I have this old Windows 98 Aptiva IBM which I can't seem to get out of DOS mode or boot from a CD. When I switch it on, it goes through the BIOS checks and then prompts me to click enter to boot or F1 for setup utility. When I actually boot to Windows 98, it is in DOS mode, and when I try to activate the GUI with the win command, it says "VFAT Device Initialisation failed" on a BSOD, followed by "system halted". It has something between that which I forgot. But anyway, I burned a Windows 98 SE ISO to 4 different CDs, set CD to be primary boot option in BIOS, then tried to boot from it by putting it in and switching it on, but it still doesn't work. So there is a big explanation but the question is: how can I get this thing to boot from a CD?
1 Answer
Firstly, many old computers had problems with booting from CD; It was either unsupported or very buggy. Secondly, even if booting from CD would work on that particular Aptiva, i doubt that booting from a recorded CD would - it has something to do with the way data is written to the disc (many pre-1997 (the year recordable CDs were introduced) CD-ROMs have problems with reading burned CDs).
I would go with booting from floppy with Windows 98SE loader disc (all you need is DOS and CD-ROM drivers installed on it). The procedure would be to go to D: (or R:, or any other letter that MSCDEX would tell you to), enter the WIN98 directory and launch setup.exe
Other solution is booting from floppy with Plop Boot Manager - it's more flexible, as you'll be able to actually boot from CDs not based on DOS (for example Linux install CDs), and maybe even boot from USB drives!
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2@MattLacey I almost always use this method, but with a slight change. Firstly, I prefer qemu over VMware; I use qemu with real devices, so i don't need to dd anything afterwards. Other method that I use is install DOS in the qemu (format c: /q /s), mount the HDD, copy installation files from the ISO/CD/Floppy (everything from win3x/WIN95 dir/WIN98 dir/I386 dir), move the HDD to your other machine, launch it from the HDD, launch the installer from there. It's particulary useful if you don't have a CD-ROM in your machine, because after install you can point windows if it would ask for CD.– redsPLJul 17, 2017 at 8:34
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1@redsPL In this case the hard drive already can already boot the MS-DOS command prompt, so he'd just have to put the hard drive in another computer and copy the CD-ROM to it normally. He might even be able copy the files from the CD-ROM to the hard disk on the IBM Aptiva by loading the MS-DOS CD-ROM drivers, assuming that the Aptiva's CD-ROM drive works.– user722Jul 17, 2017 at 17:17
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1Hmmm, burning CDs at retro speeds is not something I'm nostalgic for. At least on a modern machine you can still do something as extreme as moving the mouse while burning!– Matt Lacey ♦Jul 18, 2017 at 4:36
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1belive me or not, back in the day when i burned them, typing on a keyboard was sometimes too much for the CD-ROM to handle :^) But yeah, true nowadays.– redsPLJul 18, 2017 at 7:17
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1@MattLacey I had a CD burner early. I don't remember exactly when, but certainly around the time Windows 95 came out. What I do remember was walking very carefully near the computer while a burn was running. It was a 2x drive, so that could easily take half an hour!– userJul 19, 2017 at 12:53
scandiskfrom the MS-DOS prompt to check the hard drive for errors. You could also try booting Windows in safe mode withwin /d:m.