DSL back to Windows

Forum: HD Install
Topic: DSL back to Windows
started by: compaq1247

Posted by compaq1247 on July 17 2006,03:30

I want to go back to windows 98. My laptop is old, low-ram, dadada...

I want to reformat the HD. How do I without a floppy? My floppy broke and no longer works. Is there a way I can format using a CD or anything?

Posted by kerry on July 17 2006,04:04

yes, you can use the DSL live cd or grab a copy of gparted live cd-> < http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php >

i recommend grabbing the gparted cd, it comes in very handy when you need to mess with partions or just wipe drives.

Posted by compaq1247 on July 17 2006,05:27

How do you format with the DSL LiveCD? Or do you just partition it?

My laptop has a 4gb HD... and as I said before I want to put win98 on it. So I partition/format it as... FAT32 right?

Oh... lastly... how do I restore windows bootloader without a floppy?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 17 2006,06:05

Windows setup will overwrite the bootloader without asking you.
It can format the partition as well. It uses fat32/vfat
In DSL you can use cfdisk or fdisk to partition if you wish to.
The win98 bootdisk also contains the MS-DOS version of fdisk.

Posted by brianw on July 17 2006,15:16

Quote (compaq1247 @ July 16 2006,23:30)

You want to go back to win98 on a low resource machine?

On my Compaq armada 266Mhz 96M ram win98 makes my fan run almost all the time while with DSL it only runs when I am pushing the cpu with graphics intense games or multiple graphics things running (firefox and tkwget and several terminals runing finds and downloading something all at the same time) but usually only when I am playing a game.

I can't even get windows drivers for some pcmcia network cards (that DSL recognizes right away).

What are your system specs? If you use jwm it uses less resources and remove all icons that you don't use regularly helps. Install to HD with a regular install, make a swap partition and install windows to a partition (you would need three partitions but the swap you only need about 128 to 256 and DSL give the rest of 1Gig that leaves 3 gig for windows and you can always use the windows partition from DSL if you need to). This way you could see what the difference is and use each one for a specific purpose if you would like (can always get rid of DSL later again and make another fat partition or make one big one again).

Posted by compaq1247 on July 17 2006,15:51

Yea brian... I started thinking about that last night. Just leave 500mb for DSL, 125mb for swap, and the rest for windows.

My laptop has a AMD processor 495Mhz or something like that, and it has 32 mb of RAM.

The reason I'm switching back to windows is because the netcard I have now is not supported. And my laptop does not have an ethernet plug-in spot, just a dial-up modem. I'm thinking about getting an Ethernet cardbus but would it work in DSL?

Posted by brianw on July 17 2006,19:55

The processor is no problem (plenty of speed for DSL) but the 32M would be pretty light for frugal install (regular HD install would be better, if you could upgrade the ram you would have a screeming machine with DSL).

I have used SMC and SOHOWARE (a 16 bit card) pcmcia cards with success. I have also used an SMC USB dongle with success (used it on laptop and several desktops).

Good luck and I think once you get the network working you are going to love DSL.

Posted by muskrat on July 18 2006,00:34

You want to go back to windows, how long have you been using Linux?

DSL is a great distro for slow and aged machines. But it isn't exactly the best distro to learn linux, because they do some tricks to get that LiveCD enviorment working.

My experiance even Debian or Slackware runs on my Laptop better and faster than Win98, not to mention the blue screen of death and all his kin, which don't reside in the linux family.

If you nic doesn't work with Linux get another, Tiger Direct has some for as little as 10 bucks sometimes.

Posted by newOldUser on July 18 2006,01:08

If things are really tight you can use the win396.swp file that windows 98 will create in the /windows directory for a swap file. That way you will not need a swap partition. A swap partition is probably better but a swap file will work. You can use both (partition and file) at the same time.

To use the swap file from windows 98 on hda1 you would use these commands after mounting hda1 to /mnt/hda1

sudo mkswap /mnt/hda1/windows/win386.swp
sudo swapon /mnt/hda1/windows/win386.swp

good luck

Posted by compaq1247 on July 18 2006,04:30

Ok... I didn't really read any of those... lol

I've decided to stay with DSL because I got a USB Ethernet Adapter. so now I have internet on the laptop.

All is well. Thanks for all the advise everyone

Posted by stanley on July 18 2006,07:28

Alright, it's a bad idea, but:
Open a terminal
sudo cfdisk
Make one big VFAT partition (May also be called FAT32)
Make it bootable
Write it
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/hda1
That should do it. I am being forced to use a Windows system now, so I can't check for sure, but it might be sudo mkfs.fat32. Probably vfat.

Posted by stanley on July 18 2006,07:29

Sorry, I thouht it hadn't posted!

Posted by compaq1247 on July 18 2006,16:28

oh... thanx stanley for posting it though. I'll remember it if I ever do decide to go back:D

Posted by compaq1247 on July 18 2006,17:20

-Solved-