[expert464]

Alright, here's the deal. We acquired a fairly crappy Win3.1 computer, which we laughed at, and put down in the basement. It has NO cd-rom drive, 200mb hard drive, 16mb memory (not bad, same as my old 120mhz pentium came with) 386 processor, and.. probably 1 or 2mb video card, and no sound card, along with 3.5 and 5.5inch floppy disk drives. Now, after about a year of having the peice of junk, I've been thinking of either totally messing it up, or trying to turn trash into treasure somehow, without buying anything. A week ago, my friend was trying to get rid of his old 2x2x6 CD-RW drive, but it either wouldnt work, or none of us wanted it. I have a chance that I could call him up and get it tomorrow, but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time, I mean, will this even work?

My planned goal is to put the CD-RW drive in (hoping that there are slots for it) and install windows 98SE on it. Today at school I heard some stuff about it not being able to install over it, and I'd have to format and start from scratch, which is no biggie to me. I'm sure that Windows98SE doesnt need all 200mb of space, I'd be quite happy if it even took 198mb, but I think the real number is around 120mb. If not, then Win95 is good enough.

Anyway, what I am wonderring is if there are any hidden problems that will come up, like does Win98 support everything on the computer? Like.. its minimum requirements? Would a 386 be enough? Would the motherboard or whatever else even have ports (dunno what they're called, havent installed a CD-Rom drive before) for a cd-rom drive? What I really need to know is if the hardware will still have support for "futuristic" devices such as a CD-RW drive. Anyone have any ideas or problems for this scenario? Thanks in advance.

 

[Shiori]

it prolly wouldn't handle Win98SE. go for Win95 instead (if you have one)

the CD-R wouldn't work. not enough computing power, plus the fact that it only has 16MB ram....where will you also put the CD image in?

just take the burner and sell it instead. you'd get more gold outta it than that 386.

 

[Dark Watcher]

Hmmmm

Theres only one thing holding back your attempt...

Windows 98SE requires more RAM then the 16meg ya have in there...even if you did..the fact it is a 386 would leave you waiting years just for the Windows boot window just to go away....

 

[Zephon]

I doubt that it would work. Win98SE needs less than 200 MB for the installation, but I'm sure that virtual memory can eat up all the remaining space. You wouldn't be able to put anything else in the hard disk. btw, a 1MB-2MB video card in a 386? I had a 1MB card in my 486 and it was the best for the time!

 

[expert464]

I dont really care about actually burning CD's with it, just need it as a cd-rom drive to install windows 95/98.. other than this use, I wouldnt really need it.

I dont know if it is 1 or 2.. or less, it wasnt our computer to begin with.. I dont know what they did with it. Alls I know is we got it for free, and it is worth every penny, meaning, that its worth nothing.

I also heard from a friend that you could install windows95 using like 5-6 floppy disks.. is this true, or even possible?

 

[Betamax]

Beta opens the famous cupboard and pulls out his old copy of win 95 which resides on 25 floppy disks

Yes Win95 was also distrubuted on floppies. I used them to install it onto my 486 sx 25 w/ 4 mb ram and 210 mb HDD (compressed using drivespace). But it was DAMN slow! I went back to win3.1. Didn't touch it again until I had upgraded to a DX4/100 w/ 16mb ram and added a 800mb HDD (total 1gb) and a cd recorder. Hence I doubt that it would run 95 all that well.

 

[Neojag]

I have win95 running on my 486DX2 perfectly.
the only prog was that when i was trying to install window blinds, it didnt let me cause it doesnt support .chm help files.
any ideas?

 

[sxamiga]

I don't think that Win 95 or 98 will even work on a 386 processor. You can run 95 on a 486 but I was told that 98 will not run on anything less than a pentium class processor. 95 was distributed on disks but I think it was just release A that was. Release A was the one w/all the bugs. I don't know if releases 95 B or C were available on disks but I don't think so. AFAIK, 98 is not available on disks. So, I would stick to 3.1 for your 386 or get a new computer.
sincerely,
sx/amiga

 

[Betamax]

Originally posted by Neojag
I have win95 running on my 486DX2 perfectly.
the only prog was that when i was trying to install window blinds, it didnt let me cause it doesnt support .chm help files.
any ideas?

Stab in the dark. I think that you can add this by installing ie4.

 

[takwu]

if i remembered correctly, win95 did have a min req of a 486. so i'd say forget 98se.

i believe the whole win95 setup cd is around 50mb. so if you can somehow transfer the files onto the harddisk (install it on another comp, or use a null modem, or use your imagination ) you might not need that cdrom.
otherwise you can try copying your win95 cd onto floppies yourself. it might work.

the burner will probably work as a standard atapi cdrom drive. but i'm not sure if a 386 supports even that.

however, it might not be worth it after all. it will run slow.

 

[expert464]

Well that quest is a failure. After destroying one of the power wires by accidently hooking it up to BOTH the cd-rom and the 3 1/2 floppy, I had no room for error, and everything went smoothly after that (formatting etc) but everything stopped when it restarted after that, BIOS loaded, but when it came to the bootup disk, it tells me "Please insert a bootable disk, press any key to continue". The disk isnt the problem though, because when I insert another disk or the right disk, and press any key, the light in the floppy drive doesnt even come on. I'm thinking that the BIOS has the 3 1/2 drive as the B:/ drive, and I cant do anything to get around it.

Oh well, now I'm just using it for spare parts.. anyone need a 5 1/2 floppy drive or a 320mb maxtor? Hehe..

 

[Bgnome]

Originally posted by expert464
I'm thinking that the BIOS has the 3 1/2 drive as the B:/ drive, and I cant do anything to get around it.

well, first off you hafta make sure its wired correctly. if you look at the ribbon cable for your disk drives, you will see that there is a twist in it between the two connectors. you need to hook up the last connecter, the one farthest away from the board..
then you can check the bios settings

 

[Betamax]

Actually if he's hooked the data cable to the floppy the wrong way ariund the light normally stays lit. So I don't think its the data cable. More likely the power isn't connected correctly. As for the bios settings, well just go into the standard cmos settings and set floppy a: to 3 1/2 and switch floppy b to none. Also make sure that floppy disk drive swap on boot is not enabled.

 

[Mwarhead]

ROFL

95 will 98 wont (98 requires a math coprocessor) and I would be supprised if that thing could handle a 1x cd burner. So basically you are wasting your time. Sell it for scrap metal.

 

[Neojag]

i dont think the idea is use it as a burner, i think he jes wants to read cds w/ it...

 

[expert464]

Yeah, I have no use for it other than to install Win95 with it, then I'd probably take it out and give it back to my friend. I'm sure that the wiring and power was right (I actually fried one of the wires in the process, but only part of it, and I just used that for the CD-Rom and used a fresh wire for the 3 1/2). The light stayed on on the 3 1/2 until the computer searched for a bootable disk, then went off, and never came on again even I pressed a key and made it re-look for a disk. Seeing as how I already took all the parts off of it, I dont think I'll be trying it again. And yes, I had about 3 different versions of win95/dos6.22 bootable disks, I'm sure that wasnt the problem. The wiring I made sure was right, as before I formatted the hard drive I tested some disks, including the boot disks, and they all showed the correct files. Oh well, maybe if I get bored one day I'll try it again and keep this thread in favorites.. thanks to all that helped, now, back to making THIS computer god-like.. (Go K6-III!)

 

[Neojag]

u can do like i did to my m8s computer then. copy the w95 dir to another comps HD, then plug the 386 hd on to that computer, copy the W95 dir there and put it back in the 386. boot w/ a disk and install Win95 ffrom there. if u cann boot ok uve got the prob solved

 

[Betamax]

Another method (although tedious) is to get 30 floppies and zip the setup files onto them. Then unzip them onto the 386.

 

[JuniorCRB]

30 floppies, i dout anybody has that much time,
i think putting the 2nd hd in is alot easier

 

[Betamax]

Beta fondly remembers the time that he had to install windows 95 and office 97 using this very method. Shortly afterwards he purchased an external zip drive.