read only win98 on a CF card

**csnowman00** · 04-13-2005, 02:43 PM

Does anybody know if it is possible to install windows 98 onto a compact flash card. I need this card to be read only, so the limited writes would not cause a problem. i looked in the fourms and really coudnt find anything.

i saw a page where it mentioned :
-boot into dos
-create a large ram drive
-unpack the os from the CF card to the ramdrive
-run win98 from the ramdrive.

this seems slow, although it may not be considering its copying from a CF card directly into memory.

Has anybody have any better solutions.

Id rather not use windows xp / xpe

**SFiorito** · 04-13-2005, 10:18 PM

I know it's possible, but I don't know how it's done. Don't the XPlite people have something for that? on a side note, I'm just wondering if you are currently running XPe why you want to downgrade to Win98? or is this not for your car?

**Nobias** · 04-13-2005, 10:45 PM

Last time i looked into doing a 98 it was with slighly different steps.

First off, you can use 98lite (litepc.com) and slim down 98 to almost nothing.

Then you can use the dos boot, copy the archive to the ram drive, then unpack it. It will unpack faster from the faster memory and it'll have less writes copy one big file.

I actually thought about doing a dual-boot cf. One with everything and one with 98 and just Frodo's Sat control (if it's 98 compat) for the other people that might drive my car.

**jbors** · 04-14-2005, 02:57 AM

You can install Win98SE from your flash drive of it is 512MB.
Just copy all your files there and after running the setup remove all components you don't need. The minimal installation I did this way without any lite was about 170MB. The smallest with lite was 58MB.
Then go to System setting and turn off the paging file.
I did not notice any slowdown when using 512MB iDOC chip. The start up was about 5 secs for Win98SE. So no need to run Win98 from RAM. Save it for something else.

**csnowman00** · 04-14-2005, 08:27 AM

to the downgrading issue, i dont need windows xp really, so why go that route (the windows Xpe is a tiral version).

so turning off the paging file is basically all i need to do? will every other write (ini files, registry) will be compact flash safe?

**Nobias** · 04-14-2005, 08:35 AM

The registry will chew up writes. Check out this guy's site, it shows you how to move the registry to the ram drive.

Linky

**csnowman00** · 04-14-2005, 06:05 PM

kewl, thanks

**hermangarza** · 08-15-2006, 11:57 PM

Would there be a step by step guide on how to actually on how to part and format an cf card to install 98? at least to part and boot.(any other way besides using the hp Soft)

**Rob Withey** · 08-16-2006, 02:52 PM

I did exactly what the OP describes (unpack Win 98 from flash drive to ram drive and boot from there). I get a boot from cold in 17 seconds, so it is not slow.

Here is a how-to I wrote : http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=3248

**freelancer** · 11-18-2006, 07:29 AM

I'm having a little trouble with this (booting win98 from RAMdrive). I've done exactly as the tutorial in the link says, and it boots. However, right after installing the RAMdrive, I get a "General failure writing drive C:, Abort Retry Fail" error (or at least something like that). I can get past it by pressing A a few times, but then I just end up in a command prompt. If I cd to X:\windows and type win, scanreg starts and tells me that the system files are damaged. Then I get another "Failure writing drive C:" error (not the same as before though, I haven't seen this one before).
Does anyone know what I've done wrong?