Virtual PC 2007 - How to get it to install image of old Win98SE HD

[glnz]

Re Virtual PC 2007 - How to install Win98SE or get it to read image of old laptop HD with Win98SE?

On my WinXPPro SP3 desktop, I would like to run Windows Virtual PC 2007 and "dump" into it my entire old Win98SE laptop, so that my old Win98SE laptop will live forever.

I have no Win98SE OS disks to install the "guest" OS - the only source for the OS is my old Win98SE laptop. What to do?

This is what I have done so far:

I have run Clonezilla on my old Win98SE laptop to make an image of its entire hard drive on an external drive.

Then I re-connect the external hard drive to my new WinXPPro SP3 desktop. The first time I am using Virtual PC 2007 on my new WinXPPro SP3 desktop, I am successfully getting Virtual PC 2007 to boot up off the Clonezilla iso file, so that Clonezilla can run. However, Clonezilla/Virtual PC do NOT see the external hard drive and therefore cannot "restore" the old laptop image into Virtual PC 2007.

Clonezilla running in Virtual PC 2007 is giving me these error messages:

"Error! No unmounted partition(s) are found! To use Clonezilla to save or clone a partition, the source partition must be unmounted! Press "Enter" to exit...

"No disk image is found in /home/partimag.. Make sure you already saved an image! Or make sure you did not try to restore an image saved from partition(s) to disk(s)! Program terminated!!!"

Any thoughts???

Thanks.

 

[flyboytim]

Check that your Windows (98) directory has a folder windows\options\cabs

If these files exist, they are the installation files for Windows 98, the installer is setup.exe.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[glnz]

Flyboytim - That would at least get me started! Does my cabs directory include all the updates I downloaded for many years? Thanks.

 

[flyboytim]

No, but it would allow you to get a working Windows 98 virtual machine set up.

It would then be possible to import all your files from the physical windows 98 hard disk so they can be accessed by the the win98 virtual machine. Make sure they do not overwrite any of the working system's files.

It is possible to have 2 differently named windows folders with different paths on the same machine allowing a dual boot from a menu in autoexec.bat.

The final and not so easy task would be to rebuild the second windows machine needed to run the legacy software within the virtual machine.

Having said that, Windows 98 is probably easier than any more recent windows OS.

Take frequent backups, and be methodical!

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[ANFPS26]

The updates for Windows 98 are still available on Windows Update site for Win 98. There just haven't been any new ones in years. I installed Win 98SE on an old PC not too long ago and updated all the updates that way. If you have web access from the virtual machine you might could do it that way. It would be slow, I imagine.

Jim

 

[glnz]

Dear ANFPS26 - Thanks for your post. I assume you mean that Windows Update no longer works automatically for Win98SE - you have to go to the Microsoft site and manually download and install each update? That would take so long that, by the time I was done, 1998 would be back again. But I admire your persistence.

Really a shame that the Virtual PC environments don't make this easier, esp. for non-techs like myself.

I's still open to ideas - please comment all and sundry.

 

[flyboytim]

It takes much, much, less time to do all the '98 updates than it does the '7 updates - for one thing they are tiny by comparison, and there are a lot less of them!

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[glnz]

Fly - I'm sorry to hear that about Windows 7, but I wonder how that can be - Windows 7 is only a year old, right? There are probably a million updates for Win98SE, and ANFPS26 seems to be saying they're not automatic anymore.

Anyway, if anyone knows how I can create a virtual machine merely by dumping the HD from my Win98SE laptop into a virtual thingy, I'd really like to know.

 

[flyboytim]

What I said about Windows 98 updates vs Win 7 is God's Honest Truth. Remember - everybody has broadband internet now, but in Windows 98 time the few people with internet used 56K modems if they were rich, 33K and 28K were the norm. Try downloading even one MB at 56K and you will realise that updates had to be tiny and few. That's why it's SE - second edition - most of the major fixes were on the SE install disk. There's an "unofficial Windows 98SE service pack 1" that can be downloaded to install many of the released later fixes.

Windows 7 updates are in many cases fixing piracy issues and internet vulnerabilities that '98 never experienced.

You are unlikely to get a working virtual machine by just copying your HD to a Virtual machine VHD.

Firstly, Windows 98 is based on a MS-DOS bootloader and memory manager. These need to work with the hardware of the PC at install time to provide an environment for the Windows 98 SE setup, which also needs to install windows drivers for all the hardware. In some ways more complex than the XP setup.

In other ways Windows 98 is easier to rebuild, since it is much less reliant on the registry than later Windows versions. INI files and some DLLs in the right places are often sufficient to install Windows 98 applications manually, albeit with a bit of work.

First get a Windows 98 virtual machine working. Google "Windows 9x project" for some pointers. Make the virtual hard disk at least twice the current size of your HD with your WIN98SE on. It is an easy and quick install on Virtual PC, nothing like performing a '98 install on real hardware of that period, which I had to do recently.

Then copy all your existing files from the laptop's hd to a folder on the virtual hd.

The real fun then comes with copying the old stuff to the right places on the virtual hard disk and getting the applications working, unless you have or can obtain the setup media for the applications, in which cas it should be a piece of pie.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[PRPhx]

You say you have an image of your hd? I assume you mean an ISO file? If so, you can copy it to your pc. In virtual pc start a new guest os. Does it support 98SE? Plus you'll need toformat your new OS partition in FAT format, as 98 doesn't support NTFS.

Also look here:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6364449_make-windows-98se-boot-cd.html

I don't know the legalities of using the images mentioned and take no responsibility. I know older OS's can be set up. I have a Windows ME guest os under VMWare. It wasn't fun, but I did get it loaded.


As far as the updates, you'll need to only install the ones for your hardware/software. Not all of them.

Try this link for updates:

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

good luck and have fun!