Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 04:07 PM

True, Richard.
I had got it into my head that you were copying information from CAB files rather than doing a complete reinstall.
Going to your other thread query, I have found Acronis Disc Director Suite a very useful partition manager and boot selector. It happily creates new partitions for windows or for linux. It re-sizes them keeping data intact. It is also a boot manager for running different Operating Sytems on the same computer.
Once installed it can be activated to run before any system boots and you can choose to automatically go to one system or wait for you to choose.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Bernard
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 12:03 PM

Quite right, RB. Virtual drives have their uses, but you need a real drive!!

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: GUEST,Richard Bridge with No Cookie
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 06:20 PM

Geoff, surely unless Windoze was running I couldn't install Windoze from that????

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 11:21 AM

Another thing you might find useful is to use one of a number of "Virtual CD" programmes (e.g.This One. These allow you to make a "Copy" of your disc which can then be saved to your hard drive and then "mounted" as if it is a real CD in an additional CD drive.
There a number of different similar programmes, some free some expensive. but if you have lots of spare hard drive space, they can speed up some software.

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 09:01 AM

Yes, I did fall for that and my copies of Partition Magic and the other similar thing turned out to be so old they would not touch a 160gig drive, so I swapped the drives a different way round.

The backup killed my original machine totally! After a whole rest of the day yesterday, it turned out to be the motherboard, but a friend had given me his Athlon 2000 and board, and after the rest of the rest of yesterday (up to 2 am) I had that nearly right but no PCI bus and the drivers seemingly missing.

Thismorning got me nowhere - but my optical drives disappeared in Windoze (still there in the BIOS).

Just after a sandwich I had decided to format C again (!) when I hit the wrong button, did an over-the-top by mistake, and it found the network and the optical drives so apart from a few bits of installation I'm back!!

My old D drive (the 160 gig one) is still in the Piii933 as a slave but I can get at it up the network.

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 06:51 AM

"so all I need is a partition about 10G for an OS"

Don't forget the 'can only boot from a partition in the first so many GB' trick...

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 06:48 AM

BTW, if you are in the boonies, you can make your own UPS - some large car batteries, the hacked PSUs running from your 'mains' (or wind generator) - and some 12 or 24 V inverters (depending on your storage layout) .... mains off then means that you can safely run for a while and shut down safely - also you will be more immune to brownouts and 'minor' voltage fluctations - lightning strikes excepted! :-)

Good for country dwellers... hey the overall efficiencies are lousy, but ... if it keeps ya working... :P

PS - useful to wire in a low voltage light too...

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 06:41 AM

BTW, old PC PSUs are 'useful' 12V (or 5V or ...) power supplies - they can run garden lights (take sensible weather/water/safety precautions!), and act as a useful power source for small 12V appliances, chargers, electronic circuit experiments, etc. You can even use them as 'car battery charger supplies' - you can tweak the output voltage slightly, and then feed the power thru a 'charger controller circuit' - you can get 10 - 20 amps at 12 V out of some PSUs!

Some sort of load on the lower voltage buses may usually be needed, depending on the actual (switching power supply circuit) design (a high wattage resistor, or even a lamp! - power on indicator???!!!), and a 'power on' momentary switch as in "use a bit of wire to emulate the on switch***"... actually there are a lot of articles around in Electronic/PC_modders magazines, and on the net about this sort of 'conversion'... some guys even use them to run Xmas decorations, (motor power supplies for animated Santas, etc)

Surprised that no 5V output is on that PSU - the 'drive power plugs' have both 12V & 5V circuit.

*** for AT supplies - old XT PSUs were slightly different...

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 07:47 PM

I'll have to find my copy of Partition Magic first: the drive I have in mind has about 40G of data on it, although it's a 160G drive, so all I need is a partition about 10G for an OS, a little partition of a couple of Gig on here to put a "Windoze" folder for the stuff form the Windoze disc in, dump it in there and use it to create an OS in teh OS partition, then put it in the case with the Athlon and MB.

Touch wood!

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 06:51 PM

The easiest way is to attach the drive to a working machine which has a CD drive, then fdisk and format it, and copy/paste all the contents into a 'folder' (hate that word! It's a directory!!).

Before you do it, though, make sure 'view hidden files' is enabled.

An external drive unit is very handy for this sort of job.

PSU checker? I use a multimeter!

It's easy enough to make a PSU checker with a few LEDs and resistors, and a power socket from an old main board... an LED will only light if the polarity is correct and the resistors will limit the voltage so a 12v line won't light the LED if there's only 11v present. You can use trim pots instead of resistors if you want real accuracy! But why bother if a multimeter tells you everything?

The P4 plug depends upon the age and type of the PSU - different manufacturers put different labels on - these days it tends to be a square 12v auxiliary (two yellow and two black wires), but it could really be anything!!

There's a lot of crap spoken about PSUs - a 90w unit may be able to provide that continuously (RMS), yet a '400w' unit may only be rated 'Peak Power', which could mean as little as 75w RMS in reality. It's not unlike amplifiers and loudspeakers, really.

If the PSU feels heavy, it's possibly better (but not always!) than one that feels lighter. The PSU is usually the component that fails, and often takes something else out with it. I was asked to look at a dead PC not long ago... someone had spilled coffee in the PSU, and the whole PC was scrap. No, not quite true... the CPU fan was okay!

There are too many things that can go wrong on a main board, and it's rarely worth the effort to find out why, particularly as you'll never be able to trust it again...!

Hopefully the memory will be okay. It's never a good idea to mix types, even if the board should support it.

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 03:46 PM

Incidentally, I bought a PSU checker and have junked one PSU totally (it had 5 v and that was all) but I have a 90 watter (what use is that?) that is perfect, and a 350 that is merely missing the 5V off the P4 plug which none of my boards or drives use (what's it for) so that is a bit of a plus.

If I put memory in and attach a PSU, the board for the Piii733 will run (ie the fan on the CPU starts) if I use a bit of wire to emulate the on switch - but no beeps at all. Suspicious.

The board out of the Duron started without finding the switch connectors, and gave a long beep. I turned the PSU off. Now it won't do anything. I think the board is likely beyond redemption.

And I've found that the memory out of the Duron was 64M of PC100 and 2x256 of PC133 (not clever of me at some time in the past), so the latter two sticks will come in handy (if they work, I have no SIMMCHECK) when I try to get the Athlon 2000 up. I have two sticks of PC100 for that as well and the board instructions say it will take either DDR or PC100/133 (different slots and not at the same time).

But I need an OS!

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 03:36 PM

So I need to create a DOS directory for the 'Doze files, and use the DOS copy command? Or can I simply attach the destination hard drive to a running Win machine, format it, create a folder in the destination disk, explore the Win CD copy all and paste to that folder?

Or can I use Nero?

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:47 PM

Just a thought - the PIII was produced in two formats, 'Slot 1' - the big thing with a boxed fan, and it plugged into a slot something like the old ISA bus slots, then there was the Socket 370 version - a square, flat ZIF socket similar to the Duron's Socket A.

You can't use a Duron on a Pentium board, or vice-versa.

Subject: RE: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:30 PM

• Yes, Richard, it's simple. Just copy the whole thing into a directory on whichever partition you'd like to use it from. The SETUP.EXE file is inside the Win98 directory, and it was always my preferred way of setting up Win98 if disk space allowed.
  
  It's more useful if it's on a separate drive from the intended operation system, but it doesn't have to be. You will need to make a basic boot floppy, though, and make sure it has FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM on it.
  
  
• Sorry, but they are coasters. However, if you have the licence sticker, you can usually use that with another copy of the OS install, provided that it is similar. You can't use an OEM licence with an upgrade CD, etc.
  
  
• Only by putting them in something! If you can find them, the boards will be very cheap.
  

Subject: Tech: CAB and similar W'doze install files
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 05:14 AM

As techies may have seen from my recent posts, I am having a bit of computer fun(!).

Three things.

1. Is there a way to clone my W98disc to a partition on my main or slave hard drive so that I can run Windoze install from there? It might be quicker, and it likely would avoid the problem of failing to read or find necessary files. I say this because I have seen it said in a computer mag, but I can't figure out how to do it and keep all the necessary hidden files that are actually on the Windoze CD.

2. I have at least two other copies of W98 that came on install/restore discs specific to the computers and mother boards they came with, both of which computers and boards have long since been headed for the scrayard. One ran a PIII733 (my daughter killed it) and the other a Duron 800 (I blew dust off the motherboard, and must have spat at the same time as there was a nasty pop and burning smell which even ate the PSU an hard drive as well as the MB and probably processor!). I can't run the discs themselves as they will I suspect just write a drive image that will be full of wrong drivers for the wrong bits. Is there any way to get at the Windoze install routine on its own, or are those restore discs just coasters now that the motherboards they were for are scrap?

3. I know the PIII733 and the Duron 800 CPUs are a bit long in the tooth, but is there any easy way to check them to see if they would work if I put them in something?