No Bootable media

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
After posting with @KeithWalker in another thread I've always wanted to dual boot my computer to an older version of windows so I can put some of my older programs back on my computer. After looking for awhile I found a Win 95 disc. But when I try to boot from it I get the error "No Bootable media found". It's an actual Win 95 disc with product key and all. Running win 10 now.
Any advice
Brzrkr
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
[quote-AlbertHall] Is it an upgrade disc ir a full install? [/quote]
It's a full install. I recently (About 5-6 months ago) Had to replace my hard drive and I'd already made an win 10 reinstall disc and it worked just fine. This old computer came with win 8.0 so I upgraded as soon as I could to 10. It's so old that to get it to boot from a disc you have to go in the bios and change the boot setting from UEFI to CSM to even get it to recognize the disc. It recognizes there is a disc but says it's not bootable.

Brzrkr
 

sagor

Joined Mar 10, 2019
903
If I recall (I may be wrong), Win95 CD was not bootable, they relied on a bootable floppy to get things started, then you ran a setup file off the CD.
You can probably get by with any bootable "DOS" type of device, even a USB stick with something like FreeDOS. The run the Win95 setup off the CD.
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Your Right @sagor. I totally forgot about DOS ? It loads a generic CD driver to allow WIN 95, 98 and I think ME to be installed.
Have all that somewhere, now back to the boxes and boxes of discs.
Thank God I own a USB floppy drive.
Brzrkr
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Found out there are a few more hoops I have to jump through also. The partition has to be FAT 32 and Win 10 won't allow you to Format through disk management or file explorer to FAT 32. Been along time since I've done any of this. It can be done with a elevated CMD prompt and Diskpart. Now I'm starting to wonder should I even try??? I've lived years without these programs but often wish I had them to mess around with.
I also went through my Desktop and found a version of Win98 SE I copied from a disc that was getting old with serial number. I think if I do it I'll use it.
Another reason I think it wouldn't recognize the disc is that it was formatted to NTFS.....Working on things now.
Brzrkr
 
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Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
For those who might not know.
1. Win 10 does not support floppy A drive anymore which made my task even harder. It doesn't show up in file explorer or disk management but there is a work around.
2. Win 98se Won't boot to disc if burnt to a DVD (far as I can tell). It must be on a CD.
3. Not all boot disks are made equally
Still working on things but I'm getting closer.
Brzrkr
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
Years ago I bought a then new Dell Laptop which came with Vista installed and at the time Vista was actually new. It did not have a 3.5" floppy drive. I bought from Dell at the time a USB floppy drive which I doubt I ever used but it remained in the laptop case. I just dug it out and plugged it into this Windows 10 system and it shows up as drive A. Pretty much like this one. I can read and write from it While it shows up as Drive A in "This PC" it does not show up in disk management under Windows 10. I doubt I could boot from it with bootable media and not sure what would happen if I set my bios to boot from USB as a first choice. Think I finally threw away any of the old Win 98 stuff. I did find a set of six floppies I labeled emergency boot disk for Windows XP.

There was a time when I was into all sorts of dual boot systems, mainly Windows XP and I liked SUSE Linux 9 and 10 versions. Maybe someday I'll put that on my old laptop. :)

Good luck with all of this.

Ron
 

hrs

Joined Jun 13, 2014
394
It looks like DOSBox will run Win95 :D Then you can run your program in Win 95 in DOSBox. Or maybe run your progs directly in DOSBox.
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Found one of my problems is that Win98 uses dos cd rom drivers. The reason it doesn't load my cd drivers is they are not dos drivers even after adding them to my boot disk and editing the install config files. Don't think there is a dos driver for them (?)
I've tried Virtualbox and DOSBox before and it still had compatibility problems with some of my programs because as I understand it's still running under your main OS. Though I haven't tried this in many years I do have both downloaded but not installed. If I could just get it to load a driver that works with my CD/DVD player I could do it.
Still on it
Brzrkr
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
Well you certainly have something to keep you amused. I was much more into it years ago than now. Your conversation on the subject rings a few old bells. :)

Ron
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
OK I've found out a few more things that I knew but forgot about since Win 95, 98 and XP. Back then, most if not all devices were IDE not SATA as they are now. I go online (Yes, I know don't believe everything you read online) and here's all these tutorials saying you can put older windows on a Win 10 computer (Dual Boot). You read on and they wait till the last few paragraphs to tell you it's in VirtualBox. For 95, 98 and XP this means not only do you have to find a DOS driver for your CD/DVD but have to have a DOS driver to get your SATA drives to be recognized before it will even start the install. I have an "OLD" Dell running XP put up in my back room but I would have to go dig it out and see if it will still boot up. Now this forces me to put up another Desktop w/ Monitor which I don't have a space for (That's why I wanted it on my laptop).
I knew there was a reason I should have learnt to write programs.

I have a question! What about the chipset drivers? Wouldn't I need the chipset drivers (In DOS) for my computer now?
Brzrkr
 
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Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
I still have some old PATA (Parallel ATA) drives laying around here in an old box. Hell, I think somewhere is my old Dell 530 MT workstation. That may have PATA drives in it. Also had dual Xeon processors. Pretty cool box for its day. The memory was something like RDRAM I think.

As to chipset drivers? I am not sure depending on the chipset the board has. My experience with many projects like this is heartache and more problems and obstacles than the end result was worth.

Ron
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Reloadron said:
As to chipset drivers? I am not sure depending on the chipset the board has. My experience with many projects like this is heartache and more problems and obstacles than the end result was worth.
I also got thinking why can't you just run setup in Win 10 and install it on a flash drive? Then I thought well??? It might not edit the registry right or mess something up in it.
So many questions running around in my head.
Brzrkr
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
I also got thinking why can't you just run setup in Win 10 and install it on a flash drive? Then I thought well??? It might not edit the registry right or mess something up in it.
So many questions running around in my head.
Brzrkr
I remember you could load XP from a flash drive. Just involved going into the BIOS and making USB a boot device and having a bootable version of XP on the flash drive. Again, haven't played with any of that stuff for years.
'
Ron
 

Thread Starter

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
I did try a flash drive @Reloadron. Opened up the disc in MagicISO it says "Bootable", copied the files to a flash drive opened it again in MagicISO and it says bootable. But like I said I think it's looking for IDE devices with DOS drivers. Even with the boot disk in when I try to ask it to open H: (which is my flash drive) it's not recognized. If I could get to the files on any of them then I could enter setup.
Brzrkr
 
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