I have an old model of Dell Latitude LM Laptop, which has a slot in which we can swap CR-ROM or Floppy drive. The problem here is that I want to format the hard disk and reinstall windows 98. When I try to start my laptop with the bootable windows 98 CD. The laptop is not booting from the CD-Rom. I also changed the BIOS setting to make the diskette as the initial boot sequence. Can may one help me out.

First, are you sure it's bootable? I think only the 98 OEM disks were bootable. And I take it there's no bios option to boot from the cdrom? To get around that you'll need to add the necessary files to the hard drive and boot from it. You'll need to have the floppy drive attached in order to do it. Boot up with a floppy bootdisk. (At this point just choose to start it without cdrom support.) Then type format c:/s at the a:\> prompt. When it's done (just hit ENTER when it asks for a label), at the prompt type copy a:\himem.sys c:\ and enter, then copy a:\oakcdrom.sys c:\ and enter, then copy a:\mscdex.exe c:\ and enter. Then using something like notepad on a working computer create a file named CONFIG.SYS. That file should have these 2 lines: DEVICE=C:\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=C:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:IDECD000 Then create a second file named AUTOEXEC.BAT and edit in this line: C:\MSCDEX /D:IDECD000 Copy those 2 files (config.sys and autoexec.bat) to a floppy disk and put that disk in the Dell. At a dos prompt on the Dell type: copy a:\config.sys c:\ and enter, then copy a:\autoexec.bat c:\ and enter. Remove the floppy disk, shut off the Dell and remove the floppy drive and swap in the cdrom drive. Then start the computer normally. The computer will boot from the hard drive and load cdrom drivers. With the 98 cd in the cdrom you should be able to start the installation by typing d:\setup and enter.

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Also: http://www.mesich.com and then go to: How-to's\Load Windows using swappable drives for Krystyna's detailed how to...

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ThanX all for the reply. I hope this idea will help me out. I have one question. How do i know that what sys file does my CD-ROM drive support, or "OAKCDROM.SYS" will work for all drives?

OAKCDROM.SYS should work for all drives. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!