[samcoco]

A friends laptop needed wiped due to a virus. It's a Dell Latitude LM and only has one slot for either a floppy OR a cdrom. My problem is - - how do I reinstall the 98 OS. If I put the floppy in - the system doesn't see the cdromand so doesn't load the drivers. If I put the cdrom in - - it says that there is an invalid boot disk and stops. I did copy all of the boot disk floppy files to the C: drive but that's a far as I could get. HELP!!!

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those usually came with a cable so you could attach the cd-drive externally.

Windows 98 cd is bootable, so if the CD-rom is in, it should boot unless the cd-rom does not support it.

what the model number on the LM?

[gerryf]

those usually came with a cable so you could attach the cd-drive externally.

Windows 98 cd is bootable, so if the CD-rom is in, it should boot unless the cd-rom does not support it.

what the model number on the LM?

[samcoco]

TS30G - I also called about the cable - doesn't have it. The problem seems to be that since the HD is clean and the floppy in in the slot that the CD needs to be in - when the boot floppy scans the system to determine which CD driver to install, it doesn't see one and therefore doesn't load any.

[gerryf]

did Dell supply a special boot floppy?

What I would do is this:

Get one of these
http://sewelldirect....deconverter.asp

remove the drive from the dell--usually requires one screw removal.

Inert the drive into a desktop, then create a directory on it called OPTIONS. Copy the contents of the win98 directory from a windows cd to the drive.

Reinsert the drive into the laptop, boot with floppy.

At a: prompt, tyoe

c:\options\setup.exe

enter

windows will install from drive.

You can get those converters at radioshak for about $15 or less--or you can get an entire enclosure for about $30 at many pc hardware stores

[Supergeek.dcse]

using win98 boot disk make format c:/s/u hdisk that will make it boot then copy the sys file from floppy to c: and bat files bit of a pain change the drive letters from a: to c: in the bat files and config files then take out the floppy drive put in cdrom and presto it should see the drive to setup 98
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
device= a: \sample.sys/d:oemcd001

A :\mscdex.exe/d:oemcd001/L:d