Reloading Win98 on IBM

[Chosen One]

I have a question for you all. I'm working on someones IBM Aptiva. Windows 98 is hosed. I have backed up his data and I have his restore CD. I went to run the recovery and the CD isn't bootable. No problem right? I should be able to create a boot disk off of the CD, wrong. There's no disk creation utility on there. So I boot off of a Windows 98 boot disk, choose the option to load CD drivers on boot. Try to run the recovery manually from DOS and it's looking for propietary files on the boot disk. The customer doesn't have the boot disk. Is there any way to get this back up and running short of just relaoding Windows from scratch? I need to figure out where I can find a boot disk for his system. I have gone to IBM's website, they don't have it available from what I can tell. If anyone has any insight, please feel free to respond.

[Ya_know]

What is the machine type model of the Aptiva?

[kato2274]

do you have a win98 cd?

If you do, you should be able to install in place from dos.

there may even be cab files and setup file in c:\windows\options\cabs
and you could run an install in place from there in dos.

[Chosen One]

I don't have the type/model handy at the moment to look it up on their site. I looked up the best I could without it. The system is at home, (side job), and I'm at work.

Regarding loading Win 98 from scratch, I have a 98 CD and can do that, but this guy wants me to use the IBM recovery disk ideally. It might come down to me just doing a clean install and let him worry about the apps. Or are you referring to reloading Windows on top of the old install? I don't like doing that because it isn't always stable. Especially because there are corrupted files withing the current install.

[kato2274]

Originally posted by Chosen One
. Or are you referring to reloading Windows on top of the old install? I don't like doing that because it isn't always stable. Especially because there are corrupted files withing the current install.

yes thats what I was referring to. It's certainly not an ideal solution all of the time, but as a last resort to fix a botched windows install without losing any installed applications it is certainly useful and often times works just fine.

[NooNoo]

OK so you want the recovery setup diskette from ibm for an aptiva...

Looks like there is a windows ibm proggie to do this,

To do this click on
Start. Then in order, click on Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and
Recovery Diskette. You will be prompted to insert a diskette. After
inserting the diskette, press <ENTER>. The recovery diskette will be
created. You will see a message that the operation has completed.

How hosed is hosed?

Edit - this is prolly what you need - dos drivers for the CD

[kato2274]

If you are really hosed, and can't get into windows, you could do the install in place to be able to get back into windows, create the recovery diskette per Noo's last post then restore with his recovery disk set.

may be the long way around, but it would put both you and the customer where you both need to be from the indication in your other posts.

[Chosen One]

Sounds good guys. I'll do the install on top of the current install and then create that IBM boot disk from within Windows, and if the OS isn't perfect after reloading on top, I'll run the restore with that recreated boot disk. I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks guys!