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Installing Windows 98
By Cabbing the Files

Use These instructions at your own risk. I will accept no responsibility for lost data. Backup your files if you are worried about it. I will also accept no responsibility for damage to hardware. These instructions are simply offered as a help file to new hardware people, and give an overview of what myself and many other hardware techs know about installing hard drives.

These instruction are for a new hard drive, as there are alot of variations of installing, and it's just easier to choose one than to cover every possible option.

Cabbing files simply means copying the windows source file to the hard drive and installing from there. The advantage is that you never have to dig up the CD again, and windows can find alot of files without bugging you at all. Additionally if you need to reinstall windows the source files are already on your hard drive, and you don't have to worry about CD-Rom drivers etc.

Overview:
The steps we usually follow to install a new hard drive are as follows:
Get a boot disk
Get the source CD (Windows 98 CD)
Pull old hard drive just in case
Physically Install New hard drive after setting jumpers.
Partition using Fdisk
Format the Hard Drive
Boot up on hard drive only to check it.
Copy over the Windows 98 setup files
Run the Windows 98 Setup program.

Instructions:

Backups and Hard Drive Installation
1) If you are upgrading you should remove the old hard drive first to prevent accidently erasing it. This is just a precaution, but it's a good one. I would suggest a backup of at least irreplacable files, there's generally no need to backup up things like MS Office or other programs you can reinstall, just the files you created with such programs that you can't replace. This generally means a much smaller backup, and much less time to do it.

To remove the old hard drive after you've done you backup, open the case and locate it. It will have a thin gray or blue ribbon about 2 inches wide coming from the motherboard. Unplug it and the power plug from the drive no the motherboard . No need to take it out of the case yet, only if you want to. Now set your new hard drive to Single (if it has that setting) or to Master. You do this by adjusting the little black jumpers on the drive itself. If usually tells you the setting on the drive, but if it doesn't you have to look in your book or on the internet. Then install the drive somewhere and plug it in with power and the ribbon. The ribbon has a red-line on it, this generally faces the power connector, and always connects to pin 1 which is usually labeled somewhere(Usually really small on the bottom of the drive). I just just it toward power myself, it works 98% of the time.

Creating a Boot Disk
2) Create a boot disk from an existing Windows 98 machine. It helps if it's the same version, but it's not necessary. In case you didn't know there are 2 versions of windows 98. The standard one, and the SE (second edition) one. Second edition was only shipped with new machines and in the MSDN packages for developers. Windows 98 SE is the one I prefer.

To create a boot disk, go to a windows 98 machine with a blank floppy and select Start->Settings->Control Panel. Once the control panel comes up select Add Remove Programs. Then you will notice that there are 3 tabs on the top. Select Startup Disk. There is a button there that will create a startup disk for you. Just put in the disk and push the button. This disk will also install a few cd-rom drivers that will will need. Note it will ask for a blank formatted disk.

Writing a Boot Record
3) Now we can actually get started. Take the boot disk to the new hard drive machine and place it in the floppy. Boot up (turn it on) the machine with this disk in floopy drive A. You will see a few things like Windows 98 is starting!, and then a menu. Select the one without CDRom support. Finally you will get an A prompt. If you don't see all this goto BIOS SETUP in the troubleshooting section below. Now if you did see all this we're ok, just type "fdisk /MBR" and press enter. Don't enter the " marks though. It should just come right back to the A prompt. This will write out a new Boot Record so the hard drive can boot on it's own.

Partitioning with Fdisk
4) Next type "fdisk" and press ENTER. If you are asked about large disk support say Yes. Now we will create a new partition. Select Create new partition (option 1) and select Primary. Follow the directions. If you are new to this then stick just the one primary partition. You will have to answer a few simple questions and then you will get control back. It will most likely want to reboot at the end.

Formatting
5) Now we can format the hard drive by rebooting with the floppy and choosing the same option without CDRom support. When you get the A prompt type "format C: /s" and press enter. This is where I hope you have the new drive in there since it will erase drive C. Anser Yes to start formatting the drive. The /S option means to make it a bootable drive by copying over the system files. When it is done formatting you will be asked for a volume label. You jsut make up something it doesn't matter really but you can't use spaces or special characters.

Check your work
6) Remove the floppy from the drive and reboot without it. You should get a C prompt i.e. the hard drive. If not then try rebooting on the floppy and running "fdisk /MBR" again and retry without the floppy. If still no C prompt go to troubleshooting.

Copy over the Windows 98 Files
7) Boot up the floppy again and this time select cd rom support. At the A prompt type C: then ENTER. Now we make a place to put the files. I usually use c:\install\win98 so lets create a couple of directories. Here is a list of the commands we want in order. Press Enter After each one.

c:
md install
cd install
md win98
cd win98

Now to copy the files. Put in the Windows 98 CD. For our purposes we will assume that the CDrom is Drive E:. Now I have to find out what CD you have. I will list it 2 ways one for MSDN and one for the standard CD. Choose the one you have. Note both of these assume you have performed all the operations in step 7. If you reboot, be sure to at least do the cd commands again. Otherwise the files will be copied to the wrong place on the hard drive.

If you have a Standard Windows 98 CD
e:
cd win98
copy *.* c:

If you have MSDN
e:
cd win98_se
cd setup
cd win98
copy *.* c:
Now we are ready to run setup. Pull the CD out of the drive. The commands are below rememeber to hit enter after each one.

c:
setup

and complete the setup of windows. We're done!
Troubleshooting:
To be completed at a later date.
I don't have the time to write this now.


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