Help installing OS on a laptop, please.

[flounder43]

I have an older laptop that I just got working. My family gave it to me on Thanksgiving to fix for my aunt who is ill. It had a dead hd, but now it is up and running.

The problem is, it does not have a cdrom drive, but I need to install Win 98 on it. I don't have an external cdrom drive, either. Any ideas on what I can do to solve this prob?

TIA

[Mike K]

If you don' t mind spending around 40 bucks or maybe you can get your family to give you the money you could get a USB Drive kit- you just put in an internal drive and it hooks up to a USB you can also choose different connections:D

[flounder43]

Thanks, maybe I'll give that a look...

[Ridenow]

Two methods I have used:

The 2.5 laptop hard drive adapter. Costs $5 from http://www.harbourtownsales.com + $7 shipping. Very useful when working on older laptops.
This allows you to put the hard drive in another computer and load the OS. You will then have to install some of the drivers from floppys when you move it to the laptop.

The other is to get a external CD bay. I have one that cost $70 from servercase.com. Then you have to get a cdrom to go in it.

[flounder43]

thanks for the ideas...:)

[dugans]

if you do networking that is another option: share a cd and copy the install files, the just install from the hdd.