I'm trying to load Win 95 onto a 486 at present using 3.1. Two problems: I've put a CD Drive into the machine but it's not working & I've no drivers for it and the A:\ drive isn't working. Ive switched the cable and turned it 180 degrees with no response. Tried formatting a disc - nothing - "Invalid media or Track 0 bad"

Go here for how to make sure your data cables are right: I assume you have an IDE CDRom drive, and it isn't more than 5 years old or so. The rules for connecting an IDE CDRom drive are the same as for hard drives. http://www.lanyoncomputers.com.au/corner/threadview.jsp?post=5426&thread=4053 ........... Does your hard drive spin with the CDRom connected? If it isn't spinning - If the CDRom drive is older than that, usually 1X or 2X, it may be proprietary, and even if it has 40 pins, it is not compatible with IDE, and it can cause your hard drive to stop spinning if the CDRom data cable is plugged into IDE. If that's the case, unplug the cdrom drive, and see if your A and C drive will then work. If they do, you need a sound card or proprietary cdrom card that has the connector meant for that brand and model of cdrom drive, and drivers for it, before you can use that cdrom drive, or you need to get an IDE CDRom drive. Some really old IDE CDRom drives, usually 1X, 2X, 4X will not work on a mboard with two IDE mboard connectors. .......... If that doesn't allow the computer to boot normally Can you get into the bios? Does it say "Press xxx key for Setup on the first screen? If you see that, go to Setup (after you make sure your cables are right) and make sure your floppy drive is turned on - 3 1/2" 1.44mb, and the position your hard drive is on is turned on. Normally that position will be Auto - and and the end of the same line - Auto or LBA. Save settings and reboot. You do not need to worry about settings for your CDRom drive in the bios, as long as the Primary or Secondary IDE it is connected to is turned on. Once you get a normal boot into Dos/win 3.1 You need a bootable floppy with lines in the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files to activate your CDRom drive. If you have a Win 95 boot disk, it does not have these driver lines unless someone put them there - you must put them in yourself. Do you have a Dos boot disk that has the lines in the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files to activate your CDRom drive, say, for playing Dos games? If you do, that will do fine for installing Win 95. See this as well: See Cdrom Support, Boot Disk, Etc. If you have an IDE CDRom drive, oakcdrom.sys on the Win 98/98SE Startup bootdisk works with most IDE CDRom drives. http://www.windowsreinstall.com/indexwin95.htm

Thanks Mike I will try some, or all, of those options. Unfortunately, having restarted the machine I have found out that it's older and a lot less "oomphy" than I originally thought - it's an 80386DX with 7700Kb of HD. So I'm beginning to think is it really worth the time and effort. Thoughts Please

386's often do not have the option on the bootup screen of entering the bios. With such, the computer often came with such a utility on a floppy disk. If that's the case, and you don't have the utility, you must obtain a generic bios setup utility to do that, from the web . Check your cable connections first - you may not need to go into the bios.

I think that you must mean 286's Mike. Pretty rare to find a 386 without a CMOS setup built-in Paul - no matter what, you'll want the floppy drive to work, it's pretty essential for resolving system problems. Have you tried more than one floppy? 'Track 0 bad' usually means a messed up diskette, although it could mean that the FDD is in bad shape (replace it or its cable) A 386DX is a 32 bit machine - basically the model for modern machines. CPU speed could be quite variable, but 25, 33 or 40MHz was typical. Not really recommended for Win95, although it does meet the minimum specs, not by very much. 7700KB of HD (?) - you probably mean 7 (actually 8) megabytes of RAM - not too shabby for running Win31 It's almost a certainty that the CD drive runs from the soundcard - check make & model # to determine the driver Use

Oh my life!! I took out the FDD drive and it's covered in, I assume, 15 years of caked on grime. I'm assuming that the HDD, as well as everything else inside, is in a similar condition. Argh!!! the ribbons are cracking in my hands, I seriously think this one is beyond economic repair!! Thanks guys but I think this one has gone to heaven.

HDD is a sealed unit, not to worry - although you may need new cables (couple of bucks). Doesn't hurt to keep the dust off though, in order to minimize heating and keep the rest of the machine clean. Might be missing some slot covers? Floppy drives, on the other hand, are 'exposed' and can get gummed up. Fairly inexpensive to replace (and an easy job). Use