can you put the win95o/s onto floppies for installation?

[bogart]

i was recently informed that there was a utility on windows 95 that enabled you to create floppy disks for installation of the o/s. i require to do this as my laptop does not have a cdrom drive, or an o/s.

can anyone tell me how i can do this, or if indeed i have been informed correctly?

thanks
bogart

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son, i'm thirty, i only went with your mother cos she's dirty

[YODA74]

You won't get it all on a 1.44 you might be able to do multiple but seems like more of a hassle to me. invest in an external drive then you have it.
or try the library they have equipment you can use to do this or a zip drive??just my opinion .Stick around some may have some better answers. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[kayofcircles]

Yes, check back later when most of our experts are online. I believe that I read the same thing, but may have only read that 95 did come on floppies at one point.

[bogart]

thanks. i was hoping to avoid the expense of an externat cdrom, as laptop equipment is mucho expensive.

i have seen win95 on floppies, there are around 25 of them. last resort is to 'borrow' them from work. if i can make them from the cdrom however, this would be a handy thing to know.

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son, i'm thirty, i only went with your mother cos she's dirty

[kayofcircles]

Read a bunch of stuff yesterday in the database about 95, but couldn't find anything about taking the OS off the CD and putting it onto floppies. Found a guide you might want to reference: Windows 95 (http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/howto/95/kbsetup.asp). Found some freeware file splitters here (http://www.webattack.com/freeware/downloader/fwfilesplit.shtml) and maybe one specifically for 95 here (http://www.ms-inf.ch/winsplit/). But was thinking that splitting files might not put them in the right order for installation. Remembered reading a thread here about putting all of 98's files onto the hard drive and installing from there. But..couldn't you just borrow the floppies from work and copy them all? Might be easiest, huh?

[YODA74]

Good morning, ya i do re- member with an old packard bell that you could do this it does take 27 disks but i beleive you have to use the ?? high density 1.78 or something like that i'm looking thru the books i still have from that if i can get all the dust off them. i'll try and get that if i can find. Barewith.

[bogart]

thanks people, much appreciate your efforts.
do you think the xcopy e:\*.* a: /s/c/h/r/e/k would work? (where e: is cd drive). haven't tried it yet but will let you know if it does.
also got a program called floppy maker 1.1 which i hope might work. will be trying these out over the weekend.

once again thanks for your efforts

bogart http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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son, i'm thirty, i only went with your mother cos she's dirty

[MBSetzer]

Hi bogie:

Well just got here today with my post about the modem nightmare on the Troubleshooting OS forum.

What I would do with W95 is to create a new W95CD folder on a hard drive in the laptop, if you have more than one partition, it might be the best idea to put it somewhere besides C:, so that you could format C: in the future without losing all of the files you will be copying from the floppies. The root of the W95CD folder will basically just contain the few uncompressed files that show up in the root of the CDROM drive when you have the CD in there (plus a new text file you add with the code number of that CD). After you get AUTORUN.INF on the floppy, rename it to AUTORUN.INX or forget this file altogether, you will no longer be autoinstalling W95 but using setup instead. Then within the W95CD folder you will need a new Drivers folder (with a lot of sub-folders), and a WIN95 folder. Copy the non-compressed files from the CDROM from its root to the first floppy. Make sure to add your own new text file containing the CDROM code that is for that CD. I put two copies of this for backup. Also, if you haven't already done so, make sure to write the code number clearly on the upper side of the CD with a Sharpie permanent marker http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif
And don't let alcohol come into contact or it will wash away the Sharpie mark, so no more using the original W95 CD as a coaster for any Martinis http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif
Then selectively add more folders in the order they appear by including them with as many files as will fit. Other than the WIN95 folder, I think you don't really need any more of the uncompressed stuff expect for the Drivers, but make sure to get the drivers and put them in the right folders. Then copy from the Drivers folders on the floppies into the Drivers folder in your new W95CD folder in the laptop

Then for the first of the OS floppy disks (these will all come from the WIN95 folder on the CDROM) you will need to copy the uncompressed files from the WIN95 folder, but probably don't really need the 1.9MB of SETUP25i.EXE (AOL 2.5) or the 6.6MB of SETUP32.EXE (AOL 3.2), plus I think CS3KIT.EXE is Compuserve3, probably no need for that either, so without them it will be possible to fit the uncompressed ones onto regular floppies. This uncompressed stuff may take a few floppies but to install them on the laptop I would first copy them all from the floppies onto the laptop's hard drive into your WIN95 folder like they are on the CD. Almost forgot, at the end of the alphabet there are a few more files you will see in Windows Explorer, I think WOWKIT.EXE is 19.2MB intended for when you will be using 16-bit applications in a 32-bit windows install, this may not be needed either, at least I know sometimes WOW means Windows on Windows at Microsoft, maybe this one is for installing W95 over W3.1? Maybe find out more about this one, if this turns out to be necessary, I would try to use W95 BACKUP to save that file to a few floppies, you will have to use RESTORE from the same version to get it back in one piece, you would have to carefully select your options during the backup preliminaries or the folders would be wacky.

Then you come to the problem, starting with WIN95_02.CAB of how to fit the 1.6+MB onto a 1.44 floppy. I know this is not the first time you will have tried to get 10lbs. of anything into a 5lb bag http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif
For this you will need a DOS program called *Maxi Form* for maximum format. It's a 67KB zip file known as MFORM19B.zip or maxi19a.zip. I found it on a DOS shareware archive on the net, if you need it I could email it to you.

Unzip it and follow the README.DOC instructions, you will then go to DOS and format your blank floppies according to the directions and they will come out just right with enough space to fit the CAB files. You will need 27 blank floppies formatted like this. In this situation where you only want one file per floppy, this type of format uses the directory space for your data instead of reserving it for the file index.

Then copy each CAB file to its own floppy.

Then I would just put each floppy in the laptop, copy its CAB file to the WIN95 folder on the laptop's HDD along with the uncompressed stuff you previously put there.

To install then, assuming you've just got the DOS prompt from using a Windows startup floppy on the laptop with an otherwise wiped C: drive, RUN the SETUP.EXE (4KB) that is now in your WIN95CD folder on the laptop, and everything should proceed as normal.

I would test it first just to make sure you have everything right before you take the chance of letting anything happen to the original W95 CDROM though . . .

Hope this helps, sorry it's so long but there's probably some stuff I left out http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif
Mike

[Jumby]

I used to work at a PC consignment store that sold used PC's and we did installations of WIN95 from disks to laptops all the time. O.S.'s on old Compaqs used to have an icon that sad "make disks". You click on it and start inserting. Yeah, it took a while and a lot of disks, but it worked. Can't tell you where to get them, but we used to do it. I know, big help, huh?

[sea69]

I have win95 on 13 floppy disks (original version), and had no problems installing and then updating to win95b.

I however have never tried to copy these,

I'm sure there is an easier way.

edit: don't know about easier, but here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robert.bale/win95backup.htm) it is.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)




[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 09-08-2001).]