win 95 installed & configured on a floppy

[The_Flames]

Does anyone know how to get a win95 installation that would boot from a floppy disk which would load the cdrom drivers, and then loads win95, windows would only have to load a fixed configuration, and the speed of the system isn’t a factor! The only factor is the installation cannot use the hdd, this is because the system is without a working IDE bus that can take HDD’s

I want to create a disk like this as a fixed router that allows the system to be loaded from a floppy disk / cdrom configuration.

The only other solution that I would consider is a Linux firewall that can load from a floppy disk / or start loading from floppy and load other files into ram.

The system that this will be running on will be a 486dx4 100, 16 MB ram, 8X cdrom, 2 PCI 10mb network cards, an ISA soundcard that can load the cdrom drive, and a floppy disk drive.

Can anyone think of a way of creating a cdrom/floppy configuration that can help me

[Space Between]

Can anything here help??

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Downright_p...s_bootdisks.htm

Im not too sure what your tryign to do by your first post.
Are you trying to start the install of a win95 off a floppy and have it during the boot off the floppy redirect to the cd without user intervention?

again im not too sure what you want to do

[Space Between]

ok sorry i think i read it wrong

are you trying to install windows without a hdd?
you mean you want to run a installed win95 off a cd?
I have no idea on how to do that.
You would have to copy over a installed dir, then poitn diskem1x to boot the boot sector off that cd. I think i saw the boot sector for win95 on a multiboot help guide that let\'s your configure the which boot sector\'s (If you use linux you probably already know which one). I however run Linux but don\'t know the sector for win95. I know if you could point it to that it would start to load. You might want to use the autoexec.bat to load all the files into memory but in your system your memory would overflow very quickly.

It cannot take a hdd??? could you buy a controller card and hook it up to that? I know it\'s not what you looking for but it\'s what i have to do to load a 40gig on a 486 since the bios isnt bootable to cd\'s and can\'t recongize anythign larger than a 512mb hdd.

[Space Between]

I won\'t give up on this thread twinkie :-)

what did you mean...and did you work it out like you wanted to?

[The_Flames]

what I\'m trying is to create a copy of win85 that boots off a cd then runs , no HDD involved!, I know it\'s unlikely that anyone can come up with a solution ...

I have been investigating linux floppy routers and there are loads, so I\'m having  fun time picking the best one for me http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

[Space Between]

This looks like it\'s right in the ball park for you, but for win98, but i guess it could be win95 too.

http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/

[Space Between]

Sorry...actually it says win95 or win98...so either.

[Space Between]

Sorry for flooding the replies, but here is my ? after reading and setting up to attempt that as described in that article.

Ok it looks like it will work, almost postive. My only ? is how would you edit the listed files there to accomadate no using a hdd at all. It describe\'s using a hdd...not if you don\'t have one. See i too have several machines that wont run because i either don\'t have a controller card for them to hold biggger hdd\'s and/or the bios won\'t support the 30+gig hdd\'s i have. So there is no real way to even get them to use a hdd.

I\'m left in the dark on that one. Especially the part regarding the keyboard and so on. Is there a generic way to just make those file\'s work no matter what...or do you really need to have a hdd installed so the system recongize\'s all your current hardware?

Im gonna try this but need to know if this will play a part on getting the win9x OS to run off the cd. Obviously regarding the source of the article it has been done and it work\'s...but no mention if you don\'t have a hdd at all.

[Evilvoice]

I have tried to create a win98 on cd, and it will not work, seems i get an error every time.  And its always a different one...I can get to the last part about creating the cd, and it just wont load from cd, always gives me an error.  I have posted on this multiple times and everytime noone answers my questions or helps with my problems, I dont mind that, this is a great site and Im not about to start name calling....but yes, I have done this 6 times all from scratch and it never works.  I believe that was written as \"in theory\" instead of someone actually doing it.  I have an iso of the one I am currently working on (though it has my login information for some progs - which I will figure a way to stop that like virtual-linux) and I have a backup of a good version right up to where you are supposed to change the io and msdos.sys files, which actually is very near the end of the process.  If you do have any luck with this, please let me know.  I would love to know what I am doing wrong...I need something like this for my job since it would be much easier to have them run from cd instead of messing up their computers :-)

[Jane Doe]

Hello anyone,

I´ve been workin´on this problem of booting from CD,too.
And I think it is possible.

Why do I think so ? Because I have a MO ( Magneto-Optical ) SCSI Device, that is able to boot. I wrote a ready made Installation of 95 to it after making it bootable with sys x: . And what the hell, it worked.  Windows95 booted with many Errors, yes, but it booted into the Desktop. If I would have had more time I would have searched for the programparts that wrote to the MO and would have fixed it. But I usually make a mirror of my system and install it back when useful.

So it could be possible to install W95 onto a LS120 (also a MO) to test it. It isn´t surely working on a CD Rom with \"El Torinto\" specification, but for the first testing and bugeliminating it is useful. Because of the 120 MB of the LS120 Floppy Disc you would be able to copy the working system to the floppy by useing this:

1. Start in DOS Mode
2. Sys a:
3. Xcopy32 /k /r /e /i /s /c /h  ( ´kreisch´ is german for \"Cry Out\")
4. Protect the LS120 an try to boot.

The ISO BOOT CD is for shure more tricky. If at all try to use Nero HDD Emulation. Use a 640 MB Partition with installed System on it and write it with NERO to a 10x CD-RW and try out.

Of course, this tipps are not the leading point to the solution, but I think they will help testing and creating a :

WINDOWS \"KNOPPIX\" Edition.
Bootable and useable from \"CD-ROM\".
No Installation necessary.

I will keep track on it, as and give my support to this projekt.

J.

[Evilvoice]

Actually I can get pretty far on the whole 98 on cd...the part that always messes up is actually after it has booted and everything and I am ready to make the cd, once it records, it no longer boots, and i have done it with system.dat and system.tat (dat works a little better, so dont believe the webpage that says to change it).

[Space Between]

I can\'t help on this right at this moment due to needing all the time in w2k for rendering. I can however tell you all that i have asked several people on the irc and they say they had done that along time ago and it worked...but with so little memory it might now work because they said they booted to dos...then ran xmsdsk.exe to create a 600mb ramdriver and then booted win98 from that ram drive into windows.

im not sure on how they made the image however...they would\'nt give me that much time and said \"why you can run a better cdfs with Linux\"

so the conversation didnt\' go to far.

i know it can be done though...can i prove this...no.

but all that windows 9x really requires to run is 16mb ram and a drive letter.

[markshere]

well i have just compleated this task with success ok what you do id have a second hard drive smaller the better partition it with a 640 mb partition install windows to the hard driveuse ghost image to a different partition i have a multiple boot hard drive with windows me and win 2k server and xp professional and linux all on 1 partition all working fine go to xp and open image to the cd burner drive letter makee the cd bootable and there you go or make your bootup floppy with cdrom access creqate a batch file to point to the cd where you have 98 installed and add the command in the bat file
cd
cdwindows
win.com
you can also add this to a bootable cdrom
why do that though get a drive install linux emulate all windows os inside of linux at one time