[Staemius]

Here's a good one for the tech wizards - any advice would be greatly appreciated. My 333 Gateway HD died (after 6 years of faithful service). I've installed a new (but used) hard drive and now want to install the OS. However, my CD-ROM drive is also dead (lol).

I was hoping to install an external CD-ROM and then install the OS. I have the CD-ROM driver on a floppy (floppy drive works!!). I have a 95 Windows start up disk which has a feature to install another driver but I can't get it to work. Am I doomed without having a working recognizable CD-ROM? Am I missing something to install the CD-ROM driver? Thx!

 

[johnwill]

Do you have a floppy with the driver for the external CD? If not, why not just take the CD drive out of the external case and install it in the machine for the install? Better yet, look around for one of the many rebate deals and buy a CD-RW drive for around $10. FWIW, I have about six CD-ROM drives in my closet, having been replaced with CD-RW drives, you may find someone you know in a similar situation.

 

[x5dr]

When installing an OS your CDROM moves up 1 letter. When it prompts you for the drive letter type E: if it is normally D:

 

[Staemius]

Thx for the tips - I do have floppy with the external CD-ROM drive. How do I install the driver from the floppy?

 

[Guest]

Go here and download a Win98 boot disk. Put a new floppy disk in the drive and double click the file you downloaded. It will create a Win98 boot floppy.
Boot to this floppy and it will ask if you want to start your computer with CD-Rom support, Option 2.

 

[x5dr]

I don't know if the drive letter reassignment is the same with an external CDROM drive (or if you can even use one...will it install a driver for external drive? I recently read of someone trying to do it on a laptop)

 

[Guest]

Well I guess we're going to find out the answer to that question if he tries it and posts back!

It may be a Windows oriented driver that it needs.

 

[Staemius]

Thx again - I did download a floppy. I come to a point where I need to use FDISK to format my drive but it states "No fixed discs present" - I'm assuming this means the HD I installed is bad right?

 

[Guest]

Either that or it's jumpered wrong or hooked up wrong or not detected by the bios to name a few.

 

[Lectraplayer]

With both your CDROM and Hard Disk bad, you might actually have a bad disk controller. You hadn't tossed your hard disk yet, have you? Get them back out and try them on another machine. If that's the case, you have one of, probably, three Gateway's that has went bad. Use it to sight in your favorite gun.:tongue2:

 

[johnwill]

Thx again - I did download a floppy. I come to a point where I need to use FDISK to format my drive but it states "No fixed discs present" - I'm assuming this means the HD I installed is bad right?

I'd start by checking and/or replacing the data cable to the drives. You may be closer to solving the problem than you think.

 

[Lectraplayer]

Oh yeah! Good point Johnwill.:cheers: How could I forget that! I replaced a bad cable on my newest PC because it went bad and wouldn't recognize my hard disk. That'll do it.

 

[Staemius]

Thanks again for the replies - looks like the hard drive I purchased is formatted in NTFS - does that support Win 98 or do I have to have FAT or FAT32 formatting?

 

[Lectraplayer]

98 won't read NTFS. You must use FAT or FAT32 everytime.

...then again, you COULD use NT4, 2000, or XP.

In case you didn't know, you use Fdisk to erase that partition and put FAT32 partitions in. ...or I think Setup can do that for you.