Installing Windows 98

[mbguy1]

I have an old IBM laptop, no OS right now. It is a Pentium III. It has a 30gb hard drive and 256 mb ram and a cdrom. I want to try and install windows 98 on it. It does not have a 3.5 floppy drive. I think the installation process uses a cd rom and a 3.5 disk. If I buy an external 3.5 floppy drive that connects to the laptop by a usb will the computer recognize that external 3.5 floppy and allow me to continue the installation. Thanks for the help.

 

[Deleted member 2449024]

Do not worry your IBM will recognize external floppy as floppy or external drive. Just go ahead and try.

 

[TerryLaze]

Do not worry your IBM will recognize external floppy as floppy or external drive. Just go ahead and try.

Yeah don't be so sure,external floppy disks weren't around since forever,pcs so old don't start anything from usb, win98 didn't even have usb support.

mbguy if you can connect the HDD to any other system you can prep the HDD to start dos if you copy all the files of the win98 cd to a folder on the HDD you can install from this folder.

 

[mbguy1]

Thanks to both of you for your help.

 

[mbguy1]

I got the Windows 98 to load on the computers. I have two of them. One is a Thinkpad A22m and the other is a Thinkpad T42. I know I will be needing help finding some of the drivers so I'll post which ones I can't find knowing there will be people way more knowledgeable than me who will either have them or know how to find them. Thanks in advance.

 

[mbguy1]

If there is anyone who can help with this I would appreciate it. I've been looking on a site for all the windows 98 thinkpad drives but they don't seem to work so I am not doing something right. The missing drivers on the IBM THinkpad A22m are 1) PCI Communication Device 2) PCI Ethernet Controller 3) PCI Multimedia Audio Controller 4) Unknown Device.

And the missing drivers on my IBM Thinkpad T42 are 1) PCI card 2) PCI Ethernet Controller 3) PCI Ethernet Controller (not sure whey there are 2 of these) 4) PCI Multimedia Audio Device 5) PCI System Management Bus 6) PCI Universal Serial Bus 7) Unknown Device

Thanks for any help anyone is able to provide.

 

[mbguy1]

I've got most of the drivers I need but just need a bit of help. On the A22m I have all the drivers. I now installed a USB driver so I could use the USB port. It is the driver called nusb-320 and it works. It now reads a usb but it creates a new problem. There are now 2 drivers with yellow exclamation marks on them. they are both the same and called ACPI Battery. I need help with that one.

On the T42 I got most of the drivers. I don't have #1) PCI Card #3) PCI Ethernet Controller. I got the first one to work but can't get this second one. #6) PCI Universal Serial Bus. Same as above, got the driver installed but now have the double ACPI Battery twice with exclamation marks.

I did manage to find drivers on the Win98 CD for the PCI card, the PCI ethernet controller and the PCI universal serial bus. It was enough to take away the yellow exclamation mark but when starting the computer error messages say that these devices need to have their drivers fixed up so they do not really work.

So I need help again with the ACPI Battery on the T42 and A22m
And on the T42 the PCI card and the second ethernet controller
So 3 more to go if you can help.

 

[mbguy1]

I found this and followed the steps.
Since your CD-ROM drive is disabled by the Plug and Play BIOS during hardware detection, manually copy the Windows 98 cabinet (.cab) files from the Windows 98 CD-ROM to your hard disk. To do so, follow these steps:
Create a new folder on your hard disk (let's call it Win98cab)
Copy the contents of the Win98 folder on the Windows 98 CD-ROM to the Win98cab folder you created
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \CurrentVersion \ Detect
In the right-hand pane right-click an empty space and choose New > DWORD Value
Name it ACPIOption, double-click it, and change the value to 1
Close the registry editor
Select Start > Settings > Control Panel, and then double-click Add New Hardware
Click Next, click Next again, click Yes (Recommended), and then click Next. ACPI should be detected and installed. After your computer is restarted, all ACPI-enumerated devices are set up again.

But there is stull an error. Clicking on the ACPI Battery exclamation mark item shows the error as "The NTKERN.VXD device loader(s) for this device could not load the device driver. (Code 2) ARGHH!! Stuck again.

 

[mbguy1]

Ok, I solved the ACPI Battery Problem. Now I just need drivers for the T42 for the PCI Card and the second PCI Ethernet Controller.
Thanks

 

[190221]

This should be of use for drivers:
https://download.lenovo.com/eol/

 

[mbguy1]

Thank You. I'll look around there and see what I can find.

 

[mbguy1]

Nothing yet. Tried drivers on that page but didn't get anywhere.

 

[mbguy1]

Ok, I found the PCI card driver so I am fighting to find this last one and having no luck. A PCI Ethernet Controller. It was the second one like that and had a few replies that it is probably someone wireless and I have tried as many as I could find. No luck yet.

 

[190221]

There was four options for win98 on that page, first one, for a cisco card:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1kwc42ww.exe
second one is intel:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/inwi1tnt.exe
Third one is ThinkPad 802.11b/g wireless LAN
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/tpbg1unt.exe
fourth is Dual-Band and ThinkPad 802.11abg for Windows 98 SE:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/1qwc70ww.exe
Have you tried each of these?

 

[Deleted member 2449024]

Do not worry your IBM will recognize external floppy as floppy or external drive. Just go ahead and try.

Yeah don't be so sure,external floppy disks weren't around since forever,pcs so old don't start anything from usb, win98 didn't even have usb support.

mbguy if you can connect the HDD to any other system you can prep the HDD to start dos if you copy all the files of the win98 cd to a folder on the HDD you can install from this folder.

I think Windows 98 HAD usb support, but maybe ia am just messing up

 

[kerberos_20]

win 98 SE had usb support

anyway if u missing drivers, then u will need to atleast post here some hardware id
in device manager it should look something like this

 

[The Paladin]

@kerberos_20 unfortunately under windows98 this options wasn't offered yet, a great idea but will not work in this case.

@OP as many have mentioned Win98 can be troublesome just because the drivers have in many case been lost to time on the internet. PCI Ethernet Controllers likely be a network card if you dont have one running right now, is this the case? is that network device integrated? or a pcmcia card in the system?
also we may be able to find the driver if you could expand on the model of IBM laptop your are working with, such as model would be helpful.

 

[kerberos_20]

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this tool can help you

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