How to install wi 98 when only diskette or CD rom available

[nicewithice]

Hi,
I have a Compaq Armada, with a bay for a floppy drive OR a CD Rom drive. In the past I managed to instal windows 98 with a lot of tricks and problems, now I like to do a clean format again. Actually I already did it.
The problem is that my Windows 98 disk is not bootable, so I always got the same message when starting up with the CD Rom: Invalid System disk, replace the disk...
What I want to do is create from this 98 disk a bootable one, I made the ISO file and now I am getting ready to burn a bootable disc with easy cd. The files ready to burn are:
bootcab.bin and bootimg.bin
Before I go further, will this work ?
Any tips are very much appreciated.
Thanks.

[GaryRouth]

What sort of CD do you have? Is it a Recovery Disk? [Any regular installation CD of Windows 98 - any version - should be bootable. If it doesn't find your CD drive, on the other hand, you need to add a workable driver for the Cd-drive onto a CD-R or CD-RW, add your Windows CD onto that disk, and then try booting from that again. This shouldn't be likely, since the IDE CD standard has been around a while now].

This is all assuming that you've set the 1st Boot Device value in your laptop's Bios Setup screens to the cd-rom. Otherwise the message is just telling you the obvious - that there's nothing bootable about the hard drive at the moment.

Check around in the Bios Settings just to make sure everything's in order in there.
. . . Gary

[nicewithice]

Yes it is a recovery disk. I made a start up CD disk for 98, what works great, but after that all stops. I see on the screen:
A:\>
I tried to switch to the recover cd and type some commands, what doesn't work.

[GaryRouth]

If you can find your Armada model #, the full directions for running the recovery (which can vary from model to model) should still be available from the hp/Compaq web support pages (you can start at hp.com and wind your way through the menus).

Some Compaqs used to create a Recovery partition that participated in the Recovery process - but this wasn't universal. Also, some of the Compaq Recovery Disk sets require you to boot the computer with a floppy diskette that's part of the procedure, and then you switch to the CD [I hope this isn't the case with your Armada, since it's possible that the drive bay isn't hot-swappable ... by checking the manual for that model, we should find the answer to that question, as well as the Recovery procedures]. If we're lucky, your Compaq may have a way to re-create things with the disks you already have at hand.

If you'd like, post your model number here, and we'll have a look at what's up for your series.
. . . Gary

[nicewithice]

Gary,
indeed I have only diskette available, or CD Rom. Both is not possible. In the mean time I created a WIN 98 startup CD Rom, bootable, and managed to get things working, not with he recovery CD but with a cd from a friend that starts automaticly. I only wish it was WIN 98, the version I have now is 2000 and I think that is to heavy for this laptop.
Anyway thanks for your help and support.

[GaryRouth]

Hope it all works out OK. Win2000 and Win98se are from about the same time period, so their hardware needs are similiar: Win2000 runs better with a little more memory, but shouldn't require the greatest processor around.

If you still want to explore the Recovery Disk at some point in the future, I'm sure all the details are still over at the hp.com/compaq.com webpages. They're very good about keeping information available, even for machines from quite a while back. That would give you the extra choice of whether or not to keep whatever software bundle came with the laptop. They might have something worthwhile in the bundle: at least it would be a less-taxing older version.

Win2000 is up to Service Pack 4 nowadays, I think - if you stick with Win2k, be sure to visit Windows Update to get the Security Updates.

Heck, as long as the hardware is supported under Win2k, the laptop might run better than ever.
. . . Gary

[ZYFER]

well, assuming nothing is important to you, you can do this

boot from the 98 startup disk (floppy), when you arrive at the A: prompt

type format C: /s then hit Enter

it will ask if you want to format, this will erase everything, ensure that is acceptable to you, once it is formatted, the Hard drive should be bootable, but then you will need to copy some other files as well and do other things (might be easier to step you through this on a messenger)

though if it is a recovery cd, it should be bootable