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General discussion

boot disk

by curious46 Jun 16, 2007 10:34AM PDT

hello. I've got a PC with windows XP in it, all the bells and whistles, etc. I also have a sony viao xg line old laptop (with windows 98 and windows XP on it). I need to make a boot disk in order to install a program on the old laptop (in the windows 98 OS). The program is on both my pc and on the XP OS on the old laptop. However, I cannot get the program onto the 98 OS. I tried several times making a bootable disk using nero startsmart (a burning program) on my pc. In these attempts, I tried various config files and patches, to no avail. Is there a special way that I need to restart my laptop to make it recognize the bootdisk? I thought I incorrectly created the bootdisk, is there a special process I have to follow, or special things that need to go on it other than what I have listed? I have tried nero's english US boot image, and images from other people that have installed this program using the boot disk method. By the way, there is no floppy drive on the laptop.

My initial idea was to buy a PCMCIA network card for the laptop, go online, download the program in 98, and run it. However, the card is not recognized in the 98 OS.

As stated, I do have the program up and running in the XP version, but I need to run it in windows 98 because the program is an old DOS one. I heard that there is absolutely no DOS capabilities to play with in XP--is this true? The only reason I want to run it in 98 is because everyone I talk to regarding this program says 98 is the latest OS that it can be run in, and that it needs to be run in a bootable setting... or something like that. Is there any way that I can fish out the program from the XP version on the laptop onto the 98 OS?

Additional info: upon booting my laptop, I have a few options. Boot in XP or 98, safe mode, safe mode with command prompt, safe mode with networking, VGA Mode, Enable Boot Logging, last good config, normal mode, debugging mode, directory services. Am I missing something?

Any ideas? Sorry for such a long post, and thank you for your time.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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What program?
by John.Wilkinson Jun 16, 2007 10:40AM PDT

I must say I'm not sure why you need to create a boot disk in order to install a program. Filling in the name of the program may shed some light on your troubles. In the mean time you can click here to download a boot disk creation utility from bootdisk.com, which should get you away from the problems with Nero.

Let us know.
John

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more info
by curious46 Jun 16, 2007 11:36AM PDT

sorry--the program is called VDS pro. It's an old diagnostic program for German cars. I don't know how that helps, but maybe.... I suppose the reason that I need to create a boot disk instead of a regular disk is because it's an old DOS only software (so no windows?). Someone said that there is actually no DOS in XP whatsoever. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but this is supposedly the reason why I have to run it in a DOS based OS.

Everybody in the car forum getting this to work has the same story: I downloaded the image, burned the ISO to a CD, and booted from the CD. (Followed by running an executable file from the CD).

I hope this clears things up at least a little
thanks a lot for such a quick response!

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No, there is DOS underlying XP Ibut not Vista)
by Dave Konkel [Moderator] Jun 17, 2007 6:40AM PDT

This is from Moderator Jonah Jones:

"I don't remember the last time ran a DOS program, but wouldn't booting XP into a command window (F8-safe mode with command prompt) be the same? "

Indeed it would -- but you can get directly to a command prompt from XP by creating a "command prompt" link on your desktop with the target "%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe" (No quotes).

Hope this helps! -- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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Re: old DOS-only software.
by Kees Bakker Jun 17, 2007 7:28AM PDT

This kind of software shouldn't present any problem at all.

Just burn the whole folder it's in (that is, the installed and running program) to a CD, on your Windows 98 machine copy it to the hard disk (use a folder with the same name), use Windows Explorer or the DOS attrib commands to remove the read-only attribute it got while on the CD, and it surely will run.

Kees

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