Something to have a go at in your spare time

I run both VMware Player and VirtualBox in my Win 7 x64. VMware has XP and Vista as guest systems, VBox has Ubuntu, and it's all pretty amazing - to me anyway. I would love to have Win 98SE in there too, but installing Win 98 requires a Win 98 boot floppy and a Win 98 CD. No prob with the CD, as I can use an ISO, but finding a virtual floppy drive that runs in Win 7 x64 SP1 in which I can mount a Win 98 boot disk image has defeated me.

Anyone else with too much time on their hands fancy having a shot at this?

 

In some virtual machines you can mount a floppy image, I thought.
I guess you've tried VFD from Sourceforge then? (http://vfd.sourceforge.net/)

If not take an img file from here
Using a tool like ultraiso , make your WIN98 disk image. (ISO)
Then load the Win98 ISO and select bootable& load boot file - browse to the img you downloaded & select it, then write out a bootable Win98 ISO.

VBox should boot from the img file too.

 

Thanks foogoo, sounds like you have trodden this path before

I have tried mounting a Win 98 bootdisk floppy image in WMware, Win 98SE ISO too, but no success so far even though boot order is floppy first.

VFD also won't install in Win 7 SP1 - "VFD will not run in Win 98, Me" rolleyes

UltraISO may be the answer, but I didn't want to have to purchase anything for this - it's just a bit of fun really. I do have Alcohol 120% but don't understand it that well and atm can't see how I could make my Win 98 SE ISO bootable with it.

I suspect Win 7 SP1 is the stumbling block here, or it might well be me! I'll go on playing, and thank you very much for the suggestions.

 

Just had a look at VBox but it doesn't appear as though it supports floppies any longer.

 

Do you have a good burning program? I think Roxio use to do this and Nero did too.
Ashampoo Burning Studio has Expert Mode
Select data disk (bootable), browse to the img file I linked to before. Select 1.44 disk emulation
Add the WIn98 files & burn
Set the VM to boot from CD.
Done.

Yes, I have to much spare time.

 

Huh, just installed windows 98 SE in vmware workstation yesterday and didn't have any problems. Though, workstation isn't free. I just used a bootable 98se iso.

 

Where did you get that disk?

 

Thanks guys for confirming it can be done in Win 7. Despite what I said I don't have the time to play with this right now, but I'll try these methods and let you know.

 

Well that doesn't work. When you boot the VM from the CD you just get to a DOS prompt A:\ with the usual DOS files available but no access to the Win 98 files. When viewed from Windows Explorer all the files from the Win 98SE disk are there. Long, long time since I did a normal Win 98 install but seems to me you need a boot floppy with the CD drivers aboard so you can access the W98 installation files. The image you linked me to does not have that. I'll go look for one.

@theefool - can you help with the question of getting a bootable W98 CD? In retail form they are not bootable.

 

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3845084/Windows_98_Second_Edition_Full_Bootable_CD.iso

 

No fancy geek stuff, that ISO is bootable. I just installed it on VMWare Workstation, only modification I made to the "hardware" was 512MB instead of 256MB of RAM.

Brings back memories!

EDIT: I'm running Win7x64

 

I'll get that - thanks! But I have now found a boot image with the CD drivers and am making progress at last with my DIY efforts. Expect to have Win 98 up in VMware Player shortly and hopefully won't need to use the torrent

 

Oh sweet nostalgia :drool This will be like a ride on a fifties Triumph Bonneville instead of a noughties Goldwing!