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I have the original CD and floppy disk for Windows 95. My current computer doesn't have a floppy drive so I have copied the floppy files to my hard drive.

When I used to install Windows 95 in my old computer I would boot up with the floppy which would eventually start the cd drive and install Windows 95.

I have tried the same process with VirtualBox by selecting the floppy files. However, it appears VB is looking for file(s) with either of the following extensions: img, ima, dsk, flp or vfd. None of the floppy files have any of the extensions. If I go to All Files, it just brings up an error:

Failed to open the floppy disk file D:\Windows\DOS\Win95\SETUP.BAT.
The medium 'D:\Windows\DOS\Win95\SETUP.BAT' can't be used as the requested device type.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}
Callee: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}
Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)

I've tried installing Dos 6, that didn't help. I've also tried installing Win95a_bootdisk.iso, Dos6.22.img, etc., without any luck.
I'd appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

Thanks

You need to create an image of the floppy disk. Then mount this image.
Try http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

Thanks for info Frodo. So I've installed WinImage and created a floppy disk image (.vfd) which is selected for Floppy Device 0:

I've also selected IDE Secondary Master: [CD/DVD] Host Drive 'E:' as the source for my Windows 95 CD.

When I run VM the disk is formatted by WinImage. However, I get the following message:

No Systemdisk. Booting from harddisk.
Cannot load from harddisk
Insert Systemdisk and press any key.

I've tried re-inserting the Windows 95 cd and pressing a key but am left with the same message.

I'm obviously missing a step here. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.

You need to create an image of the Win95 Boot floppy.
Sounds like you just created a blank disk image.
Been a long time since I used WinImage but I think it's straight forward enough

Frodo,
OK. I've created an image file (.ima) directly from my floppy disk on my old computer. I had to guess a bit as to how to do it, couldn't find any detailed help. The steps I took were:

1. File - New
2. Image - Inject a folder
3. Selected floppy disk - Saved As .ima file.
4. Copied ima file to my new computer
5. In VirtualBox I have created a virtual disk
6. Settings - Storage
Controller: IDE - Windows 95.vdi and Host Drive 'E:' (my cd rom drive)
Controller: Floppy - Win95BootDisk.IMA (the .ima file on my new computer hard drive)
7. Settings - System - I have Floppy checked as first boot order, CD/DVD checked as second and Hard Disk as third

When I click Start I still get the same message shown in my previous post.

Any help appreciated

Your floppy disk image file must be a true raw image. There are some image file types that may include extra data along with the image itself, and these will fail in these contexts.

Use a .img file, and check its file size. It must be exactly 1,474,560 bytes - anything else and it is not a true image. (I don't know WinImage, so I can't tell you how to use it.)

If you cannot create one easily, there are many copies available on the web - just Google something sensible. Since you actually have the CD, which includes the disk image within itself (though you can't get at it yet) you won't be breaching any copyright.

A few things to note with running Windows 95 in VirtualBox:

• There are two different versions of Windows 95. (Actually there are more than two, but there are two principal ones.) There is the original and there is the OSR2 (OEM) version. Each has its own start-up floppy. If you are using the original, then it will only use FAT16, which means you need to reduce the hard disk size to no more than 512Mb before starting - default is 2Gb. If you have OSR2, then you can use a larger hard disk, provided you select to use "large disk support" (which is not the default) when running FDISK.
• It runs more reliably with VT-x turned off, in my esperience.
• The "Bear Windows" video driver, though designed for Win 98, will work with Win 95 too and give a variety of screen sizes and colour depths.

dlharper wrote:It runs more reliably with VT-x turned off, in my esperience.

Or indeed at all. The problem is that the original Windows 95 is simply too buggy to run reliably on any PC made after 1998 or so ("too fast" CPUs). Disabling hardware virtualization may slow down the CPU just enough to get past those bugs.

Windows 98 is far better in this respect.

Thanks for info. I've checked my image file and it is exactly 1,474,560 bytes.
My Windows 95 CD is dated August 1996 so I assume it's not the original FAT 16 version. Also, a setup.txt file makes reference to not using a previous setup floppy as it would be FAT 16 and not work.

I have a question on boot order. Since my image files were from a floppy I've assumed my first boot order should be a floppy drive even though the image files are actually on my hard drive, i.e. VB still regards the image files as being on a floppy disk. Is this correct.

Thanks,

TedN wrote:I have a question on boot order. Since my image files were from a floppy I've assumed my first boot order should be a floppy drive even though the image files are actually on my hard drive, i.e. VB still regards the image files as being on a floppy disk. Is this correct.

Yes. It doesn't matter where the image files are, from the guest's perspective you have a floppy disk, a hard disk, and a CD-ROM (probably), even though from your's host's point of view these are all files on the hard disk. So as with a physical Win 95 machine you need to have the floppy as the first in the boot sequence, then once the main system has been loaded onto the hard disk "remove" the floppy image.

It still sounds like there must be something wrong with your floppy disk image.

BTW, once you have got the floppy to boot, don't try to install Windows 95 from "Host drive E:". Make a .iso image of the CD and use that instead. Indeed, with Windows 95 I find it best, once you have partitioned and formatted the virtual hard disk, to create a directory on it called WIN95, copy all files from the WIN95 directory on the (virtual) CD to this hard disk directory, and run SETUP.EXE from there.

As michaln has pointed out, Windows 95 is buggy. It will often freeze on shutdown, or fail to boot properly. (For some reason I have never worked out, if it freezes in the middle of the boot sequence, it can sometimes be persuaded to restart by moving the mouse pointer round and round in circles. Sometimes you have to do this through most of the boot sequence.)

All in all, it is not the easiest system to get working properly in VirtualBox.

dlharper wrote:All in all, it is not the easiest system to get working properly in VirtualBox.

I'll second that Could be why I went to 98Se

I do remember that when I used WinImage, saving the image as type IMA I would type the full filename to be saved something like "boot.img"
This always worked for me with no problems.

Well I've given up trying to get the floppy iso to work and have taken previous advice and installed Windows 98. Went in with hardly a hitch.

One question: is there any way to change the resolution. It seems to be stuck on 640 x 480. I've tried enabling Video Capture and making changes there but nothing happens. I can make the Windows 98 screen larger but the resolution is too low.

Thanks,

Take a look in "Howtos and Tutorials" - "Windows Guests"
Several threads relating to 95/98

TedN wrote:One question: is there any way to change the resolution. It seems to be stuck on 640 x 480. I've tried enabling Video Capture and making changes there but nothing happens. I can make the Windows 98 screen larger but the resolution is too low.

You need a VESA driver. There is one produced by "Bear Windows" which I have used for some time, and which is referred to in the tutorials. The most recent (2014) version does the job well (apart from DOS command-line boxes). This gives up to 32-bit colour with screen sizes up to 1600x1200px. (It also speeds up the operation of Windows 98 considerably.)

However, the tutorials refer to a website that no longer exists. (It might come back; who knows?) At the moment the driver is available from ftp://alter.org.ua/incoming/soft/vbe/win9x/vbe9x.htm. (In the table click on one of the "[?]" links in the top row. These are mirrors hosting the driver, except that the first one appears to be dead.)

Once you have got this going then, providing you are using 98SE, there are a number of other enhancements you can make to the installation for ease of use. You don't have Guest Additions, but you can set up mouse integration in a way that is almost as good. You can also install a USB stick and use it to transfer files between host and guest, if you don't want to go to the trouble of setting up a network (though the latter isn't difficult either).

Thanks all for the info. I'll play around with this and see how far I get.