Program that copies OS files from a CD to floppies?

[Bob]

My son recently purchased from a friend an older laptop
(Gateway/solo, PII, 266) that does not have a CD ROM
drive. I need to install an operating system that will
run best on this old laptop. Is there a downloadable
Program that copies OS files from a CD to floppies? That
is the only way I can install a new OS. I own WIN98, ME,
2000, XP Home, XP Pro.

Thanks

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You'd better look into getting some sort of CD drive for that
laptop. Win95, if I remember correctly, was initially available in a
floppy format - 13 diskettes for the Upgrade and 21 diskettes for the
full version. Win98, the only other OS that _might_ run decently on
such an old machine, is available only on CD. I know of know way to
install it via floppy diskette, short of reprogramming the
installation routines.

I hope your son paid no more than $20 for that computer.

Bruce Chambers

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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Colon Terminus]

Contact me via email. I have a shrink wrapped, never registered, copy of
Windows 95 on diskettes. DO NOT attempt to run ME, 2K, or any variant of XP
on this laptop, it just ain't got enuff horsepower. Depending on RAM, it
MIGHT run 98.

 

[John John]

In addition to what Bruce & CT have said you should also know that
laptops can be pretty finicky on the hardware driver side, a visit to
the manufacturer's support pages is almost a prerequisite before you
install the OS. If anything else you might be made aware of special
considerations or potential hardware problems. Other issues can be
things like special hard drive overlay or restore software like GoBack etc.

Botched up installations on laptops can lead to nothing short of a pure
nightmare especially if you find out that to correct the problems you
have to go in the BIOS only to find out that it's password (theft)
protected, or that you can't even get to the BIOS without a special
utility... or figured out that you have to press an obscure 4 key
combination...

John