Windows 95 install help

Question

I have installed Windows 98 on a pc made for windows 7. (it runs) although without audio because its probably not compatible with windows 98. but I would like to install Windows 95. It's not the CPU error, which I could try to use fix95cpu for or a ram error.

I burned the iso onto a DVD and started. All went well until this error happened:

"CDR103: CDROM not High Sierra or ISO-9660 format reading drive X"

It could be because its a dvd, but I would like to know what this error is. .... If you have an answer for my question, please let me know.

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer. — Community, Mar 03 '23 at 16:56
@Jean-FrançoisFabre ill try that, i dont know if i have one though — Humancoder1123, Mar 03 '23 at 17:26
@Jean-FrançoisFabre That looks suspiciously like the beginnings of an answer. — shoover, Mar 03 '23 at 17:41
@Jean-FrançoisFabre i dont have any cd's i can use, is there anything else i can do? — Humancoder1123, Mar 03 '23 at 18:56
@Humancoder1123 Can you get the Windows 95 installation files onto the HDD and run the setup.exe program? It's been a long time, but I seem to remember that being a viable installation route. You might need to boot it into DOS from a floppy first. — Andrew Morton, Mar 03 '23 at 19:28
@AndrewMorton i could try. plus it in as a secondary drive onto another pc? but one thing im worried about is the CPU, it only supports up to 2.1ghz and i dont know how to use fix95cpu — Humancoder1123, Mar 03 '23 at 19:31
@shoover maybe but 1) I'm not sure if that would be enough and 2) OP knows that burning a DVD could be the issue already (why the burning tool allows to do that BTW). CD-Rs are pretty easy to find. I could get Verbatim spindles from my local supermarket — Jean-François Fabre, Mar 03 '23 at 19:48
@Jean-FrançoisFabre question, will windows ME work on 1gb of ram? — Humancoder1123, Mar 03 '23 at 20:15
@AndrewMorton what if instead of getting the install files onto a hard drive, i put OS files with the fix95cpu patch? — Humancoder1123, Mar 03 '23 at 20:17
Don’t you love it when someone tells you ‘an error happened’ without explaining where the error came from. — user3840170, Mar 04 '23 at 09:35

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 03 '23 at 20:22

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Windows 95 ISO's were commonly not bootable. You had to boot from a floppy, and then load CD-ROM drivers and start installation.

answered Mar 03 '23 at 20:22

vidarlo

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what was the bootable version, because i think there was a version that could boot only from cd and or dvd – Humancoder1123 Mar 03 '23 at 20:46
@Humancoder1123 I am not sure if there was any, though perhaps one of the later OSRs had bootable installation discs. You can try building your own El Torito disc: you just need a floppy image with XMS and CD-ROM drivers to embed into the ISO file. – user3840170 Mar 04 '23 at 09:34
The error message sounds like the installer can see the drive but cannot make sense of the bits stored on the disk – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Mar 04 '23 at 16:11
@ThorbjørnRavnAndersen I interpreted it as the PC firmware producing this error message - but your take is clearly as valid. – vidarlo Mar 04 '23 at 16:29
@vidarlo when did this happen in the boot process? Remember we only know what you tell and that ain’t much. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Mar 04 '23 at 19:30
@ThorbjørnRavnAndersen Not my question. I have not attempted to install Windows 95 for quite some number of years :) – vidarlo Mar 04 '23 at 20:10
@vidarlo My bad. I scrolled a bit too much :) – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Mar 04 '23 at 21:25
@ThorbjørnRavnAndersen No worries :) – vidarlo Mar 04 '23 at 21:42

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '23 at 19:26

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DVDs were first released in the US in 1997, so it is not surprising that Windows 95 did not have native support. I wouldn't be at all surprised if somebody made a driver to support DVDs in Windows 95, but that wouldn't help for Windows installation.

From the Wikipedia article on Windows 98: Windows 98 has built-in DVD support and UDF 1.02 read support. As Windows 98 was generally considered a significant improvement over Windows 95 in stability and features (e.g., USB support), it became dominant fairly quickly. And if you were the bleeding edge type to get one of those new DVDs for your PC, you were even more likely to have the newest Windows to go with it.

answered Mar 03 '23 at 19:26

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact

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Burning an ISO image of a ISO9660 CD-ROM to a DVD should still result into an ISO9660 disc. Nothing should convert it to an UDF when burning to DVD. – Justme Mar 03 '23 at 19:38
But even though it would still be ISO9660, I don't think Windows 95 would have built-in drivers to handle the DVD properly. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Mar 03 '23 at 20:35
Wouldn’t a DVD drive work just like any other ATAPI drive? If the file system is not a problem, it should just work. – user3840170 Mar 03 '23 at 21:31
I wouldn't expect it to, though it has been a few years. There are a bunch of factors involved - consider how long it took to get from specific C/H/S to LBA and beyond. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Mar 03 '23 at 21:33
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From what I remember based on putting a DVD drive in my DOS/Win9x dual-boot machine, it's not that simple. SHSUCDX will read an ISO-format DVD created with a DOS-compatible ISO Level using mkisofs/genisoimage on Linux (it doesn't support UDF), but I remember MSCDEX choking on them... I'm not sure if I tried something small enough that it could have been burned to a CD, but there's a data point for you. – ssokolow Mar 03 '23 at 22:00

Windows 95 install help

2 Answers2