Hello, and Welcome to
D-A-L.
Is there a reason why you'd like to install from the hard disk as opposed to using the CDROM drive? The CDROM method has less steps involved, and you won't loose hard disk space housing files which you have on a CD anyway (670MB if you copy the full CD). I'll outline this measure irregardless.
If you get "reports" of corrupt CAB file(s) with two different CD's, I'd start to suspect that either the CDROM drive needs cleaning, or, there are areas of the hard disk which have bad sectors and data is being written to them.
So to start, test both items.
CDROM DRIVE (ATAPI)
Boot the machine with a
Win98SE Boot Disk*, choosing "Start computer with CD-ROM support".
With a data CD in the CDROM drive (Win98 is perfect) type in
dir/a/s/-p x: (where
x: is the device letter assigned to the CDROM drive at the end of the floppy boot process.) If you get a directory listing with no errors, you can assume the CDROM drive is functional. (This will be a listing of the entire CD (~660MB) so it'll take about 60 seconds depending on your drives speed.)
Another note to mention; If your 98 CD is a burnt copy, you may indeed have corrupt cab files.
HARD DISK
Since this will be a clean install, format the hard disk with the following command
format/c/autotest c:. Take note if there are any bad sectors listed in the summary screen of the format.
Caveat:
This is not a foolproof indication of the disks status, but it's a good starting point. To thoroughly test the hard disk, use the
Hard Disk Analysis Tools - Major manufacturers.
If the disk checks out OK, you're ready to copy the CD files to the hard disk.
Type in
md c:\98SE. (Or
98FE if you have the first edition.) This creates a new empty directory on C:. To make the copying easier, I've attached the XCOPY utility. It's only 4KB so it should fit on a 98 boot disk.
Change your local drive to the CDROM. (Type in
x: (your CDROM device letter) and hit Enter.) Type in
xcopy *.* c:\98se /e/v. (Or
xcopy *.* c:\98fe /e/v if your directory is
98FE.) The CD should start copying to the hard disk directory. When it's finished, remove your CD, and change back to
A: (or
C:, doesn't matter at this point) and type in
c:\98se\setup (or
c:\98fe\setup). Setup should start.
To run setup from the CD, boot the machine with a
Win98SE Boot Disk*, choosing "Start computer with CD-ROM support". At the
A:\> prompt, type in
setup. The installation should start.
A note I'd like to add here; When using the FAT32 file system, I like to keep my hard disk partitions at 8GB max. This provides a 4KB cluster size. A FAT32 partition over 8GB, the cluster size moves up to 8KB.
A typical Windows shortcut uses 1KB. On an 8GB partition, 4KB's are used to hold that 1KB shortcut, giving you 3KB of "slack space" or unusable space on the drive, per file. On a drive/partition over 8GB, this means each shortcut uses 8KB to hold that 1KB file, giving you 7KB of unusable space, per file. It's strictly math, and a personal preference. If you use mainly
large files on the system, this doesn't matter as much.
Post back with your results or further questions.
*The above bootdisk image file is a self extracting file and has to be executed (run) from a running Windows machine in order to create the actual startup diskette on one of your floppy disks. (This image file produces the same bootdisk which 98SE creates.) This downloaded image file will format the floppy disk to ensure its integrity, write the files to the disk, then verify the file write, so it'll take a minute or three to create the bootdisk.
Ensure the floppy drive is set as the first boot device in the
bios.
NOTE: When you boot a machine with this boot floppy, it creates a RAMDRIVE in system memory to contain DOS system tools/drivers. Thus it will move your "normal" CDROM device/drive letter "up" one level. (If your CDROM is normally E: it will be F: when booting with this bootdisk.)
The path to the found CDROM will be set with the bootfiles, so entering
A:\>f:\setup is the same as entering
A:\>setup at the
A:\> prompt. There is no need to include the cdrom drive letter. The CDROM device letter will be assigned near the end of the floppy boot process, right after MSCDEX is loaded.
