Windows 98 se install from usb error

[Lonewolf33651]

Im attempting to install windows 98 on an older tower and i cant get past the first screen of the setup. Im using freedos to start it and manually starting the windows 98 setup. 

 

Freedos starts from the usb and use cd command to navigate to the win98 folder. From there i just run setup.exe and it boots into the windows 98 setup. As soon as the setup starts it gives me an error saying windows requires atleast 16MB of memory. I hit ok and it just sends me back to freedos. 

 

Im using an old Dell tower and i only have 512MB Ram installed and im using an old 8GB IDE hard drive. I cannot get past this error. Can anybody help me? Ive inserted how the folders are set up on the flash drive. It was made bootable using Rufus

[manikyath]

wouldnt be surprised if USB was your problem here.

[Darel321]

I think win98 and usb boot dont rly like each other, If you plan to use that thing I would install some light linux instead

[8uhbbhu8]

I can confirm that Win98 and 98 SE really hate usb. Your best option is to burn a cd and install it that way. Also make sure to have all your drivers on another disk ready to go after the base install or you won't have much working. 

[Lonewolf33651]

Unfortunately i dont have any more cds. I do have win98 se on a cd but its not a bootable cd. I also cant seem to get freedos to read or even acknowledge that it has a cd drive installed

[mariushm]

I'd say Install FreeDOS on that drive after formatting it as FAT32

Then copy the contents of the usb stick in a folder on the hard drive - make a folder called winsetup for example and then copy the contents of WIN98 or whatever has the *.cab files in that folder.

Reboot from hard disk , go in that folder and run setup

 

commands should be mkdir to create folders, copy x:\win98\*.* c:\winsetup\*.* or something like that to copy the files , CD to change working directory etc 

use /? to get command line help or type HELP

If you don't want to use command line, add a copy of Dos Navigator to your freedos usb stick and run dos navigator to get a nice interface : https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/

 

 

The windows 98 setup.exe also has some parameters, one of them may make it ignore memory limit.

See http://www.thpc.info/how/switches9x.html  - maybe /im (skip memory check) would be useful in your case

 

PS. You could also make these tests lots of times fast until you get it right, by installing VirtualBox and creating a virtual computer with a 8 GB hdd and 512 MB of memory and a similar processor (make it emulate a Pentium 2 or something like that)

 

[Lonewolf33651]

11 minutes ago, Darel321 said:

I think win98 and usb boot dont rly like each other, If you plan to use that thing I would install some light linux instead

Im using an old Dell tower just to install win98. Once its on the hdd my plan is to move it to an actual self built win98 tower

[mariushm]

Also my memory is really fuzzy but I think only from Windows 98 SE there's proper USB support inside the operating system. Won't have USB with plain regular '98 edition. 

[Lonewolf33651]

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

I'd say Install FreeDOS on that drive after formatting it as FAT32

Then copy the contents of the usb stick in a folder on the hard drive - make a folder called winsetup for example and then copy the contents of WIN98 or whatever has the *.cab files in that folder.

Reboot from hard disk , go in that folder and run setup

 

commands should be mkdir to create folders, copy x:\win98\*.* c:\winsetup\*.* or something like that to copy the files , CD to change working directory etc 

use /? to get command line help or type HELP

 

The windows 98 setup.exe also has some parameters, one of them may make it ignore memory limit.

See http://www.thpc.info/how/switches9x.html  - maybe /im (skip memory check) would be useful in your case

So your saying install freedos onto the hard drive then use the usb to move the win 98 install folder onto the hard drive? How would i find the usb drive letter to move the folders over? And i am attempting to do this with SE edition

[mariushm]

Yes, create a bootable usb stick with freedos installation and everything, copy the contents of the Windows 98 disk to the usb stick, and if you want also add a copy of Dos Navigator to the usb stick to make transferring files easier (you launch dos navigator from freedos and it's like windows explorer but text only )

So you boot from usb, go in the freedos menu and choose install to disk (and format c: to fat32 if you want and gives you the option), then optionally go in dos navigator folder and run dn.exe or whatever the executable is and then copy the windows 98 folder to hdd, then go in that folder and run setup with whatever parameters you may need.

From that point, you can remove the usb stick as everything will happen from the hard drive.

[jools]

98-98

98se-99

2000-2000

me-2000

xp-2001

xpx64-2005

 

takes me back

[mariushm]

Oh by the way... you should really consider finding a copy of Windows 2000 or even Windows 2003 and try running it on that system. 

 

Windows 2000 will accept Windows XP drivers but won't have the heavy interface of XP and will be more stable than Windows 98. It also uses little disk space... like maybe 300-500 MB..

Windows 2003 - while a server operating system - still accepts some Windows XP drivers so most if not all components will run using XP drivers and you can disable unneeded services to get memory usage low (usually around 80 MB for the operating system out of 512 MB).

 

The only downside of Windows 2003 would be that most free antivirus software won't work on server operating systems. Other than that.. no Windows updates issues, no nagging and licensing issues like you'd have with Windows XP

[Lonewolf33651]

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Oh by the way... you should really consider finding a copy of Windows 2000 or even Windows 2003 and try running it on that system. 

 

Windows 2000 will accept Windows XP drivers but won't have the heavy interface of XP and will be more stable than Windows 98. It also uses little disk space... like maybe 300-500 MB..

Windows 2003 - while a server operating system - still accepts some Windows XP drivers so most if not all components will run using XP drivers and you can disable unneeded services to get memory usage low (usually around 80 MB for the operating system out of 512 MB).

 

The only downside of Windows 2003 would be that most free antivirus software won't work on server operating systems. Other than that.. no Windows updates issues, no nagging and licensing issues like you'd have with Windows XP

I may try finding windows 2000 but the system this will be on only has an AMD Duron 700Mhz and 256MB RAM. Im not sure about which GPU as of yet however

[ArduinoBen]

*By the way, you should use screenshots and the snipping tool next time instead of actual phone pictures.

[themctipers]

5 minutes ago, Lonewolf33651 said:

I may try finding windows 2000 but the system this will be on only has an AMD Duron 700Mhz and 256MB RAM. Im not sure about which GPU as of yet however

underclock it to get the 'saddest cpu' award (CPU-Z lowest clocked duron)

[mariushm]

That's fast enough for windows 2000. 256mb also works.

Default install will use maybe 50-60MB of memory. If you go and disable some pointless services you can get it down to 30-40 MB.

Lots of pluses also... proper 32bit os, more apps available, stable...