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Am I SOL?

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Wolverine690

Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Location
Idaho
So I have a XP Pro upgrade disk I use to install XP on my machine, I have to pop in my old 98SE disk when it asks for verification other wise it won't install. So I went to format my machine today & had my 98SE disk in the drive and I can not get it to read correctly & went booting up & it tries to boot from the disk the pc goes all nuts.

So upon inspection of the disk I find the center of it where the hole is has a crack in it which I'm not all that sure how it got there since I am very careful with my disks especially OS disks. The thing is pretty old got it right when 98SE came out.

So am I pretty much SOL if I want to reload XP on my machine or is there some way I can by pass it checking for an older version of windows? Or would possibly my wifes Dell Media Center reinstall disk work?

Don't have the money to buy a new OS at this time either... :(
 
Wolverine690 said:
So I have a XP Pro upgrade disk I use to install XP on my machine, I have to pop in my old 98SE disk when it asks for verification other wise it won't install. So I went to format my machine today & had my 98SE disk in the drive and I can not get it to read correctly & went booting up & it tries to boot from the disk the pc goes all nuts.

So upon inspection of the disk I find the center of it where the hole is has a crack in it which I'm not all that sure how it got there since I am very careful with my disks especially OS disks. The thing is pretty old got it right when 98SE came out.

So am I pretty much SOL if I want to reload XP on my machine or is there some way I can by pass it checking for an older version of windows? Or would possibly my wifes Dell Media Center reinstall disk work?

Don't have the money to buy a new OS at this time either... :(

I wouldn't use a Dell setup disk on your machine. A lot of the Dell is proprietary to their machines and BIOS. Can you copy your 98SE disk files to another machine then make a copy of it on a good disk?

When you say "disk," do you mean CD? I haven't seen 98SE on floppies before.

I was never fond of upgrading over another operating system. Sometimes you're better off doing a format and clean install, especially XP Pro over 98SE. I know that doesn't help your sitaution.
 
I also never seen 98Se on floppy disk. Last criiter I seen on floppy was 95. AFAIK 98 came out on disc. :p

If you do happen to get it up and going. This would be a fine time to image the install to some discs. Then your not stuck installing two operating systems. It will save you time by taking the time.
 
I understand what you are wanting, Your WinXP CD requires your 98se CD to verify the UPGrade process even after completely cleaning the HD and wanting to just do a clean install, Right?

Well, XP only needs to see if certain older windows files are present somewhere in your computer. So... your 98se CD is messed up,. If your cd rom can read at least the main windows files, copy and burn them to another CD and you should be good for the reinstall. If not then just borrow a friends win98CD from a friend to do the re-install verification. you should be good.


Edit: I forgot to mention, Just don't throw away your old broken CD ;)
 
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Call Microsoft to get an exchange disc... or, if you really want to upgrade to vista ASAP, go to http://NEWEGG.com and buy a OEM version of XP. It will come with a free upgrade to Vista, when it hits us in January 30th 2007

Dell setup disk probably wont run in your computer, and if it does you would not be in a good place.
 
RollingThunder said:
I wouldn't use a Dell setup disk on your machine. A lot of the Dell is proprietary to their machines and BIOS. Can you copy your 98SE disk files to another machine then make a copy of it on a good disk?

When you say "disk," do you mean CD? I haven't seen 98SE on floppies before.

I was never fond of upgrading over another operating system. Sometimes you're better off doing a format and clean install, especially XP Pro over 98SE. I know that doesn't help your sitaution.


I didn't mean install the Dell disk, I mean when you pop in the XP upgrade disk you (I call CD's Disks b/c they are disks too :p) get asked by the XP setup that it needs to verify an older version of Windows, 95, 98, 2000, ME, so it reads that & says ok you have an older version I will allow you to intall XP now, then asks for the XP disk (CD) again & continues with the XP installation. So no I never install 98SE on my PC nor would I need to install the Dell one would just need it to read the windows inso on it but I really don't think it would work but I thought I'd ask...
 
GreenJelly said:
Call Microsoft to get an exchange disc... or, if you really want to upgrade to vista ASAP, go to http://NEWEGG.com and buy a OEM version of XP. It will come with a free upgrade to Vista, when it hits us in January 30th 2007

Dell setup disk probably wont run in your computer, and if it does you would not be in a good place.


I've never heard of MS giving exchange disks or discs :p I've always heard them tell people they need to go buy a new copy... but I'll give it a try...

also I'll see what I can copy from my cd but I don't think I will be able to copy anything as when I pop it in it says please reinsert CD & when I try to look at anything on it it isn't working.
 
I know usually its against forum policies...but wouldn't this be a time where downloading an image of 98 somewhere would be simpler...? Because he did buy it initially, his disk just messed up, and M$ isn't making any money with 98 anyways...just my 2 cents
 
Wolverine690 said:
I've never heard of MS giving exchange disks or discs :p I've always heard them tell people they need to go buy a new copy... but I'll give it a try...

also I'll see what I can copy from my cd but I don't think I will be able to copy anything as when I pop it in it says please reinsert CD & when I try to look at anything on it it isn't working.

It's probably because of the Dell proprietary CD. I would try to make the crack as smooth as possible in your CD player and try to image it to your hard drive. Nothing to lose.........
 
No Microsoft gives our replacement disks... usually...

They are helpfull to legal owners of their software. They will probably charge you a small fee.

Mike
 
~(o)-(0)~ said:
I know usually its against forum policies...but wouldn't this be a time where downloading an image of 98 somewhere would be simpler...? Because he did buy it initially, his disk just messed up, and M$ isn't making any money with 98 anyways...just my 2 cents

It is NOT illegal to download software that you own... so no, it is not against forum policies.

In addition Windows 98 disks dont have any special protection that would prevent you from burning them to a disk, and then using that disk in the upgrade. I am not sure if they require a PIN though I would ask for the 98 disk PIN if I was them.

For us Windows XP users, we can contact Microsoft for SP upgrade copies. This is because some new installs wont work with Windows XP unless you have the SP2 version.

The issue will be that Microsoft no longer supports 98. So they may not even have a disk:) You will have to mail your broken disk to them, pay them money and they mail it back to you.

I buy OEM versions and not Upgrade versions.

Mike
 
GreenJelly said:
It is NOT illegal to download software that you own... so no, it is not against forum policies.

...

Mike

Yea, I was considering this as well. The whole discussion of warez and whatnot is prohibited on this forum, but in a scenario like this, you would not be pirating the operating system, you would just be getting a backup copy of software which you already own. You just have to make sure its the exact same. Like, if there is a Win98SE v1 and Win98SE v2, and you have v1, its illegal for you to get v2.

Hope everything works out for you

Midnight Dream
 
Its also not cool to link or provide links to were you can get this info... there are websites out their to find that stuff, I would suggest you look up bittorrent. Its a file sharing protocal used by many companies to provide downloads to their large software without having so much bandwith of theirs taken.
 
Sorry to be the bad news breaker but, talking about warez on the forum weather its legal or not is prohibited period. Its been said many times by forum mods.

It doesn't matter if you own the disk or not, if you wanted a legitimate copy you'd make it from your current disk. Hopfully you can read at least the majority of the disk thought. It only looks for a few files and I forgot what they where, I remember people making slip stream disks of those upgrades from past OS's and it worked.
 
The definition of Warez:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&defl=en&q=define:WAREZ&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Every Definition states illegal as a condition of the word Warez. Therefor we are NOT talking about Warez...

Its not that I disagree with your statement above, but the language in the rules are not consistant to the details in this thread. However, I feel we are walking a VERY tight rope here, in that if we provide too much info, then we may be providing information that could be misused, and thus become a discussion of Warez. Thats why I wouldnt provide a single link to anything.

Now we need to talk about the INTENTION of the rule, which is KINDA clear. However in this instance we are walking a tight rope. We are so close to the fuzzy aspect of the rule; that its a individual (my) judgement call on how WE (or I) respond.

I am against stealing, though I am no saint in this area... I must admit that this is NOT the place to be talking about Warez, with or without a rule stating this. We talk about OCing, and help people with their software problems, for reasons I dont know, other then I rather enjoy these topics.

Its a hard conversation, because we are talking about a activity that is completely legal. We are talking about software (bittorrent) that is completely legal, but again may be, and probably most often, misused.

So I dont disagree with the rule, but this is a case we are too close to either side of the intention of the rule. We talked about the morality and the rule (as you can see) In the above thread and no one seemed to have a issue.

The above statement was made to help everyone understand the delema I (we) faced in responding to this issue. I have no intention in discrediting the decision the Moderator made in this issue, and will support his statement. Moderators are suppose to Moderate, so its nice to see that they Moderate. Moderators help keep this site clean and fun.

So any moderators may feel free to edit my above statements, and know that I give you full support to do so. But please HIGHLIGHT IN RED any changes made. Or put "statement/sentince deleted" in red. Just out of respect for my time and effort, and to make sure that my statements remain mine and not yours.

I do feel that this topic was fair to the parties involved (Microsoft and the User). Maybe the rule should be changed to "Warez and or any sharing of copyrighted material, either legal or illegal." Then we would DEFINATELY and CLEARLY have violated the rule. Well then again, could we talk about BitTorrent... so we would have to clarrify that in the rule... Eventually we would end up with statements of rules that read like legal statements, that no one would possibly read.

Mike

Edit: As I think about this. The truth becomes clear, that the use of Bittorrent to download a copy of Windows 98 will be illegal simply because, Bittorrent clients upload what you already downloaded. Since you dont know if the person your uploading to has a legal version of the software, you would thus probably be violating the law.

However, this conversation has turned into a great topic of the morality, software and the different aspects of this specific situation and of Warez in general. So maybe this topic has become of great value to thoose who are looking for a moral, legal, and ethical solutions. Think of it this way. The intention of the rule was probably not to talk about ILLEGAL activities and or how to commit them. I dont think the intention of the rule was to limit the ability to talk about how to avoid illegal behavior.

Edit 2: Using a disk (your Dell Disk) as a disk to upgrade XP, if that dell is currently beign used, and if that dell is running that software (or running an upgrade version of windows) that utilized that current software license would be illegal. The upgrade license states that you must be using a legal copy of X software, which is not used for multiple upgrades. However, IF you have a version of 98, then bought a version of 2000, then upgraded to XP. You could LEGALLY use the copy of 98 on one XP installation, and one cooy of 2000 for another instance of XP... I think
 
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Well talked to MS today & they will not replace my 98 disc...

And no the entire CD is fubar'd...nothing will copy or properly read from it...I'm going by my parents house this weekend & going to go digging for her Win98 CD so I can use it to install XP and then have to worry about getting a full copy of XP from newegg or ebay in the future...
 
Try buying a disk repairer... they come with a hand crank and a wheel that polishes the disk... They work amazing, and are great for all CD/DVD's... Im amazed at what they have done.

Dont get the pads, but the actual wheel.

If you search for "Disk Doctor" you should get an image of one... though you can get ones that are cheaper and not motorized.

Mike
 
GreenJelly said:
Try buying a disk repairer... they come with a hand crank and a wheel that polishes the disk... They work amazing, and are great for all CD/DVD's... Im amazed at what they have done.

Dont get the pads, but the actual wheel.

If you search for "Disk Doctor" you should get an image of one... though you can get ones that are cheaper and not motorized.

Mike


I have one & tried it....it's not a scratch it's actually cracked all the way through the disk.
 
I do believe that whether or not you actually own a CD, downloading copyrighted material off any P2P is still illegal. Especially in a situation like bittorrent, because even while downloading, you are still sharing the file, which is why so many pirates use it. I think your best bet would be to see if you can find that Win98 CD, and verify that it is the same version as the one you have. As long as it is the same version, you can make a copy of it and give it back to your parents. It is LEGAL to make backup copies of discs that you do own, although I still read about debates on that simply because the programs that help us people who are doing it only for backup reasons are also helping people get those same discs out to be downloaded. Just keep in mind, I do have 2 copies of XP Home, both made from the same original disc, one is SP1 and the other is SP2. Both discs are also legal. Microsoft does have slipstream instructions in the KB somewhere, maybe that will help you to make a backup with a borrowed disc. Just make sure to keep your original around just incase for some reason someone wants to start asking a slew of questions.
 
It is legal to copy any disk for personal use... Period

It is illegal to bypass any measure of digital protection.

Hence it is illegal to copy a DVD for backup purposes. The law is not right, but you can thank the mindless clones that receive money from the companies that want to protect this data. Of course I am talking about the federal government and their passing of the DMCA which I feel is a violation of freedom of speach. With that said, it is still the law.

Their is a clause in the DMCA which gives exemption under "Fair Use", which is quite vague and hasnt been held up in any court.

If we had the DMCA back in the early 80's. IBM would still own the rights to the BIOS of all PC's. This could have resulted in a situation that the MAC is protected by. Reverse Engineering is illegal. However it has yet to be put to the courts if someone is able to come up with the same results without prior knowledge of an existing technowledgy that someone else develops and patents. This has been a long standing issue in Patent law, and has been tested in prevous years, and at times has been proven to be of legal reasoning, giving the person who develops something they deam not to have prior knowledge of. At the same time, my father works for a company that looks at tech other companies makes and sees if they are using patents his company owns.

The companies he deals with pays the Patent fees rather then fights them in court. Hence most fair and legal development is rarely tested in the court system. DVD copies for personal use has yet to be enforced by any company. Yet if they are, that individual will have very few resources to fight the large corporations that oppose such usage. Often times groups like the ACLU step in and provide financial legal support for such cases. Thats why I give money every year to the ACLU.

It is a messed up world we have to live in after the passing of the DMCA, for I feel it truely limits personal and corporate innovation.

As far as patents go, the worst ones have been the single click shopping that Amazon owns a patent to, and no one has yet to provide proof of prior art. This doesnt mean that I personally thought of the idea way before Amazon ever patented this, but because I didnt write my ideas down (and no one else did), Amazon's patent continues to remain in law.

As for his issue, I think the disk doctor would fix the disk in question. I have seen and used these devices, and they REALLY work. I am amazed. I asked for one for XMas, and have wanted them for some time now.

Mike
 
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