Installing Win 98 with no CD Rom drive???

My dad handed me a Gateway Solo 2000 laptop and asked me to put win 98 on it. I formatted and partitioned and did the boot disk deal and then I realized there was no CD rom. You have to remove the Floppy drive and plug the CD drive in the same place! When I do that it tells me that the drive is not ready. If I put in the CD drive and try to boot from the CD rom it says 'Non system disk error, replace disk and hit any key to continue". It does this even when there is no CD rom in the CD drive. What can I do?
I have been unable to access the bios.....

 

It sounds like it doesn't ever look in the CD Rom at all... you will most likely have to access bios. Try holding down F2 and powering it up to see if that gets you in bios. From there, you can choose to boot from CD first. I hope it works for you.

 

Win 98 is not a bootable CD. You are going to have to make a bootable CD, then copy the CD files to the new image.

 

I boot from my 98 CD all the time

 

In this case it is not. MS only made Bootable 98 CDs towards the end.

 

I spent literally hours yesterday trying to access the bios to no avail.....

 

So how do I go about making a bootable CD?

 

This is just one of several techniques for creating a bootable CD.

How to Make a PC Bootable CD

 

I am trying to do make one, but I am having issues with my CD burner software. Once I get it done I will come back and update you....

 

no luck burning a CD. Is Win 98 SE not a bootable disc? It doesn't work with that....

 

What CD burnig software to you use.

 

My dad has Nero. It all goes smoothly until after I start burning and then an error message comes up.... I can't remember what it says.... and my dad is screwing around on the computer now.

 

I already sent an email to Nero Tech support.. The message was something about an error caching files....

 

Win 98 SE is bootable if the CD comes from the Computer Maker. Retail Versions are not bootable. I have a boot image for WIN98SE. I can post it if you are not successful in burning your CD.

 

OK... Stupid question- what would I do with the image-- If I can't put in on CD? How do I get it on the affected computer? I am sorry, I am such a low-tech newbie lol

 

It's the image of the boot sector from the bootable CD.

 

I'm sorry, that went right over my head. You'd have to tell me step by step what to do with it..... My CD burner is still not working so I don't understand what I would do with the boot image

 

Ok, get your burner working again. Then I will take you through it step by step.

 

We-ell I was able to make a boot CD on another computer using Roxio....however it still does not bring up the Computer.... I don't think it's reading the CD drive at all. I am just left with a screen that says
120 Mhz Pentium CPU
External Cache:256K Enabled
Missing Operating system

What now??

 

It is trying to boot from the C drive. Get back into your BIOS, on the Main Menu you will find Boot Sequence. Select it, it should now be highlighted.

Press the Spacebar to choose between A: then C:, C: then A:, C: only, or CD-ROM.

Select CD-ROM, after the OS is loaded, change it to C: then A:.

 

I have tried for days to get into the bios and can't. I've tried every F_ button and DEL and everything- both tapping and holding down while I power up and NOTHING has worked. i am going crazy here!

 

Press the F2 key when you see the message Press <F2> to access SETUP in the lower left corner of the display. The system beeps, then the Main menu appears.

If that fails, look at the keyboard to see if there is a function for F-lock or something similar. If there isn't, then you most likely have a bad keyboard. If you have a keyboard laying around, plug it into the computer and use it instead of the laptop keyboard.