[RESOLVED] Installing WIN98 on an older Dell

[Bogeyman]

I have an older Dell w/P133 and 16MB of RAM, running WIN95. I don't have the CD-ROM or the sound card (Sound Blaster AWE32 PnP) drivers. I also have a new Gateway PIII, 450MHz, running WIN 98. My question: can I reformat the Dell's HD, and install WIN98, using the OEM WIN 98 CD that I got from Gateway, and a system boot diskette made from the Gateway? Will the CD-ROM driver on the bootup diskette work in the Dell? What about a sound card driver, or will PnP detect the card OK? thanks a lot.

[Zleaper]

If you format the hard drive ,using the win 98 startup disk it will let you wipe the hard drive and then you can format c: . Then you are ready to install an operating sysytem of your choice. Rem licences and such then you can use the gateway disk or win 98 oem . The nice thing about using win 98 start up disk is that it loads cd drivers so you can proceed with the installation of an OS right from the bootdisk.

[DaveH]

Not sure if it would work.
I think you need at least 24 m. for
windows 98.

[Paul Cunningham]

I cant see why it shouldn't work, I have put win98 on a P100 with 16meg and it ran respectably

Go for it

[Zleaper]

It works fine 16 meg is the absolute min for win 98 on any machine. I have a 486 66 running a 850 meg hd with win 98 and its fine with respect to the usual slow works of a 486

[DaveH]

Sorry if I was wrong.
Last month I was going to install Windows 98SE on a friends computer, a gateway P-133
with 16meg. On the windows box it stated the min reccomended was 24meg, so I thought it wouldn't work.

[murphy1]

Be a little cautious here. I don't know about gateway, but some manufacturers supply what is called a recovery disk, that containes the os, and all the drivers for that paticular machine. Using this disk might not be such a good idea on a diffrent machine, as all the drivers may be proprietary, and not work with any other system.
If it is a genuine microsoft disk, go for it, it'll work.

[Bogeyman]

Well, the operation was a success. I added 32 MBs of RAM to the Dell (48 total), booted it from the bootup diskette I made from WIN98 on the Gateway, wiped the HD, formatted it,and installed WIN98 and Office 2000. Runs great on the P133, perhaps even faster the the Gateway with 450MHz. Far less junk on the HD, I guess. The Dell shuts down in a wink, compared to the Gateway. In fact, at the end of the shutdown, the Dell says "It's OK to turn off your computer", just like it did when it had WIN95. The Gateway takes forever to shutdown, and doesn't say anything, just shuts off. Why is that?

[Zleaper]

The reason is in the type of bios some dont have the auto mode of turn off like your dell it may have a cmos setting though you can change to set it to auto turn off. However if I rem thta Dell model era is on the manual shut down