Install win95 with no CD Rom Drive

[cfFran]

Can anyone advise me about installing Win95 on a portable with no CD ROM drive? My neighbor has a portable made in 1996, but does not have the Set of Floppies that would allow one to install Windows 95. Are the old floppies still available?

Does it make sense to try to copy the files from the CD onto zipped diskettes using PKWARE's PKZIP for DOS? Would there be far too great a number of floppies required?

Is there any software like the old LapLink product that runs under DOS? Maybe magically allowing connection to a new computer with the CD ROM drive?

Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Fran

 

[edfair]

You have multiple choices. Floppy versions still sell on ebay. Laplink is still available for serial or parallel. Intersvr and interlnk are DOS 6 transfer programs. External ZIP thru the parallel port is a possibility. Copy the install stuff onto the hard drive using an adapter and putting the hard drive on another computer. Network the laptop through the serial or parallel port to another machine with the same capability.
Zipping the floppies isn't feasable. they don't squash down enough to go on a 1.44.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[jrbarnett]

If the machine has a proper network connection, you can copy the entire \WIN95 folder and subfolders from the CD to the hard drive and run SETUP.EXE from in there.

John

 

[edfair]

jr is correct, but it can be overkill. You don't need the subfolders.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[SkipCox]

A set of floppies can be made, but it is one royal pain in the butt. E-bay is normally the easiest if you want to own the diskettes, network installs are usually a pain too, and copying from the cd to your harddrive the quickest and cheapest.

Ebay prices run from $20-$40US depending on availability and about the same at computer shows.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~scox9/index.html

 

[Snickle]

The problem with copying the floppies is that Microsoft started using their DMF [Distribution Media Format] with Office 4 and Win95. The first disk is 1.44/1.38MB but the rest are about 1.68MB. Gets more on the floppies but an early scheme to prevent easy copying. A program like WinImage can copy them and usually reformat a floppy to the DMF size.

 

[docdebit]

I've recently used the laplink process you described and it worked fine.
I have win95 on another machine so I could create a boot disk there to get drive formatted and ready, then created a win95 directory. I copied contents of win95 directory from cd to the harddrive of my desktap and then used laplink to move the files.

http://oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/msdos.htm

Has downloads for bootdisks, laplink, laplink manual etc.