Experimenting with boot options.

Computer Help and Discussions The Lounge
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Years ago, I purchased 95 full edition, followed by 98SE upgrade edition, followed by ME upgrade edition.

Logic is, you could upgrade or do a full install, so long as you had a prior version, eliminating need for all the other ones. IE 98 + 98 Upgrade & 98SE + 98SE Upgrade editions could all be replaced by 98SE Upgrade edition.

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I took the 98 CD & created an ISO image of it, then deleted all the useless folders leaving just the 98 Dos Utils & the win98 setup folder. Next, I imported Win9x from ME disk & renamed it ME. Same for Windows 95.

So, I ended up with an all-in-one disk after I saved the changes, where I could either launch 98 setup, or just go to the prompt & choose CD ME, setup & install ME, etc.

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Now, years later, I have a newer PC that refuses to boot from that. So I tried making a modified flash drive that is a bootable USB flash drive with pretty much the same.

It sort of works, or that is to say, it gets to installing it, but around the 10 min mark, it seems to always error out or something. I am working on fixing it, & I hope it gets better. Previously, I had the problem that it would try to use the flash drive during install, even if I DOS CMD copy the setup files to the hard drive first & then run it from there.

This could be tricky! I will have to update you all later if I ever do get it working. Meanwhile, if you guys have ideas...

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Wonder if it could be set to use XP install disk via using the Repair Console to launch the installer? Hmmmm!!!! XP + ME + 98SE + 95? Great!

Wish me luck!

EDIT: My idea is, copy the 95/98/ME folders to the root of the XP disk, then from Repair CMD prompt, navigate to said folder & run setup. Problem is, I believe, it makes it too big for a CD, so I will have to try DVD unless I figure some way to get rid of a few files... :(

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I have a CD with NT, Win95, Win98, OSR2 and other things if you are interested.

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Make sure you have a good supply of Paracetamol. :)

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I don't really understand what you want to do- what will the benefit be?

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I have a CD with NT, Win95, Win98, OSR2 and other things if you are interested.

It would be very interesting to know what program you used to do it, & how you did it for sure. There are different ways, so, yes, that would be really interesting to know!

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I don't really understand what you want to do- what will the benefit be?

Well, I kinda want to keep the Windows ME option around for a bit. I have a DOS based racing game complete with steering wheel & gas pedal that only works under DOS (Won't work under XP, even under compatibility mode. Has trouble with the settings in XP since XP HAL layer uses emulation instead of actual DOS).

Windows ME was the last OS it would run under, so hoping to keep the game alive a little longer, since it works great, but they do not have an update to the game to my knowledge....

There are other things you can do with Windows ME, some things that you cannot do with XP or Vista or 7 or 8 (yeah, I know, great as they are!) but, even though Windows ME was probably hated, it can do a few tricks that the newer OS's cannot. Might not be much, but still a few neat tricks & still unique to that OS.

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virtualbox ME

use a cd to ISO and load the ISO into the vbox cd drive

install ME to vHDD

IMHO

ME wass a "virus" that ate it's own harddrive,

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It would be very interesting to know what program you used to do it, & how you did it for sure. There are different ways, so, yes, that would be really interesting to know!

I found the ISO in my archives. I collected his work when he was doing it and saved me lots of time on builds in my lab.

Here's the README....I'm sure you would recognize the name:

About this SuperWOS CD:
This is the Super-Windows-OS CD which put Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 95
OSR2, MS-DOS 6.22, IBM PC-DOS 7.0 and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation into
one single CD.  With all these Windows and OS's coexist, the Windows 98 SE is to
be used as the main skeleton which includes its Drivers, Resource Kit, MTSUTIL,
ADMIN ,NETTOOLS and the Discover Tour.
Other useful applications on this CD are Acrobat Reader 5.00, Internet Explorer 6
(Build 2600), TweakUI 1.33, SP6 and FAT32 for Windows NT 4.0, NTFSDOS Professional,
UnixDos 16/32Bit Versions, ZipSlack, Winimage, 4DOS and the old Windows for
Workgroup (Version 3.11).
The CD is bootable directly into a main menu from which you can choose to:
1)   Start Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Setup from CD-ROM
2)   Start Windows 98/95 Setup or boot it from CD-ROM 
3)   Boot Microsoft DOS 6.22 from CD-ROM			  
4)   Boot IBM PC-DOS 7.0 from CD-ROM				  
An Autorun CD-Menu is added to this version to make the CD more user friendly.
by Michael K.H. Au-Yeung
11/15/2001

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virtualbox ME

use a cd to ISO and load the ISO into the vbox cd drive

install ME to vHDD

IMHO

ME wass a "virus" that ate it's own harddrive,

Yeah, true, but that happened to 95/98 & ME as well. None of them had separate memory spaces like they were supposed to for different programs, which is why the NT family (2K/XP/Vista/7/etc) are so much more stable. It was common to have crosslinked files, or for Windows to crash if a single application went awry during use.

Ah, well, but they were good for gaming because of the direct hardware support!

Oh, yeah, & thanks for the VBox info. Am wondering what the best way to V-Box ME is? I haven't worked with VM a lot, but wondering if I could use something like IMGBurn to image an ISO, then an ISO editor to strip all but the setup files (Win9x folder) from the ISO? Or do I simply install to VM & save the VM?

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Going back to your task...I think I now know what you want to do. Have you considered using GRUB as a Menu and with your menu you can choose to install Win95/98/Me?

I have to ask, what is the original CD booting?

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IMHO this

I could use something like IMGBurn to image an ISO ... (&)I simply install to VM & save the VM?

I use LCISOCreator

EDIT:Softpedia Link as the lucersoft site is 404ing

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@Nergal, that's a very nice & small ISO utility. Thanks for the suggestion! Will try it out very soon.

@Tr3bg0D, the CD I have now is a bootable CD that uses the Win98 Bootloader & at the:

1) Install Windows 98

2) Start with CD support

3) Start without CD support

I can't remember the exact options, but there are 3 or 4 options the default 98 loader gives. I have the original 98 files, including the dos commands in the root of the CD such as FORMAT/FDISK etc, & then 95 & ME as folders on the same CD.

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I stripped all the demo vids & things from the 98 disk because they wasted a few hundred MB, so this disk is still only 300 something MB with all 3 OS on it.

Traditionally, I was able to go to "Start with CD support" & it would load to a command prompt, then I could run the CD ME / Setup & be on my way.

I think I need an up-to-date boot loader because with my newer machine, it gives me the error that it cannot find a CD drive or something, which indicates that it is not seeing the newer CD, or the driver it is using is out-of-date & don't detect newer drives I think.

Else, the BIOS doesn't fully support DOS like it used to on older machines. Whatever the case, doesn't seem to work like it does on older machines.

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Update: The closest I got yet...

A: Use XP disk to create 32 GB FAT32 partition.

B: Use Rufus to create bootable USB drive & copy WINME folder to it.

C: Plugin USB drive & boot to it.

D: Use WINME format utility to format C: /q (quick format).

E: Reboot & remove USB drive while putting bootable 95/98/ME CD into the drive.

F: Select boot without CD driver & at the prompt, go to C:\setup.

G: Install Windows ME.

This time, I get no error messages, but after it gets to the last 10 minutes of setting up, it just shows a blank screen. Doesn't load into Windows. Get this, I can load (as I could also earlier) into safe mode, but you cannot install drivers in safe mode, & safe mode restricts what you can do... :( Bangs head! Frustrated!

AHHH!!!!

So, now I have all the problems worked out, but it just won't BOOT! Perhaps it doesn't support my dual core processor, or some other quirk of nature. I don't know!

Any ideas? Thinking of trying virtual machine... 98 works in a virtual machine in Virtual PC on my windows 7 dual core machine... hmmmm....

But why won't ME load on my OTHER machine? Without virtual machining it? Sigh!!!