VERY OLD BIOS doesn’t support USB key. CD ROM faulty. How can I boot this OLD Laptop?

a

Neil_Jones said:

a said:

Before you buy a CD, or DVD drive, open the computer up to check if it needs EIDE , or SATA one.

Considering the OP has already said its best part of 20 years old (the model name mentioned was the Compaq Evo Notebook N110, which was brand new in 2001) and the SATA standard wasn't ratified until 2003, its probably safe to assume it is EIDE....

I actually thought it was a newer Laptop running 98. Did not envisage someone would wait 5 years for what was then a 15 year old PC. The memory could be in 16 meg?

Two ways to other ways to do it.: 

Put dos on the c: drive so that it boots. Also load the dos audio and cd drivers. Boot to disk the got to the cd and run the setup from the cd. think the setup worked and you did not need the 98 boot floppy?

way 2: format the disk to the point where it will boot by itself. remove the disk, put it into a usb cradle on another machine and copy the cd  into a directory on the disk. Place the disk back into the original laptop, boot and go to the win98 directory and run setup.