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General discussion

Installing Windows 95

Feb 28, 2004 12:49AM PST

I have an older computer that I am trying to install Windows 95 to. When I turn on the computer with the diskette and cd disk in I come to a: prompt. When I try to go to d: invalid drive specification comes up. Can anyone help me get to d: from the a:? Thanks for any help.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 28, 2004 1:00AM PST

Without knowing the make/model/connection of the CDROM drive, you would try other boot disks from http://www.bootdisk.com

Bob

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Re:Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 28, 2004 9:50AM PST

Thank you for responding to my question. I took your advise and went to bootdisk.com and downloaded a new bootdisk. My problem now is that the message that comes up is: cannot create a temporary directory
If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive, you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up windows. Do you know what this means? If so please advise as to what to do. Thanks for any help you can give me.

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How to partition...
Feb 28, 2004 10:01AM PST
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Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 28, 2004 2:45AM PST

A standard Windows 95 bootdisk is NOT able to read the CD. You've got to get the right entries in config.sys and autoexec.bat to do so (load the driver, and run mscdex - that's microsoft cd extension).

As Bob indicates, some of the bootdisks available from www.bootdisk.com do already are prepared so. Which saves you the need to look up the correct commands in some old MS-DOS manual. I frankly admit I can't reproduce them by head (but I still do have the manuals).

Kees

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Re:Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 28, 2004 9:56AM PST

Thank you for your response. I now get a message: cannot create a temporary directory: If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive, you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up windows. Do you know what this means? Let me know. Thanks again.

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Re:Re:Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 29, 2004 6:00AM PST

I suspect that you're attempting to install Win95 original edition or Win95A onto a harddrive that has been partitioned as FAT32. FAT32 partitions are not recognized by these versions of Win95.

You need to delete the existing partition(s) using <B>fdisk</B>, then create a new FAT16 partition using the same utility. Instructions can be found here:

<A HREF="http://computing.net/howto/advanced/fdisk/" target="_blank"><font color="blue">How to Use Fdisk</font></A>

HTH

Dave

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Re:Re:Re:Re:Installing Windows 95
Feb 29, 2004 6:03AM PST

Oops...I'm new to this forum & didn't realize that HTML isn't supported. Let's try that again...

I suspect that you're attempting to install Win95 original edition or Win95A onto a harddrive that has been partitioned as FAT32. FAT32 partitions are not recognized by these versions of Win95.

You need to delete the existing partition(s) using fdisk, then create a new FAT16 partition using the same utility. Instructions can be found here:

http://computing.net/howto/advanced/fdisk/

HTH

Dave

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Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Installing Windows 95
Mar 2, 2004 2:30AM PST

If you come up with that message, you may need to enter fdisk to see if you have a valid PRI DOS partition. NTFS or NON DOS partitions will not allow anything from Millenium or older to install for they are PRI DOS operating systems. You could use a 98 boot floppy and check the current partition information ( usually choice 4, you only get 5 choices if you have more than one hard drive), and view the type and size of partition and if the partition is active. It must be a PRI DOS partition if you intend to install 95.