OS reinstall problem -dell inspiron 3500

[2afestic]

OS reinstall problem -dell inspiron 3500
This laptop has a removable floppy that you can swap with a cd-rom. To reinstall win98se I need BOTH but with this arrangement I can only have one or the other. I usually boot from the floppy with a startup disk and then run setup from the cd-rom. How do I get around this problem.

[Buzioid]

www.bootdisk.com and download EBCD. Burn it to a CD and use it to boot the system. Then, load the command prompt from the CD, and start Windows Setup. No Floopy Needed!

[Bruneau]

Load WinXP.

[osprey4]

Can you plug it in and will that allow both floppy and CD to be inserted?

HERE is the reinstall guide but they say you need both floppy and CD drive.

[kxtoh]

Your Inspiron 3500 should come with a black cable with 2 large dongles at either end that will allow you to connect the floppy drive to the parallel port. That, together with the CD-ROM drive in the media bay window should let you re-install.

[TheChronoRogue]

You could also go and a get a USB floppy drive, I've heard that should work with newer lappys (ones made in the past two years or so.) Plus, you'll have a spare USB floppy drive when u need it or you could mod it and have fun with it and a stuff like that. Right? Ok, I'll shut up now

[samwichse]

Piece of cake if you still have the bad OS installed.

Start in safe mode (in case whatever's making your reinstall necessary is giving you trouble like that). Then simply copy the cabs directory off the CD and into a "c:\win98" directory and then run c:\win98\install and you're golden.