Hello, I have just obtained an old IBM 560e thinkpad laptop. There is no OS installed and no floppy or CD Rom drives. I am attempting to install windows 98 on it by taking out the hard disk, connecting it to a 2.5" laptop HD to USB adaptor on my XP desktop machine and copying over the 98 install files. Trouble is that although I can do this, I cannot make the drive bootable. I am looking to do something like the old windows 98 command "format :g /s" but of course xp's format command does not allow this. Any suggestions which dont involve me purchasing any additional hardware?

The easy and cheap way would be to buy one of these: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=906&sku=17705&engine=adwords!654&keyword=%28laptop+hard+drive+adaptor%29 which will allow you to temporarily install your laptop drive into your main box. Then just download and make a Windows98 startup floppy, boot up with the floppy, and command "sys c:" I'd also recommend you find a solution to the problem. Having a computer without an alternate boot device is, for me, a huge problem. How are you going to (eventually) reinstall, or do backups? Huge pain in the..... I'm not all that familiar with USB drives, but some CAN be made to be supported in DOS. You would have to "build" a floppy boot disk with the "sys" command (To match the target system), and also having drivers for the USB drive. How in heck did you partition and format this drive in the first place?

I think you will have to hook it up to a win98 system as the Primary Master. Boot from a win98 startup floppy and type: sys c:

I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE adaptor. Its not really the cost that bothers me (they cost next to nothing). I was more interested in the challange. The drive was bootable when I got it. I set up a second partition using partition magic on my desktop machine with my USB - 2.5" HD adaptor and copied the 98 install files to this (for inital install and future reinstalls) but something went wrong and it damaged the master boot record. Its only when I tried to repartition it back afterwards that the drive refused to boot. As far as backups go, I'm really not bothered. My plan is/was simply to use the machine for internet browsing as that is about all it is capable of! Thanks for the responses Paul

In order for it to be bootable in the laptop, the hard drive needs to be partitioned as a primary partition C: and set as Active and then Formated with the S command to make it bootable. Then copy the Windows 98 CD to a folder on the hard drive and then place it back into the laptop and boot up and at the C:\> prompt type The path to the folder you copied the cd to EXAMPLE C:\WIN98\setup.exe and press the Enter key and it will run the setup. Your next problem will involve the drivers for the hardware.

Do the following: Obtain a floppy disc. On your WINXP machine, and follow this link to start the download of a boot disk creator. Then insert the disk into your machine, and carry out the format procedure: format c: /s Then copy over the win98 cabs when you have done that. // Impavidus