Can't load Windows 95 onto old computer. Help!

[Wiggo]

Get ya self a startup disk, http://www.startdisk.com/, then.

[asklepios]

i think that your BIOS is set with a HD as primary boot device.
wouldn't just pressing F9 at boot up will bring the boot menu from where you can chose CD-ROM as boot device. :?:
it could be a very lame point against all the excellent tips you got, but i was just wondering that is it possible?

[Mr. C]

Those Hewlett Packards are most often some proprietary sons of *&^% - might see if you can scour their site and determine if you need some "special" drivers:?:

[Gammit]

Okay, I know what the problem is. First, the BIOS doesn't support booting from a CD (you're lucky it supports CD-ROMS at all!). That means you are left with HDD and FDD to boot from. What you need is DOS cd-rom drivers. Some CD-roms come with floppys with DOS drivers on them. You either need to obtain one of these disks or download drivers from the net. After DOS has drivers for the CD-rom, it can read from it. I'm off to bed now but I see if I can find any sites with these drivers tomorrow. Good luck!

-Josh

Thanks, Josh. I thought I saw something about a CD-ROM driver being loaded, but I could be wrong. I'll do a search for them, but if you come up with something, by all means, give me the link. Thanks again.

[SpeedFreak]

Okay, here is the link:
ftp://ftp.mitsumi.com/pub/drivers/ide158.exe

Download this, double click on it. It will extract the files. Copy these to a floppy and run setupd.exe on the packard bell. It's okay that these are mitusmi drivers, they've worked on every computer and cd-rom I've had to use them on. Good luck!

-Josh

[DigitalDD]

I believe that Win95 CD's are not bootable even if the BIOS supported booting from the CD.

get a ready made boot disk with CDROM support from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

[Gammit]

Ok, I finally figured out the password, and now I can set the BIOS to have the computer boot from the CD-ROM (odd that clearing the CMOS didn't work). Of course, I still can't bring any drive letter other than A (cd C: or D: doesn't work... or any other letter, for that matter). I have a startup floppy that I've been using for all of this. Is this the same as the bootdisk some of you are referring me to? :confused:

[smoothshrek]

No, a startup disk is not the same as a boot disk... you should take their good advice and download one to a floppy and use it to boot to DOS... if the boot disk is a good one it will automatically load a cdrom driver and then you can see the cdrom and run setup.exe from the cd.. if the system is that old you may have to copy the .cab files form the cd to the hard drive and run setup from there...have fun... the drivers for your hardware will likely be the hardest work as your systemboard is so old..
cya

[Gammit]

Awesome. I'll trying this next.

[Gammit]

Ok, I downloaded the startup fisk files, saved to a floppy (wasn't at home), then tried to run the exe. It told me to insert another floppy, but then rejected every one I used. I also tried just using the original floppy, but my computer says it's not a system disk.

What am I doing wrong NOW?

[SpeedFreak]

Gammit, I'm a little confused about what your doing, so here's what you should do:

1. Insert whatever the first bootdisk you used (to reformat) and boot up.
2. At the prompt, type C: and press "enter".
3. If you get the C:\ prompt, skip to step 11, if you get an error keep reading!
4. Type FDISK.
5. If you get a message saying something about support for large hard drives, press "Y" and then "enter". You probably won't get this message.
6. Press 4 and then enter.
7. If it shows any partitions, then you're good, so keep pressing ESC till you get to the DOS prompt, then skip to step 11. If not, press "ESC".
8. Back at the main FDISK screen, press "1" and then enter.
7. Type in the size for your partition.
8. It will make the partition and put you back at the main FDISK screen.
9. Press 4 and then enter. Now you should have a partition showing.
10. Leave the boot disk in and press CTRL, ALT, and DEL to reboot.
11. At the prompt, type (without quotes) "format C: /s" and press enter.
12. After it's done, take out the boot disc and press CTRL, ALT, DEL to reboot.
13. At the prompt, stick in the disc with the files extracted from the EXE I gave you the link for earlier.
14. Type A: and hit enter
15. type "setupd.exe" and press enter.
16. Go through the install program and reboot when it's done.
17. Stick in your Win95 disk and type D:\setup (where D is your cd-rom letter).
18. Install Windows 95!

This should work for you, if not write back with any problems you encounter.

-Josh

[smoothshrek]

You should have downloaded to a folder on HDD and then ran the zip file to extract to floppy...then you will be able to use the boot disk.. then follow the earlier instructions
TTFN
Smoothshrek

[Gammit]

Gammit, I'm a little confused about what your doing, so here's what you should do:

1. Insert whatever the first bootdisk you used (to reformat) and boot up.
2. At the prompt, type C: and press "enter".
3. If you get the C:\ prompt, skip to step 11, if you get an error keep reading!
4. Type FDISK.
5. If you get a message saying something about support for large hard drives, press "Y" and then "enter". You probably won't get this message.
6. Press 4 and then enter.
7. If it shows any partitions, then you're good, so keep pressing ESC till you get to the DOS prompt, then skip to step 11. If not, press "ESC".
8. Back at the main FDISK screen, press "1" and then enter.
7. Type in the size for your partition.
8. It will make the partition and put you back at the main FDISK screen.
9. Press 4 and then enter. Now you should have a partition showing.
10. Leave the boot disk in and press CTRL, ALT, and DEL to reboot.
11. At the prompt, type (without quotes) "format C: /s" and press enter.
12. After it's done, take out the boot disc and press CTRL, ALT, DEL to reboot.
13. At the prompt, stick in the disc with the files extracted from the EXE I gave you the link for earlier.
14. Type A: and hit enter
15. type "setupd.exe" and press enter.
16. Go through the install program and reboot when it's done.
17. Stick in your Win95 disk and type D:\setup (where D is your cd-rom letter).
18. Install Windows 95!

This should work for you, if not write back with any problems you encounter.

-Josh

I tried this. Loaded the first file (MSM?) to my C drive, and then it asked me from which directory should I extract MSCDEX.EXE? There was a C: prompt. Hitting enter gave me one long BIOS beep, and then it ended the setup. What now?

[smoothshrek]

Seems like you are not using a boot disk but a windows startup disk instead.. you need a "BOOT disk" ...If you type windows 98 boot disk into google you will get heaps of them ...simply download one, extract it and boot to it and you will then get a cdrom prompt and then run setup.exe off the windows cd and you will commence installation of windows
TTFN
Ron (smoothshrek)