hello,
i have an old computer desktop with celeron intel inside
but it doesnt have cd rom
anyway the hD is about 40gigs
and there's no OS in it
i bought external rom and trying to connect it
but it wont recognize the external rom
is there any way to make my HD works?
right now it wont acces anything but from floppy disk
thanks

Is the external USB?

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

"external rom" Do you mean "external CDrom"?

You need drivers for any of that kind of hardware, and many newer external drives are only supported by Winbows.

Can't you afford a few bucks for a CDROM?

Can't you temporarily "rob" the CDROM out of another machine?

If you are not installing X tra P utrid, you can actually install ME, 98, or other systems by using a transfer cable from a second computer.

(Actually, you CAN install XP this way,but it's a real pain.)

I assume you at least have a floppy drive so that you can boot the machine, and partition/ format the drive?

There are few other ways.

Pop the target drive into your other machine, and partition, format the drive, and copy the install files to the drive.

I would partition the drive into at least two partitions, and copy the setup files to the second partition. If you are setting up 98/Me that's easy. Just copy the \win98 "directory" to the second partition, when done put back in the target computer, boot with a '98 floppy, and run setup from the second partition.

Does this old PC recognise the full size of the hard drive in BIOS ?

If the hard drive is recognised correctly you need an USB DOS Boot Floppy if the you meant an USB CD Drive, see:

http://83.67.55.228/USBDOS.exe

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307848

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;255867

hello , yes it is external cd rom
but i just bought flash drive USB as well
and i downloaded USBDOS to help me detect my USB on DOS.
well the software works good , just be able to detect my flash drive.
im using SanDisk Cruzer Mini 0.2 with 1.0gigs
it says :
ASPI Device : ID:0 LUN:0 = SanDisk Cruzer Mini 0.2

Installed ASPI manager

a:\>mscdex.exe /d:cd001
Device driver not found: 'CD001'
No valid CDROM device drivers selected
a:\>smartdrv.exe

thats it.
how do i access my SanDisk?
thanks

fdisk /status

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

after booting from usbdos
i change the floppy to startup disk to get fdisk but it says wrong dos version

ok it the fdisk doesnt show up my flash drive even im booting with same version of DOS.
but with USBDOS boot disk i can see that my flashdrive was SanDisk Cruze mini
but i dont know how to access it.
i already put the setup windows on the flash drive
thanks

There are no DOS usb flashdrive drivers. Get CD-ROM working and copy win98 folder to HDD as "name" says.

Best

"There are no DOS usb flashdrive drivers. "

Well... DOS reads mine.

So, did you get fdisk to run after loading USB?

And how did you put the setup files on the flash drive?

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

hmm can as another poster as just said use a CD rom drive from another PC and its not realy hard to put the drive into another pc copy the install files from the cd to the hard drive then put it back in

"Kernrel Panic"

Put this drive in another computer and copy the CD files to the hard drive. Anything else will make you crazy.

You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users