased to have loaded both 98 and XP.

Unfortunately the time it took to install Windows 98 SE was about 2 hours. I'm not sure if using an .iso image would be quicker.
Click to expand...

** Thinking back through the mists of time..... **

If I remember rightly, Win9x setup routines wouldn't try anything beyond Programmed I/O drive accesses during the installation process. That's just about the slowest mode possible, and probably made slower by the emulation/abstraction of the actual drive controller.

Before running Windows's SETUP.EXE, try dropping to a DOS prompt, and run SMARTDRV.EXE.

Windows's setup may give a warning about SMARTDRV running (or that might've been Win3.11 which complained about it...), but carry on regardless.

SMARTDRV is a caching program for disc accesses. I used to run it before doing a Windows installation to make things go much quicker. The XP setup probably uses decent I/O caching and faster IDE modes to appear much quicker.

Hope that helps!

(I wish I could test it myself, but I'll not have an MBP until mid-May!)

Cheers,
Chris
 
win98SE

:) I was able to install windows 98se today. It took a little less long than when installing onto a PentiumMMX-200MHz

I am trying to get better graphics. All I gt is VGA (800*600*16colors):rolleyes:
After a lot of trying I was able to get 1024*768*256 (with a laptop LCD-driver) but it wouldn't stay installed. After every reboot it would drop out.

I then tried the CD BootCamp makes for XP. This didn't run properly. I now have more devices in the device-manager but they all have (!) next to them.:rolleyes:

does anyone know of a driver that will give me more resolution & color or is this bound to beta restrictions?:confused:
 
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