dell notebookQ: win 95 reinstall

[pemo]

hello,
i have lurked a little here to try and find an answer to a problem. i have
an old dell latitude laptop that was running win 95. it has been on the
shelf in the closet for a while and i would like to give it to a niece for
school. i tried to update windows to 2000, not quite the most current
windows but my thinking being it's better than 95.
anyway trouble started after going on line after installing win2000,
computer froze, updates never installed, stuck on "verifying windows version
is legal .." which it is.
so not to give up i figure the hell with the updates i'll go with it like it
was for now. when i reboot, or try to reboot all hell breaks loose. windows
won't start, i cant get anything but dos prompts, so i enter dos mode and
figure the hell with it i'll reformat and start again, i'm brave even if i'm
stooopid. format works, i have a boot disc and cd for win 95 and i'm off.
now i can boot up, but i am having a hard time getting cdrom to install.
laptop has interchangeable drive units.
i am now able to get a screen that displays:

"device driver not found: mscd001
no valid cdrom device selected
A:\>"

how bad have i F*&^% it up?!
direction would be appreciated
pete

 

[Ben Myers]

"pemo" <nospam@nowhere.net> wrote in message news:OdgFi.76$em6.12@newsfe12.lga...
> hello,
> i have lurked a little here to try and find an answer to a problem. i have
> an old dell latitude laptop that was running win 95. it has been on the
> shelf in the closet for a while and i would like to give it to a niece for
> school. i tried to update windows to 2000, not quite the most current
> windows but my thinking being it's better than 95.
> anyway trouble started after going on line after installing win2000,
> computer froze, updates never installed, stuck on "verifying windows version
> is legal .." which it is.
> so not to give up i figure the hell with the updates i'll go with it like it
> was for now. when i reboot, or try to reboot all hell breaks loose. windows
> won't start, i cant get anything but dos prompts, so i enter dos mode and
> figure the hell with it i'll reformat and start again, i'm brave even if i'm
> stooopid. format works, i have a boot disc and cd for win 95 and i'm off.
> now i can boot up, but i am having a hard time getting cdrom to install.
> laptop has interchangeable drive units.
> i am now able to get a screen that displays:
> "device driver not found: mscd001
> no valid cdrom device selected
> A:\>"
> how bad have i F*&^% it up?!
> direction would be appreciated
> pete

Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and download a
Windows 95 version B bootdisk to the desktop of the computer
you are using now. Double-click the file and insert a floppy
when prompted. Use the disk to start the laptop, type the
following four lines, then shut down, remove the floppy drive,
install the CD drive and restart. Please note that the CD drive
will probably be assigned drive letter "R:".

copy /y a:\autoexec.bat c:\
copy /y a:\*.sys c:\
copy /y a:\mscdex.exe c:\
sys c:

Ben

 

[pemo]

ben,
thank you- that did the trick. my mistake was not saving the boot file to
the desktop and then the floppy. i was saving it directly to floppy and when
inserted into the laptop i was getting the message that the file could not
be run in dos. it was confusing me that the boot disk would not execute in
dos?! isn't that what a boot disk is for?!
after following your steps it was easy to get the win95 cd to setup. i would
not have thought to double click the 95b boot .exe while on my desktop in
fear it would want to boot up the pc and mess up this system too!
again thanks for the reply, and your time. most everyone else e-mailed me
and told me to toss the laptop.
yeah its old, the operating system is old, slow, blah blah-
what i will use this for is it's portability to take into the woods, use in
conjunction with my gps, and be able to view a 40 acre woodlot in respect to
the gps tracks and waypoints etc...
i know i'm in america, but i don't subscribe to the "throw it out and get a
new shiny one mentality.
when its truly "broke" then it can be sent along to its afterlife, or
wherever broken toys go when they die.
pete
"Ben Myers" <benjmyers@mindR-e-m-o-v-Espring.com> wrote in message
news:OW1502E9HHA.1900@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
"pemo" <nospam@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:OdgFi.76$em6.12@newsfe12.lga...
> hello,
> i have lurked a little here to try and find an answer to a problem. i have
> an old dell latitude laptop that was running win 95. it has been on the
> shelf in the closet for a while and i would like to give it to a niece for
> school. i tried to update windows to 2000, not quite the most current
> windows but my thinking being it's better than 95.
> anyway trouble started after going on line after installing win2000,
> computer froze, updates never installed, stuck on "verifying windows
> version
> is legal .." which it is.
> so not to give up i figure the hell with the updates i'll go with it like
> it
> was for now. when i reboot, or try to reboot all hell breaks loose.
> windows
> won't start, i cant get anything but dos prompts, so i enter dos mode and
> figure the hell with it i'll reformat and start again, i'm brave even if
> i'm
> stooopid. format works, i have a boot disc and cd for win 95 and i'm off.
> now i can boot up, but i am having a hard time getting cdrom to install.
> laptop has interchangeable drive units.
> i am now able to get a screen that displays:
> "device driver not found: mscd001
> no valid cdrom device selected
> A:\>"
> how bad have i F*&^% it up?!
> direction would be appreciated
> pete

Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and download a
Windows 95 version B bootdisk to the desktop of the computer
you are using now. Double-click the file and insert a floppy
when prompted. Use the disk to start the laptop, type the
following four lines, then shut down, remove the floppy drive,
install the CD drive and restart. Please note that the CD drive
will probably be assigned drive letter "R:".

copy /y a:\autoexec.bat c:\
copy /y a:\*.sys c:\
copy /y a:\mscdex.exe c:\
sys c:

Ben