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I have an old Fujitsu LifeBook that I want to install Windows 98 on.

I burned a Windows 98 CD and verified it works, but the LifeBook's CD drive cant seem to read it. I do know the CD drive works, as it had Windows 95 (before I erased it) on it. I think it cant read it is because I cant burn the CD slower than 10x on a newer computer with a much faster writer and I believe the Fujitsu's CD drive is 1 or 2x.

The LifeBook does have a USB port. However, it is not a boot option. I remembered FreeDOS supports USB, so I thought Id try that. So I did it old school and created the FreeDOS floppies and installed in on the laptop. This erased the Win95 instalation. After futzing around, I realized the USB support was third party and got that software installed. It kind of almost works. It recognizes the USB host controller and once in a while can read the a directory on the a USB stick, but fails more or less immediately. I tried fat12, fat16, and fat32 drives. I cant seem to see any limitation in FreeDOS or the USB support. As far as I can tell, there shouldnt be any.

Perhaps I am missing something obvious? How can I use a USB stick on FreeDOS.

Ultimately, if all else fails, I can take the hard drive out and deal with it that way. However, I was talking to someone who said they remember these machines and said they are a massive pain to open up get to the hard drive.

Keltari
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    Re: the CD, burning speed and reading speed have nothing to do with each other. If it's a 1x or 2x drive, it's probably too old to read CD-Rs. Just as NiMH rechargeable batteries output about 1.2V instead of the 1.5V of disposable batteries, CD-R dyes are less reflective than the deposited aluminum layer of mass-produced CD-ROMs, and drive designs needed to be revised to be compatible. CD-RWs are even worse on that front. If you can find any, try New Old Stock of a brand that claims to match the reflectivity of the professional ones. (I remember using Kodak CD-R Gold back in the day.) – ssokolow Oct 31 '22 at 15:15
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    Alternatively, Windows has always been designed to install from a folder for easy network deployment, so you could use floppies or, if you have a FreeDOS driver for them, a passive PCMCIA-to-CompactFlash adapter (possibly with an active CompactFlash-to-SD adapter inserted) to copy your Windows install files to a folder like C:\WININST and then run the installation from there. (Electrically, CF cards are funny-shaped PCMCIA cards that boot in "16-bit ISA mode" or "IDE/PATA hard drive mode" depending on a sense pin. Starting with Win95, support for the PCMCIA passive adapters came standard.) – ssokolow Oct 31 '22 at 15:24
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    What I'd probably do if the hard drive is a pain to pull is use LapLink or INTERLNK/INTERSVR (a LapLink clone that comes with MS-DOS 6.22) and a null modem or LapLink serial cable to copy over the contents of the CD from something with a less finicky CD drive. All DOS versions of LapLink I've tried (Pro/4.00 and V/5) support "type this command on the remote machine" remote-installing themselves over a serial cable. Once you've got Win9x installed, the aforementioned PCMCIA-CF adapters are as easy to use as a USB flash drive or integrated SD card reader. – ssokolow Oct 31 '22 at 15:33
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    I've also seen blog posts and forum threads about how to use DOSBox on a modern Windows or Linux machine as one side of a LapLink connection, taking advantage of how it can map the emulated serial ports to real ones. – ssokolow Oct 31 '22 at 15:39
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    Isn't FreeDOS modern supported piece of software? Try the USB drivers under real MS-DOS. You need to boot the Win98 install floppy anyway and make the USB work in that DOS, not FreeDOS. – Justme Oct 31 '22 at 16:13
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    @Justme Is it necessary to boot the Win98 install floppy? From what I remember, it's just an ordinary DOS boot disk with CD-ROM drivers and any DOS compatible enough to get to the "reboot into the next stage" part will work. – ssokolow Oct 31 '22 at 16:53
  • @ssokolow Exactly, do you guarantee FreeDOS implements any possible proprietary/undocumented APIs which Win98 installer might need to run? It makes sense to boot from Win98 install floppy, which boots into some version of MS-DOS 7. – Justme Oct 31 '22 at 21:59
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    I was more taking issue with the phrasing "need to", given how much work Novell DOS 7 (i.e. DR-DOS 7) put into being able to put "excellent MS Windows support" on the box and how the pre-reboot graphical portion of the Windows 98 install process is a customized Windows 3.1x. It's just not accurate to imply that only the Win98 install boot disk can be used to install Win98. (I.e. I'm taking issue with your phrasing whitelisting the Win98 boot floppy rather than blacklisting FreeDOS.) – ssokolow Nov 01 '22 at 10:02
  • I have not tried it myself, but the SYSLINUX wiki recommends https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html for USB booting on BIOSes which don’t natively support it. – user3840170 Nov 01 '22 at 13:53
  • I tried various things, no luck. I ordered a CF card, as I already have the adapter... not sure were my CF cards went... Ill see if it can read that. If all else fails, I will open it up and pull the drive. But this is a ~30+ year old laptop, designing it to be opened easily was not a priority. There are like a million screws. Now I see why they guy I knew said it was a pain... And thats just the outside... – Keltari Nov 01 '22 at 15:32

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