Making a boot disk with network file sharing.

[jwcrim]

Have a TP 755cs running Win95 (no CDROM):

Some file havoc occured when disk space ran low causing this problem:

Boot-up runs normally (the PC-Card network adapter is initiallized) but it stops just after the Desktop wallpaper is displayed.
If you use F8 and boot Safe Mode - Network Support, it boots up completely.

I cleaned out the StartUp stuff and the Start Menu.

Would appreciate any advice.

[jwcrim]

Is there a way to create a boot disk that let's you access files across a network?

I would like to run Win95 setup on a sick computer having no CDROM, using a remote computer's Win95 CDROM. I would like to transfer the needed setup files from the CDROM to the sick computer's C: drive, then run Setup locally.

[Alfons]

Yes there is, but you will need to get the Network Components for DOS so that you can add them to a bootdisk and create a connection. In the past I've used "Network Client" to do this for remote NT4 installations. If you're not familliar with DOS, you might find it a lot easier to "borrow" the CD-ROM from the other computer and use it temporarily in the "sick" computer.

[jwcrim]

This is a 755c Thinkpad that does not accomodate a CDROM. I looked into lashing up a temporary IDE external CDROM but it's impractical.

I used DOS long before I used Windows but I haven't networked with it. I am looking at some parallel port file transfer options also.

[jtdoom]

hi
if you don't find intersrv and interlnk on your hard disk
download this
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/OLDDOS.EXE
(contains interlnk etc)

some tute on what these two files can do
found here
http://www.micra.com.au/Using_null_modem_msdos.htm

[jwcrim]

Originally posted by jtdoom
hi
if you don't find intersrv and interlnk on your hard disk
download this
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/OLDDOS.EXE
(contains interlnk etc)

some tute on what these two files can do
found here
http://www.micra.com.au/Using_null_modem_msdos.htm

Thanks. I did download a demo of FastLynx 3.3 from:
http://www.sewelldev.com
This is windows based but also has a DOS client you can use for situation like this. I did transfer the CDROM contents this way but ran into another problem.

Setup gets to "Preparing to copy files" then stalls. The Setup Help does warn you that you have to uninstall IE 4.0 first but "Remove Programs" in Control Panel fails because there is no Setup.stf present.

So apparently IE4 cannot be uninstalled and perhaps this causes the halt in the reinstallation.

[jtdoom]

maybe with these switches
setup /d /p f

http://www.windowsgalore.com/windows....switches.html

[jwcrim]

Did not reinstall it.

Got the original version of Win95 to boot up by renaming system.ini to system.sav and copying system.cb to system.ini. Then I added drivers=mmsystem.dll to the [Boot} section and saved it. This booted up fine.

Now I'm trying to find out what is wrong with the system.ini (now system.sav) file. I compared it to what was backed up a month ago and it is the same. So is the Win.ini! Apparently something has changed so that now the sysem.ini file is no longer tolerated.

[jtdoom]

I've always suspected that users still using win95 was old hands with DOS and win3.x, and know their way around.



it's been too long I seen a win95 system, but it could be that VMM32.vxd was corrupt and has now been rebuilt
(this is a driver compiled during win 98 setup)
(I think also in win95)
EDIT; oops, you did not rerun setup, so this did not happen


anyhow, you got it to run.
what made this happen? I dunno, really
it could be something in USER.dat.

============

I suggest you install the ERU tool, and then create ERD

this is on the win95 CD, and quite useful to make backups of registry and configuration files