At 01:13 AM 04/08/2001 Catherine Williamson wrote:
> . . .
>I think both of you are saying I should try make
>my HD bootable, so I can install Windows without the
>floppy. I can hook up the HDs but the Config/Auto
>exec part is pretty scary. I'll try if the two of you
>will guide me. . .
>I know how to create Config.sys and Autoexec.bat
>but I don't know which files to copy and also
>I have no idea how to edit them to point to Himem.sys,
>the CD drivers or mscdex....


Catherine

This is how I would prep the hard disk drive ("HDD") from your Burnt power
supply PC ("BPC") for loading Windows 98.

First, back up all data from the BPC's HDD, and make yourself a Windows 98
Start Up disk.

Next, determine the Make & Model of your HDD. Go on the Internet and
download the diagnostic utility for the HDD. If the utility is not
self-booting, copy it to a bootable floppy.

Then, disconnect ALL the HDDs from your working system and install the
BPC's HDD as the primary IDE channel's master. Boot up and go into CMOS.
Set ALL the HDDs parameters (use Auto-Detect) and verify the boot sequence
is A:, C:

Now, re-boot to the Utility Floppy and run the diagnostics. Test the HDD
for errors. The utility may repair errors by removing problem sectors from
use. Then use the WRITE ZERO or Low Level Format utility to restore the
drive to near new (blank) condition.

Next, reboot to a Windows 98 floppy. You need to FDISK the BPC's HDD and
partition it to a Primary DOS partition of the desired size. Set this
partition active. Exit gracefully. Or you can use the following
undocumented FDISK switch to create an active primary DOS partition of 8000
MB on the first drive:

        FDISK  1  /PRI:8000

Reboot at the DOS prompt. NOTE WHICH DRIVE LETTER DOS ASSIGNS TO THE CDROM.
You may have to press ESC to clear the Windows splash screen.

At the DOS prompt, format the drive with the system switch:

        FORMAT  C:  /S

Run SCANDISK with a surface analysis.

Next, make the directory C:\BIN.  Copy all the files from the A: drive and
the RAMDISK drive (probably D: drive) to the BPC's HDD. These are all the
barely essential DOS commands/utilities from Windows. If you use a SCSI or
proprietary CDROM drive, copy its driver to C:\BIN too.

Use EDIT.COM to create the following C:\CONFIG.SYS file:

        DEVICE=C:\BIN\HIMEM.SYS
        DEVICE=C:\BIN\OAKCDROM.SYS  /D:MSCD001
        FILES=40
        BUFFERS=20

  ; NOTE: if you don't have a standard IDE CDROM, use its driver
  ; If the CDROM is SCSI, first load device driver ASPI8DOS.SYS

Then, use EDIT.COM to create the following C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

        PROMPT=$P$G
        PATH=C:\BIN
        C:\BIN\MSCDEX.EXE  /D:MSCD001

Now, make the directory C:\WIN98 and copy the entire contents of the \Win98
directory of your Windows 98 CD (you noted the CDROM's drive letter, yes?)
into the C:\WIN98 directory of the BPC's HDD. This should be about 110 MB
worth of files.

Reboot to verify the BPC's HDD is bootable and the startup files load okay.
The only essential driver which must load is HIMEM.SYS.

Finally, remove the HDD and reinstall it into the BPC and boot to the HDD.
If you have a different CDROM drive, edit the C:\CONFIG.SYS to load the
DEVICE driver for the BPC's CDROM drive. Verify that everything works.
Change to the C:\WIN98 directory and run:  SETUP

Don't forget to reconnect your other system's hard drive(s) and configure
their HDD parameters in CMOS.

Good luck.

John Chin

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