I have an IBM notepad with a CDROM but no floopy drive.  It has Win95
but also has a built in USB port (weird since win95 doesn't support
USB).  Anyway, I want to reformat the hard drive and install a fresh,
full version of Win 98 SE.  Once the drive is reformatted how do I
install the start-up files needed to read from the CDROM (the files
that are usually on boot disk) without using the floppy drive?

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Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 04 Nov 2002 13:59 PST

Hi tdub33,

Your full version CD of Win98 is bootable, is it not?
Does the BIOS in the laptop not support bootable CDs?
No files should be necessary to read from the CDrom
unless it is a drastically older model laptop/BIOS.

After formatting you should be able to boot straight
from the CD and begin installation of Win98. Have you
tried this yet? 

thanks,
-AI

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Clarification of Question by tdub33-ga on 04 Nov 2002 14:29 PST

I have not tried changing the BIOS to boot from CD because I assumed
that, even if that option was present, the reformatted hard drive
would not have the CD drivers installed.  I thought the only way to
load the CD driver to a freshly reformatted hard drive was to use a
floppy.  Is this an incorrect assumption?  I will try it tonight, but
I want to be fairly confident it will work before I reformat the hard
drive.

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Request for Question Clarification by funkywizard-ga on 04 Nov 2002 16:08 PST

if you want to make sure it will work first, change your bios setting
to make cdrom the first boot device and then put in your windows 98
installation disk. if all goes well, it should load up the windows 98
installtion procedure. At this point you may either decide to upgrade
your installation of windows rather than reformat, or you may then be
self assured that a clean install will work correctly. in any case you
may try this setup before wiping out all your data.

This is posted as a request for clarification since my computer seems
to be having trouble posting comments.

Hi tdub-33,

Actually, Windows 95 does support USB in the later revisions, though
it does a really bad job of it.  If you happen to have windows 95 'b'
or 'c' you should have USB support.

In any event, as the clarifications have suggested, you should first
see if you have a bootable CD ROM drive, as this is the easiest
method.  You don't need any CD ROM drivers.  Anyone who tells you
otherwise should not be listened to.  There are very well-defined
standards for booting from CD and all computers made after about 1995
should support it.  Typically you go into the BIOS and there is a boot
menu (or sometimes, an entire tab for boot information) in which you
can select a boot order.  The mechanisms vary, but typically you will
have A:,C: (or floppy, hard drive), C:,A: (hard drive, then floppy),
CDROM,A:,C: (CD, floppy, HD) . . . you get the picture.  Then you just
stick the CD in and fire up your computer (you might have to hit a key
at a prompt to boot from the CD - this depends on your BIOS; mine asks
before booting from CD every time).

If this does not work, you can copy the contents of the CD to your
hard drive and then boot from that.  You have to be very careful
you've gotten everything though, because if you miss some files and it
won't boot, you suddenly run out of good options.  Windows 98 is just
DOS with a fancy shell on it and a few improvements here and there, so
it's pretty tolerant of missing pieces.  You only need about 5 files
to boot to the DOS part, and from there you can fix pretty much
everything else.  So, copy the contents of the CD over, be sure you
have autoexec.bat, config.sys, command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys in
the root of your drive (usually C:\) and reboot - you should get an
install menu just as if you had booted from the CD.

If something goes wrong and you can no longer boot from your hard
drive at all, you can buy an adapter that will let you plug your
laptop hard drive into a desktop computer (it shows up just like any
other drive) and you can then boot from floppy, CD, network, whatever
and install the operating system there.  I would recommend though that
you only go as far as the "copying files to hard drive" part (and then
Windows asks you to remove the CD and reboot) on your desktop machine
if you choose this route - Windows detects your computer's hardware
after that, and you don't want drivers for your desktop slowing down
your laptop when you put it back.  So, after the first reboot request,
shut you desktop off, remove the hard drive, and plug it back into the
laptop and then proceed as usual.  Of course, stay grounded and be
careful of the hard drive's circuit board when you're moving it
around.

I hope this helps.  If you get stuck somewhere along the line, post a
clarification request with as much detail as you can give and I'll
help you troubleshoot.

-Haversian