Trouble loading win 98 on dell e6400 notebook

[avresourcesys]

I have tried all I know to get win 98 to load without success. The problem is that the cd rom driver does not load in setup. its a known problem when i google it. Device driver not found 'mscd001 . so with the start up disk not loading for a cd rom, and it does not know usb's. and yes i have usb disk and cd drives but no solution. I even tried to load easybcd but could not add the new os in the boot menu, and also could not extract the iso..... the extraqct was not on the dropdown when i looked for it (win 7).

so you know, i have a legacy msdos program that requires win 98 to run. hope yo can help. thx

 

[lochlomonder]

This laptop was released in 2009, so I'm not surprised you're having driver issues with Win 98. In this instance, I would recommend the best thing to do is use a program such as VirtualBox to create a virtual environment where you can install Win98 as a guest OS.

Is there an OS installed already on the E6400, or has this been wiped when you tried loading Win 98?

 

[avresourcesys]

This laptop was released in 2009, so I'm not surprised you're having driver issues with Win 98. In this instance, I would recommend the best thing to do is use a program such as VirtualBox to create a virtual environment where you can install Win98 as a guest OS.

Is there an OS installed already on the E6400, or has this been wiped when you tried loading Win 98?

I have win 7 installed. The issue is that I need the system to reboot and the specific program operate without any input from me as the unit is located in the basement. Can VM be set up to load and open on power up? Also will the com port and audio out work when in VM? Thc

 

[Couriant]

Try running this file: http://ftp1.us.dell.com/utility/cdenabv2.exe to create a boot disk. Then you should be able to run the Windows 98 CD.

EDIT: I had this thread up and didnt see the replies until I posted.

 

[avresourcesys]

thanks for the suggestion. yet i get an error when trying to run the program you suggested to create a boot floppy. see screen print. The e6400 is a 64 bit system, is this the problem?

 

[avresourcesys]

just tried on an older pc and it seems to be working. will report back after trying on the notebook

 

[avresourcesys]

so got the diskette to run and got a menu of 9 items regarding loading scsi and cdrom drivers. All the cdrom selections give the same error as originally that the driver did not load mscd001 . i wqas able to take all the windows 98 files and xcopy them to the c: drive and c did come up and I ran setup.exe. It seemed to load but on the reboot to run for the 1st time i get an error about insuffucient memory. and it shuts down. not sure the reasons that the cdrom still doesn't work nor the memory issue.

 

[lochlomonder]

I have win 7 installed. The issue is that I need the system to reboot and the specific program operate without any input from me as the unit is located in the basement. Can VM be set up to load and open on power up? Also will the com port and audio out work when in VM? Thc

Yes, it's possible to have the VM boot up automatically upon booting and logging in to the host OS. This application can work for you in that regard, should you go down the virtualization route.

 

[Couriant]

thanks for the suggestion. yet i get an error when trying to run the program you suggested to create a boot floppy. see screen print. The e6400 is a 64 bit system, is this the problem?

Probably, you may be able to get away with running in compatibility mode for future reference. To be honest I haven't touch this in about 20-25 years so I would say maybe try the VM route.

 

[avresourcesys]

I'd really like to be able to solve the loading of Windows 98 on the PC. Suggestions on how to solve this are greatly appreciated.

 

[lochlomonder]

I'd really like to be able to solve the loading of Windows 98 on the PC. Suggestions on how to solve this are greatly appreciated.

You're trying to run an OS for which support ended seven years before the laptop you're trying to install it on was released, so I'm not surprised in the least you're having issues with drivers. I truly do not think you'll be able to surmount these difficulties either. The only possible solution I see here is virtualization; however, that comes with its own set of issues if you're trying to get the guest OS to communicate over a com port via the host machine.

 

[managed]

Try DosBox :- https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Basic_Setup_and_Installation_of_DosBox
if the program runs in it you should be able to make it start automatically.

 

[Zygmo]

Wow. Win98! What I remember about 98 was: I didn't really like it, but it was loaded with drivers for everything you would run into! I kept one handy for quite awhile after Win98 was gone, just for that reason.

 

[PeterOz]

Hi
Do you still need help with this? I think we can get windows98 loaded but no idea how well it would run due to drivers. If you have another computer or an external drive caddy you could remove the harddrive from the E6400 put it into the other computer or caddy. Copy the 98 cd onto the drive. Make a bootable dos usb stick.
put the E6400 harddrive back into the E6400 and boot from the usb dos stick. Then you will have access to run the 98 setup. This will put 98 on the machine but how well it would run we do not know as you could/will be missing some drivers.
Cheers