Ok. I found everything I neded to be able to load USB CD-ROM drivers. The toughbook boots from the floppy. Now, when I access the CD-ROM, and start the setup of Win98, I get this message:

"Windows Setup requires 'largest executable program size' to be 442368".

Does anyone out there know what this means and how to fix it?

Has the drive been partitioned or formatted?

... otherwise, more here

I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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Yes....the drive has been partitioned and formatted. And I was lucky to get that much done. When I put in my Windows98 Preinstallation boot disk in the floppy drive, and start the computer, it says "Remove disk or media, and press any key to restart". But if I make a startup disk off my XP machine, it will take the floppy, but not let me run fdisk, or format.

That sounds... confusing - why are you trying to do anything with an XP 'startup' disk, if the drive has been prepared for Win98? Are you saying the 98 disk doesn't/didn't work?

Are any of the situations referred to by that M$ link applicable?

You could try booting with a working Win98 floppy, run fdisk option (4) and report the drive status - - you might consider running Scandisk to check the drive for errors, if it is in fact partitioned & formatted FAT/FAT32

I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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My XP computer is the only one I have to make a start up disk. After making it, and booting the Toughbook up, every time I would run FDisk or Format, it would tell me I have the wrong veriion of DOS. But.....good news. I surfed around long ehough and finally found a utilty that will create a true Win98 start-up disk. I tested it and it worked. So I took the USB boot floppy, booted the toughbook, then copied all of my setup files from the USB CD-ROM to the hard drive. Then rebooted with the 98 disk I made, ran setup, and it worked. Just completing the Win2k upgrade right now on the first laptop.

So....all is well. I thank you for your input on all this. I have been working on this damn thing since 4:30 this morning, and only 16 hours later, victory is finally mine! :-)

Thanks again. Hope you have Merry Christmas.
Bart

So, really, you are finally admitting that the drive was not formatted at all, and you were just making that part up? Great (I don't know why I even asked in the first place)

Also... considering that proper bootdisks online are as scarce as Viagra ads, well done.

- - and (of course) the clincher is... your intention was to install a completely different OS anyways

FYI, there was no need to install 98 at all

16 hours? Not at all surprising, given your methodology

Joy to the World

I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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No sir. It wasn't a made up story. The drive was formatted, but my problem was memory, or lack thereof. I had to end up copying all the Win98 setup files to the hard drive and running setup that way. And I had to do the Win98 install first, because my Win2k cd was only an UPGRADE. It wouldn't let me do a new install from the UPGRADE cd. These Panasonic Toughbooks are definately a breed of their own. Having no cd-rom makes it tough to load an OS. It would have been a lot easier if I knew how to boot to LAN, because that option is available in BIOS. Boot to USB-CDROM was not. But thanks for your help anyway.