Vfat error when cross booting win from a cd

**frankthedruid** · 03-22-2005, 02:53 PM

Here is the deal I am trying to boot my pc from a cd then transfer all the os crap from the cd to ram and bang boom start windows. When I do this I get a Vfat error.
So when one makes a bootable CD from a dos disk does it use some oddball fat?

Oh yeah it works with my zip drive so its not a windows crapping all over my day thing.

Thanks

By the way when this all goes smooth I chould have the longest recorded boot time ever

**frankthedruid** · 03-26-2005, 09:38 PM

hELLO?

**Gobby** · 03-27-2005, 05:09 AM

Is it a laptop?? If so, you need to uninstall and reinstall Cardworks which is the '98 PCMCIA Driver Software on most laptops

**frankthedruid** · 03-29-2005, 01:47 PM

No its one of those 1 ghz via mb. I am scratching my head on this one.
I will re state the prob Just incase I screwed it up the first time.

I in stalled my os on a hdd
cut out all the windows crap I didn't want
copy windows to cd
made a bootable cd from the boot info on a win98 boot floppy
booted the whole kitand kaboodle and got the little a:\ prompt
ran a program that turns my ram into a virtual Hdd copied all the stuff from the cd to the c:\ drive set my path told the the os I moved command.com
typed the win command

Then bam crap Vfat error

But if I use my zip drive and no cd no Vfat error, why?

**Gobby** · 03-29-2005, 01:50 PM

At a guess - The system doesn't see the RAM drive as a proper drive whereas it sees the Zip drive as a proper FAT drive .... do a search in google for RAM Drive and windows etc

**frankthedruid** · 03-29-2005, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by UK_MP3Car

At a guess - The system doesn't see the RAM drive as a proper drive whereas it sees the Zip drive as a proper FAT drive .... do a search in google for RAM Drive and windows etc

I did all of that. and I can cross boot from the zip drive just not the cd
I think I have read every page relante to crossbooting windows

**frankthedruid** · 04-06-2005, 01:08 AM

I thimk I fixed it there is a win file that i deleted and it works a bit

**Amoebacowboy** · 04-06-2005, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by frankthedruid

I thimk I fixed it there is a win file that i deleted and it works a bit

A bit? What ver of Win? I assume is 98. And I assume you either disabled the paging file or specified in the settings to page to a different (and writeable) disk? If not, it works on the zip cause it can grab pagefile space on whatever extra diskspace is avail prior to initializing the RAM drive, not so with the CD. Windows really dislikes not being able to assign a paging file to somewhere writeable.