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Hi all, nice site you're running here!

Here's my problem.

I have 2 PCs, and today just came my second. It's a second hand 486dx2 66mhz with CD-rom, monitor (it's a Compaq Presario) with 20mem ram, 850HD... what a bomb, right? So, now I have a PIV 3.2 for work and an oldie just for abandonware!

Well, since I was so sick and tired of dosbox and all the lame tweaks that we had to do to make each game run I decided to get myself an old system and it's wonderful since I only spend €50 (around $50) to buy it!

I've installed WIN98 SE (which I had lying around) but now I have a problem. Some games need more EMS than that which I have. I downloaded a bootdisk but unfortunetely the boot disks I've been trying don't come with mouse drivers and I really don't know how to add one to the boot disk... shame on me, I know...
Can someone redirect me to a boot disk with a mouse driver? I've already tried a few. Some give me error and those that load the games don't have mouse drivers.

Please help me fulfill my nostalgic needs :help:

Ops, forgot to say... I tried downloading the abandonia boot disk (the one you've got available in this site) but when I start extracting its contents to the disk but I get the following error at 62%:

Disk error on track 49, head 1
Error in reading

What gives? This is why I'm asking for any other links for boot disks...

[Data]

bad floppy. replace it

[Omuletzu]

I suggest you format the hd, and install Dos 7.1.It's free and it's great!

[dr_st]

If you installed Win98 SE, why would you need any bootdisks? Just set up Config.Sys and Autoexec.bat properly to provide EMS and load the mouse driver and all should be fine.

I recommend CuteMouse as the mouse driver. You can get it here:
http://shareware.pcmag.com/product.php%5Bi...BSiteID%5Dpcmag

[racer]

If you still need a boot disk, go to bootdisk.com. And no, I don´t recommend any Windoze for your Presario, unless Win 3.1. It´s better to have a good DOS OS instead of Windoze.

[The Fifth Horseman]

What I recommend for 486's is Win9x dualboot with DOS. My old PC had Win95a and DOS 6.2 - quite a decent combination to play some oldie Windows games and all the DOS ones I needed.

Does the game you want to play NEED mouse?

My private recommendation is to have several boot options set in your Autoexec.bat (or was that config.sys? or maybe both? :blink: ). Myself I had a "standard" boot with NC and Mouse driver, "Big Himem" without NC, mouse nor even CD-Rom drivers installed (see, NC takes up some Himem even after you exit it) - for some time it was used to run Flashback: Quest for Identity straight after boot, "Games" that took me right to the games directory with mouse driver but no NC and "No EMS" that disabled EMS.

Sure, that's a lot - but every one had its use.

[dr_st]

the_fifth_horseman - do you actually know of games which wouldn't run under Win98 DOS?

[Rogue]

Bottom three posts of this tread are all what you have to know about running DOS games with Win98 computer.

You DONT need a boot-floppy!

All you need is to find all needed drivers (as suggested with Everest) and then create new DOS Mode shortcut. Then you can use that shortcut for template, and use it to create different DOS Modes, with different amount of EMS memory, different drivers, etc.

For example I currently have 4 shortcuts, for:

NO EMS, NO CD Rom Drivers
NO EMS, With CD Rom Drivers
8MB EMS, NO CD Rom Drivers
8MB EMS, With CD Rom Drivers

As result of this, each configuration will have different memory stats! (Less stuff loaded = bigger program you can run)

There was no game I was not able to start with this configuration.

edit: added another post about cute mouse in my other topic

[The Fifth Horseman]

Let's say it that way - pure DOS and Windows DOS prompt are two different things, no matter what do you think. Windows takes up a portion of CPU power, RAM and Himem, limiting the avaible resources. Also the whole stuff on drivers differs a lot.

If you ask for examples, then I'll give you an outright one: Space Hulk wouldn't run _at all_. It's completely indigestible for Windows 9X and XP as far as I know.
Some others would experience severe sound (or maybe even graphics) issues.

Therefore I recommend a dualboot.

Win 95 I recommended because 98 would be painfully slow on such hardware.

It's a second hand 486dx2 66mhz with CD-rom, monitor (it's a Compaq Presario) with 20mem ram, 850HD...

I had a similar one for a while. It was a mighty machine - on the beginning of '95. DX4/100 with 4 MB RAM later upgraded to 8 and then 24. Ahh, the memories...