Installing Windows 98 On VMware. Floppy problem

I created my virtual disk and all that good stuff. I inserted the CD and VMware detected it. I went through some installation questions like optimizing the disk ect. Then it told me to insert the boot disk into drive A:.

I Inserted the boot disk and restarted VMware, and now it say "no bootable floppy, cd-rom, or hard disk". VMware doesn't even try to run the floppy. Please help, I am sure it is a simple problem, and I am just overlooking something.

Note: I did download the files required for the boot disk. However, I am almost positive I got the correct files.

Thank you everyone for your help in advance.

WillKool1080

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I'm pretty sure the Windows 98 CD is bootable. Try adjusting your VMWare BIOS (by pressing the DEL key on startup.. I think) to boot off the CD.

Tekmaven

Software Architect

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I hate to contradict you, but I don't think the Win98 cd is bootable. That's why everyone and their mother searches for the ever-valuable Windows98 boot/startup disk. Check the VMWare virtual machine configuration (when the VM is powered down) and make sure it has access to all of your hardware (mounted, etc.)

Also, what version of VMWare is this, 3? 4?

cscgal

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Thanks guys. I took your advice and adjusted the boot order in VMware, and it worked. Again, thanks a lot.

WillKool1080

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all the windows CD i have seen are bootable, no matter 98, 2000 or XP. maybe i'm using an illegal copy. :(

laoli

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Tekmaven convinced me Win98 cds are bootable ... even though I don't remember them being. Guess I'm wrong!

cscgal

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Copies of Windows 98 provided with many OEM PC's are not bootable. Ones provided with barebones kits that require you to load windows usually are. I have several copies on Win98SE that won't boot, and several the do.

www.badflash.com

badflash

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Well that settles that. :P

cscgal

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I just booted a Dell XPS400 PC to a Microsoft Win98SE CD. I selected CD-
ROM support at boot, and it created a virtual disk D:, and the CDROM drive E: Dell also provides a bootable Win98 system restore CD. Just set the bios to boot to the CD Drive before the fixed hard drive. Hopefully this helps!

eatonk

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Hello All.

In order to understand vmware under the simplest of circumstances, I successfully created a few virtual DOS machines. Now, all of a sudden, when I try to create one, vmware does not recognize my diskette drive (there is a bootable DOS diskette sitting in there).

While the virtual machine is booting, I jumped into the machine's BIOS setup. Everything looks fine. The diskette drive is the first boot device.

There does not seem to be any configuration files in the program directory nor any apparent configuration information in the registry.

The problem first appeared after I had a conflict between 2 virtual machines trying to access the same physical diskette drive. A message box appeared advising me that the drive would be deactivated for the one virtual machine.

Any idea as to what is going on here?

Regards,
Fuzzy

FuzzyDisk

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ANSWER AND SOLUTION:
(I hope)
VMWare often gives exclusive use of the floppy to one VM. So even the host cannot access it, and often other VM's running in parallell cannot either.

For booting VMware off a floppy and installing windows, I wrote a couple of tips here:
http://mawi.org/articles/VMWare_Boot_Disk.html

Good luck

mawi

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Hi,
Now, I'm trying VMWare and I found a solution, very easy to activate the floppy drive in VMWare 4. This can boot in VMWare from floppy disk.

Step #1
Go to your main OS and desactivate de floppy and reactivate it.
This method disconnect the floppy disk of your main OS.

Step #2
Simply, activate the floppy disk that you desactivate in step #1

Step #3
Go to VMWare and remove the floppy disk of your Virtual OS and reinstall it with acces to your physical floppy A:\.

Important: Don't acces to your floppy disk between those step because this will activate the floppy in the wrong OS(I supposed that you want to boot from your floppy disk in a Virtual OS of VMWare)

Step #4
Start your Virtual Machine and all work's fine like a real PC.
Now, you can process to install your Operating System in your virtual machine.

JAzz

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I created a bootable Win98se CD by copying all the fies from the Win98se CD to a directory, invoking Nero with the make bootable option. When Nero asked me for a boot image, I used the floppy in drive A of my running computer

cgmusselman

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Welcome to Daniweb :)

Im glad you were successfull with your install :)

The Dude

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3,485 posts since Dec 2005