virtualbox.org

Grabbed an old P4 box with XP (SP3) and tried to install an old Windows 98 image on it. No success. XP reads the 98 CD just fine in both the CD and DVD drive. However, with VirtualBox (4.0.4) I just get "FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted." I've tried installing directly from the CD in both drives. I've ripped it to ISO and tried installing from that. No dice. It's a full-install CD (says "for PCs without Windows" on it). What am I missing?

says "for PCs without Windows" on it

But that does not also mean without DOS on it.

If you don't have the companion floppy you will need to use freedos to create the partition, format it with the /s switch to make it a system disk and install CD drivers.
Assuming that this is an early 98 CD IIRC not all were bootable. I also did a quick check and there are make 98 bootable instructions available on google.

Perryg wrote:

says "for PCs without Windows" on it

But that does not also mean without DOS on it.

Ahhhh. Yes, I do remember having a floppy disk to install Windows 95/98 way back in the day. I'll go grab FreeDOS and see what I can do with it (there wasn't a boot floppy with my Windows 98 CD, guess it got lost over the years).

Thanks!

Yep, there's a FreeDOS technote about it too. http://www.freedos.org/freedos/news/technote/228.html

Unfortunately, it appears that it's just not going to work for me. During the Windows install (right at the 100% of the initial file copy), I get DOS text asking me to remove the disk in A: and put in the disk for B:. This is fatal, no way to bypass. Have tried adding floppy controller and drives, no change.

Also, before then (at 16%) it throws errors about unable to create scanreg.exe, but I don't think that's fatal.

Guess I'll have to poke around at work and see if we've still got a win98 boot disk there.

Make a bootable floppy. It only requires 3 files and format, fdisk, plus the cd drivers. (command.com, io.sys, msdos.sys)
If you have an XP host or even an xp guest you can even do this there. format to include msdos boot and then copy the format, fdisk, and a cd driver (oak IIRC) Create a config.sys and autoexec.bat to include the cd drivers and away you go.

Perryg wrote:Make a bootable floppy. It only requires 3 files and format, fdisk, plus the cd drivers. (command.com, io.sys, msdos.sys)
If you have an XP host or even an xp guest you can even do this there. format to include msdos boot and then copy the format, fdisk, and a cd driver (oak IIRC) Create a config.sys and autoexec.bat to include the cd drivers and away you go.

Unfortunately, did not work. Even with a real Windows 98 boot disk all it GPFs right at the start of the install copy routine. I guess it's just not going to happen. A little amusing that it makes it further into the install with FreeDOS than with the actual install disk though.