Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games | PC Safety Suite
 |
 |
 |
Comment:
Hello,
I have an old compaq computer with windows 3.11 and only a floppy drive. How can I put on windows 95 on this computer. It dosen't have a network card to transfer data that way. Thanks
+1 |   |
There's a 13-disk set of floppies that will upgrade 3.1 to 95. That would probably be the easiest way if you can locate one. I can email you a disk image of the files but you'd need to be able to format your floppies as DMF (1.68 meg) instead of the usual 1.44.
Otherwise, remove the drive and temporarily connect it as a second drive on another computer. Create a win95 folder on the 3.1 drive and copy the contents of the win95 folder on the 95 cd into it's counterpart on the hard drive. Then install the drive back in the compaq and run setup from the win95 folder.
+1 | |
You could pemove the hard drive, install it as a slave on another PC and copy the win95 folder from an install CD to it. Restore the drive and run setup from the win95 folder.
+1 | |
Send me the image at lahnismarkis@hotmail.com how do I format in that format you were talking about?
+1 | |
I'd have to look around for a format utility that'll do dmf. Some drives can't do it anyway.
If you remove the drive from the laptop you'd need to get an adapter so it would work with a standard 40-pin ide cable. They sell them on ebay quite often.
I've got to run some errands and will check back later. If someone hasn't posted back with a dmf format utility I'll see if I can find one.
+1 | |
I've uploaded Maxidisk to my webspace. (mdisk42.zip). This utility will format to 1.7 MB DMF (Dense Media Format) as well as 1.4MB. I tried a Google search for it but came up empty handed, so it may not be available anymore via the net. I've had it for a few years now and it works great.
+1 | |
Try here
I think WinImage can as well
We have nothing against ideas. We're against people spreading them. - General Augusto Pinochet of Chile
+1 | |
Is there a way to connect a windows xp machine to a windows 3.11 machine via a paralell cable ( direct connection)? If so could I use that to transfer the windows 95 install files?
+1 | |
I downloaded the maxidisk and had no problems formatting the disk to 1.7 meg but the image wouldn't extract to it. It's very insistent about the disk being 1.68.
I downloaded winimage (I used the oldest version since I only needed to format) and had no problems formatting to 1.68 meg. But when I executed the image the disk ended up being corrupted. I used the option to format 'DMF (cluster 1024)' and got the same resultes. I tried the 'DMF (cluster 2048)' formatting option and the disk came out fine when I executed the image.
So if you want me to send the image files I'd suggest you format the floppies that way with winimage.
The first disk is formatted as a normal 1.44 so don't format it as 1.68.
There are 13 files I'd send, one for each disk. Each files is over 1 meg with the DMF ones being about 1.7 meg. I don't think hotmail gives you much room for attachments so you may need to download one before I can send another. So we'd need to synchronize the uploads and downloads.
Windows 3.1 (well dos) had a interlnk and intersrv (or something like that) to connect computers via the parallel or com ports. I'm not sure how that would work with XP. But if you can figure that out it may be easier.
Let me know what you want to do.
+1 | |
Isn't the 13th disk standard format as well?
afaik, there is no DCC for Win31 - and interlnk has problems with FAT32 let alone (possibly) NTFS.
The freebie FileMaven works well enough, but no idea how anything for DOS based systems will function with XP - I'd be doubtful. Probably some commercial products.
We have nothing against ideas. We're against people spreading them. - General Augusto Pinochet of Chile
+1 | |
The 13th disk file was small enough to fit on a 1.44 but it too was formatted 1.68, at least on my set.
I guess I could have just done a chkdsk on the dmf disk to find the right formatting option. It reported a 2048 cluster size.
+1 | |
Hmm - just checked my copy (the originals are.. somewhere) - and it is DMF after all.
Pretty sure I used Maxidisk or maybe Free Format when I was copying the originals, but it has been quite a while.
Pretty handy, but this is the 'plain vanilla' version of 95 - still, it can be upgraded to 'A' and many of the extras can be shoehorned in from later releases (like OpenGL)
We have nothing against ideas. We're against people spreading them. - General Augusto Pinochet of Chile
+1 | |
I couldn't find an option in maxidisk to format 1.68. Of course there wouldn't be a problem copying a 1.68 disk to a 1.7. It's just the image file demands the same format as it was imaged from.
I had tried some other dos formatting utility a while back that didn't work.
I just found I had another one--GR disk utility--already on my computer. I don't remember where I got it. But it formatted the disk with 2048 cluster size also.
+1 | |
Yeah - I realized after posting that it'd be a different issue working with a disk image.
Coincidently, I do recall a recent post wrt 95 diskettes where the poster advised on setting the cluster size as you describe.
We have nothing against ideas. We're against people spreading them. - General Augusto Pinochet of Chile
+1 | |
WinImage can copy the DMF disks into a self extracting exe which will format the floppy correctly as they being made. Course ya gotta pull the images from the orig floppies one at a time into self extracting exe.
+1 | |
As the Poster is using W3.x would it not be better to use the DOS version of WinImage??
http://www.winimage.com/othertl.htm
+1 | |
I've been using something called Floppyimage to image my disks and have it create them as self extracting exe files. But it won't format the destination disk. That'd be handy to have though. I'll have to check out winimage further.
4004, I guess I assumed the poster was on another computer. Thanks for the link. It's there if he needs it.
+1 | |
And here's the link for MaxiDisk. It ~is~ out there on the net, I just didn't look deep/hard enough. ;>(
http://www.herne.com/index.htm
+1 | |
Regarding the person who said they'd send the files. That would be great. Could I use like 5 floppies and then copy those then do the next 5 cos I dont have 13 floppies.
+1 | |
As well I have the windows 95B version, what files do I need to copy to the laptop and how do I acces setup once I have copied them all?
+1 | |
I suppose that while installing 95 from the disks you could delete the files from the disks already used and extract another image on the disk.
You would need the contents of the win95 folder on the 95b disk copied to your HD in order to install windows that way. I checked a 96B disk I have and the files in the win95 folder total to about 63 meg. The bulk of those are the 1.7 meg .cab files.
You could copy the files a few at a time with the floppy disks you have or, as I mentioned in #1 above, you could connect the laptop HD to another computer.
If I email you the files you wouldn't have to immediately extract them to the floppy disks. You could leave them on the computer on which you're downloading them until you're ready to use them.
If you want me to send them give me a time when you'll be ready to receive them since there may be a problem with your mailbox filling up. Use the time on computing.net (US pacific time) as a reference. I've only got a 56K so if you download the same time as I upload there shouldn't be a problem.
 |
 WPRNTSVR caused an invali...
|
midi driver problem
|
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
