Ok, this isn't programming related but Im desperate. My little sister has an old IBM thinkpad running win95. I just spent 3 hours cleaning all the unnecessary crap out of it to make room for winME (its only got a 1gb hdd). Well, apparently WinME can't be insalled on a machine with a processor slower than 150mhz, so thats out of the question, now all she wants is internet access. It's got a PCMCIA Modem which took me a half hour to figure out how to plug the phone line into. We use Juno for our ISP but obviously the Juno software was not on the laptop. Naturally, I couldn't find the installation CD so I downloaded it on my computer. Now, get this, there is no floppy drive on the thinkpad. I thought about direct cable connection, but of course I dont have a cable. I burned the program on a CDRW, but the cdrom drive can't read em. I then burned it to a cdr and finally got juno installed on the laptop. I run juno and it tells me that it can't initialize the tcp/ip layer. This is probably because I ran through the registry and deleted everything that said novell or netware (You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get novell off a system, it freaken embeds itself in the OS). I delete every network component in an attempt to start from scratch. I then reinstall the Dial up adapter, and the tcp/ip protocal. I bind them and set all there options and all that and juno still gives me the same error. I dont have the win95 cd so I can't reinstall. I would be able to install win98 if I could format the harddrive and get the computer to boot from the CD, so I spend another half hour figuring out how to access the bios only to find that the only boot options are fdd (which I don't have) and hdd (which would be empty). Then I thought I could format the disk with the system option, boot to dos, and use the cdrom driver to access the win98 cd to install. Yup, you guessed it, I dont have the cdrom drivers, in fact I dont even know what brand the drive is. I could use generic CDROM drivers, but it would be risky. What I'm asking is if anybody has any suggestion on getting the damn thing on the internet?

Wrap it up, weigh it down, and throw it into a large body of water. Then start from scratch and buy a good computer. And learn to put your installation and driver disks in a safe, easy-to-remember place.

Its not my laptop, it was my stepfathers work computer, I'm trying to salvage it.

your sister must be hot if you do something like this for her

She's 10 years old jackass

installing some of the MS patches (SP1, DUN1.1) might help. I dunno if they're still available, though... or buy a floppy

Why would you want to salvage an IBM Thinkpad with a 1g hard drive? It would be more useful holding up a corner of a couch. And CHollman's sister belongs only to him, so back off.

Install Win'98 straight over the '95. It should keep the drivers.
In some portables you can have a floppy drive or a CD. Maybe if you take out the CD, it could be replaced by a floppy drive (if you can find one or a normal one could be used).

RedX

I cant install win98 over 95 because it is the full edition, when I try to install it it says I can only install the upgrade.

I think the question on everyone's mind here is this: Is she cute?
Wink wink, nudge nudge.

I met her once. She's pretty damn fine.

CHollman: Format the dam drive then install 98 fresh.

Obviously you didn't read my entire post gian. If I format the entire drive I will not be able to boot from it. My only other boot option (The BIOS's rule, not mine) is a floppy drive, which I don't have. That means boot disks are out. My win98 CD is bootable, however, the BIOS has to be able to look for an MBR on a CD, which it can't do. In win95 I could format using the /s (system) option to put all the DOS shit on the drive after it is formatted, but I will still not be able to read the CD without the CD's drivers, which I do not have. So, please tell me how I'm supposed to do what you have suggested, did I overlook something?

get the bios updaet, put it on to cd-r, put it on the craptop. then boot from the cd

Hmm, that might just work. But I've never updated a BIOS before, I thought that required you to have it on a disk and do it in DOS. Can anyone tell me how to update a BIOS?

well, if you do it like me to a brand new abit kt7a m/board then you'll most probably find out that the bios chip is faulty and have to have another one shipped to australia from the states....grr i'm pissed about that...

seriously though, my bios problem aside, you do need to be able to boot to dos to flash a new bios, that is, of course, if the m/board in the laptop has a flashable bios, not all can be flashed.....anyway, what's wrong with f8 on startup and booting to dos mode...you did say win95 didn't you??

as for generic dos cdrom drivers, why did you say they were risky ?? i don't think they are, as long as they can read your drive --- it's not like they can screw up the cd....i say you attempt to put drivers in your config.sys and autoexec.bat until you find one that recognises the system's drive...the boot to dos, format the c: and install win98 from the cd....problem solved...

Ill give it a try, thanks for the help everyone, except lordaerom

I got as far as "Im desperate" and moved on....

Me to Taubz, me too...