Member Avatar for sci0x

as the description says im having problems installing windows 95, im trying to install the OS on a compaq LTE 5100 with a swapable floppy and cd-rom drive, heres where it gets sticky the hard drive is already formatted so i dont have the cd rom drivers any more and the olny copy of windows 95 i have is on cd, if anyone can help me with this i would really appriciate it.

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Dani AI

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Short, practical approach that avoids trying to “hot‑swap” the MultiBay mid‑install.

The LTE 5100 uses a removable MultiBay (one module at a time), so you can’t boot from a floppy and also keep the CD in the bay at the same time — the service manual shows the MultiBay and hard‑drive removal procedure. (manualslib.com) Also note many Windows 95 retail CDs are not themselves bootable, so you usually have to start from DOS and run setup from a local folder. (winworldpc.com)

Recommended (reliable) method

  1. Power off and remove the laptop hard drive per the LTE 5100 manual. (manualslib.com)
  2. Use a USB‑to‑IDE/PATA adapter or 2.5" enclosure on a modern PC and attach the drive.
  3. Insert the Win95 CD on that PC and copy the entire Win95 install folder to the laptop disk (example: C:\WIN95). Microsoft docs and experience recommend copying the CD to the hard drive and running setup from C:\WIN95. (learn.microsoft.com)
  4. Reinstall the drive in the laptop, boot to DOS (or a small boot floppy if needed) and run C:\WIN95\SETUP.EXE.

A few important cautions: original Win95 expects FAT16 partitions (keep the boot partition small — FAT16 limits apply), while OSR2 supports FAT32; check partitioning to match the CD version to avoid install/boot problems. (hwiegman.home.xs4all.nl)

If removing the drive isn’t possible, a more advanced route is to use Plop Boot Manager (floppy/CD) to chain‑boot USB mass storage so the laptop can read a prepared USB installer — Plop can add USB HDD support on machines whose BIOS lacks it, but it does not reliably boot USB CD/DVDs. (plop.at)

This avoids the mid‑install bay swap problem others mentioned (and the BIOS/CD boot limits noted by ) while keeping the install process straightforward for .

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Member Avatar for bentkey

The only think I can think of off hand that you could do is make a bootable CD-Rom with windows 98 on it and copy the windows95 disk to it also. Then I think you could boot to the disk and run setup. Of course you need somebody's working machine with a burner to do it.

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Find someone with a Windows 98 system and make a startup diskette on their machine. Use it to start the system with CD-ROM support. Using a Windows 98 startup diskette is preferable anyway!

Member Avatar for bentkey

I don't think he can do that because he needs to change the floppy drive to the cd in the middle of the install and he can't. The older laptops didn't allow for hot swapping the drive.

Member Avatar for DuncanIdaho

He may have an even bigger problem, judging by the specs on that notebook: 133mhz (or SLOWER, that was the fastest in that series) Pentium. I doubt its bios supports bootable CD. :(

Member Avatar for ikenfixit

Get win 95 on floppy.. Install it then install 98 w/cdrom drive,Will work then..

Member Avatar for thepom11

Get win 95 on floppy.. Install it then install 98 w/cdrom drive,Will work then..

you can get any boot disk you require at .

Member Avatar for Kinseeker69

as the description says im having problems installing windows 95, im trying to install the OS on a compaq LTE 5100 with a swapable floppy and cd-rom drive, heres where it gets sticky the hard drive is already formatted so i dont have the cd rom drivers any more and the olny copy of windows 95 i have is on cd, if anyone can help me with this i would really appriciate it.

you need the file CDENAB.EXE it forces the CD rom to boot to the CD.

Member Avatar for bentkey

cdenab.exe only creates a boot floppy that can access a cdrom drive. He can't use a boot floppy, because he only has the capability to use either a floppy or a CD at one time. The drives are not hot swappable so if he boots from a floppy, he cannot run the CD setup. He can't boot from the CD, because his machine doesn't support that.

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