I haven't tried it (yet), but the Inspiron can boot from the CDROM drive (change
the BIOS configuration). This would eliminate the need for a bootable floppy
with the CDROM drivers on it. Knowing how to make that floppy is still a useful
skill since there are times when you may want to try to resurrect a badly
scrambled Win95/98 partition by doing an "update" install -- it is your rescue
disk.
Booting from the CDROM is convenient but doesn't help you get drivers for all of
your hardware. My experience with Windows products is that your machine is
never quite the same after you do a clean re-install.
gvb
____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject: RE: re-installing Win98 on a freshly repartitioned machine
Author: Douglas Wagner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 11/29/98 10:45 PM
[snip]
After making completely sure that you have EVERY DRIVER for your
computer ON DISK, then pop a blank floppy into your drive, type:
format a: /u/s and hit enter. let it format the floppy and install the
boot files to it. Then, you need to find your cd-rom driver on diskette
(if you are running 95 or 98 I gaurentee it won't be on the damn hard
drive, it couldn't be that easy) and copy it to your boot floppy. Copy
format.com, fdisk.exe(or com wich ever it is), edit.com, mscdex.exe, and
sys.com from the \windows\command directory to your boot floppy, and copy
the himem.sys file from \windows to your disk as well. Now, you need to
create a config.sys and autoexec.bat file.
config.sys:
device=a:\himem.sys
device=a:\<cdromdriver> /d:cdrom
autoexec.bat:
a:\mscdex.exe /d:cdrom
or something like that. That will get you a bootable floppy that loads the
cdrom driver at boot and has the ability to fdisk, format, and sys the
harddrive.
[snip]
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