Upgrade on a Shoestring

[palladrj]

I have two old 486/33 DX desktops. Each run 3.1 OS and have 4 MB RAM, 120 MB HD. I also have a Sony 200mh, Win 95 upgraded to Win 98, with 64 MB RAM and two HDDs (20 Gig and 2 Gig). I have the original WIN 95 CD (it may be a recovery disk) for the Sony. Finally in my collection I have a Sony laptop Win ME, 600mh.
I would like to upgrade both to Win95 (for no good reason). But because I feel I have enough invested in h/w already, I can’t justify the cost of a CD ROM Drive, I’m looking for ways to do this with the resources I have available.
Here are the options that I’ve considered.
1. Take the CD ROM drive from the Sony desktop and temporarily install it on the 486. I guess that I can copy the drivers to floppy for transfer as well. Do you think that the CD ROM Drive would be compatible? Is this a viable Option?

2. Remove the 2 gig HDD from the Sony desktop (there are two) and replace with HDD from the 486. Copy the Win 95 CD to the 486 HDD using the CD ROM Drive. Then move the 486 HDD back to the 486 and load from the HDD. Oops, I just thought about HD capacity. I don’t know if I have adequate storage for both the CD and the OS on the HDD. What the heck, I’ll publish this anyway. Wait a minute. I have a HDD on the other 486 that I can use. OK then, one for the Win 95 CD and one for the Win 95 OS both temp installation on one 486 (nothing like R/T planning).

3. If option 2 is successful, can I then copy the Win 95 OS that I had just created and copy it over the HD with the Win 95 CD and move it to the other 486?

I don’t know if I’ve explained this well enough for anyone to reply but here goes.
Thanks for you patience.
Paul

[Harry]

The CD Rom drive should be compatible in the 486 providing you install the correct drivers but you are much better off transfering Windows 95 by way of hard drive because it will install much faster.

[Edited by Harry on 02-02-2001 at 12:51 PM]

[MadMax]

With only 120MB HDD and 4MB RAM you may (will) regret this.
After the Windows install, what little HDD space left over will be needed for swap files. No room for programs.
Get ready for a molasses in Alaska slow machine.

[Harry]

Yeah, 4 megs is not enough RAM to run Windows95 and you need Ram for your browser too. You really need to get about 32 megs though maybe you could get by with about 20 megs and an older browser like IE4. I think Windows 95 takes about 90 megabytes of space so you have to calculate that in. You would need to deactivate all extra things you don't need and maybe use a program called Win98Lite to trim Windows95 even further. It could be done but you won't be able to use much more than win95 and your browser and maybe a few small programs.

[glc]

If you have no good reason to upgrade - then don't. 4 megs ram is bare minimum for 95 original, and if you have OSR2 it needs 8 megs and a 486DX bare minimum. The 95 original cab files are 35 megs and the OSR2 cabs are 80 megs. You might be able to get 95 original on it if you drivespace it - but that would make it even slower.

The only machine that I ever worked on with 95 and 4 megs of ram was a Compaq 486DX2/66 with a 210 meg hard drive - and the ONLY app installed on it was MS Works. The hard drive was over half full with just that, and it took 10 minutes to boot. The hard drive never stopped chattering.

Now - if you had 16 megs of ram and 420 meg drives in those old beasts - they would work fairly well with original 95 (not OSR2).