does anyone know how to create a bootable cd not floppy for windows 98

[lmn396]

any ideas? can't do it on an "a" drive, "a" drive not working...

thanks.

[Rick]

if you have one of the CD burning programs it is easy

Like EZ CD creator
BUT it requires an image ( floppy disk ) to start with and uses the floppy to read it
Or at least a saved Image file on the hard drive

Orther wise check out
www.bootdisk.com
they have an assortment of boot disk images online and are free

[lmn396]

but how do i save the file as an image like from bootdisk.com?

i have nero to do the burn...

thanks

[Paul Komski]

Unzip This Live Link (http://1gighost.net/jerseyboy/win98sc.zip) It is the same as the Win98se link below "Non-Windows Based Image Files W/ImageApp" at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Use the Image File inside (called WIN98SEC.IMG) as the basis for your boot CD's floppy emulation.

Depending on the version of Nero you should be able to choose make boot CD and then point to that image file rather than to a physical boot floppy in the A drive. The burn away.

If any problems with Nero you could use MagicIso.
Tools -- "Load Boot Image".
Under "Bootable Image File" browse to the unzipped Win98sec.img file.
File Menu -- Save and browse to where you want the iso saved and give it a name.
Tools -- "Burn CD with ISO" and browse to the ISO you just saved to disk.

Actually just found a link to the MagicISO tutorial page so what I wrote above is probably redundant:

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-make-bootable-cd.htm

[lmn396]

appreciate your help & everyone elses...

i will try it and let you know how it works...

thanks again...

[lmn396]

it worked!!! thanks...

but now how do i install 98se...again no "A" drive. i get the a: prompt and i changed it to the b: drive (which is the cdrom) but not sure what to do next. i tried putting the windows cd in and it came up with an error...

any help would be appreciated...

[Paul Komski]

It wasn't obvious that you wanted to install Win98. Many Win98 CDs are themselves bootable - have you tried booting to the installation CD. Before you do that and since you now have a functional "floppy" (though running from a CD) have you created and formatted a partition on which to install Win98?

When you boot to such a boot CD (one that is emulating a floppy drive) the A: drive is simply just one section of the CD. The other section behaves like a "normal" CD so if you didnt copy any files to the CD section when you were creating the CD ISO there will be nothing in that particular folder. You could have copied the setup files (that is the Win98 folder on the Win98 CDROM) to the iso before burning it and then you could have run setup from the CDROM drive letter. The images from bootdisk.com usually tell you which drive letter to use to access the CD; from memory Win98 images use the name Tomato for the relevant drive and it just might be R:; Win95 ones use Banana and I cant remember at all what is used for WinME. The B: drive letter may swap with the A: drive letter in certain cirumstances but A: and B: are always floppies.

[lmn396]

after an exhausting 4 hours i finally got windows 98 loaded, after partitionng the hard drive, formatting the hard drive again, loading 98 in and then windows xp.

thanks for the great advice...by the way, i used that magiciso that worked great...

thanks again...

[Paul Komski]

Assuming this was an Upgrade Edition of WinXP you might not know that you don't need to actually install Win98 first. You can install WinXP directly from its bootable installation CD and (if it is an Upgrade Edition) the installation setup will prompt you to temporarily insert the Win98 installation CD to check that you actually have one to prove you were entitled to use the Upgrade Edition. Still if you had gone that more simple route you wouldnt have learned how to turn a boot floppy (or boot floppy image) into a boot CD.

;)