Installing Windows 9x Through Conversion of Virtual Machine

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Hello MSFN!
I'm aiming to install Windows 98 or ME on my Dell Precision when I figured I could originally work around the ram by manually setting ram limitations, then came upon a dead-end of no SATA CDROM or Drive Drivers because the machine cannot disable those options.

In theory, would it be possible for me to simply install Windows 9x on a virtual machine, install required drivers there, then convert to my physical machine? The process sounds a lot less tedious and installing the actual OS wouldn't take nearly as long. I can install Windows ME instantly, enable DOS-mode back, install rloew's SATA, ram, and 2tb hard drive patches there easily. Unlike the physical machine, I won't have to physically remove the ram in my machine or potentially dual-boot Linux to access to Windows 9x partition. I can also include all the necessary files in case of an issue (USB, drivers, software, utilities, etc.)

I would imagine setting up a bootable Linux USB, copying the file inside the flash drive, then applying the system image into the physical machine. If we could do this on any machine in theory, then 9x could be implemented on any machine (no guarantee for drivers, but rloew's patch for that may help).

EDIT: So far, I've learned that a VHD can be mounted and copied. But, I still haven't tried yet. Using copyzilla, I successfully had my Windows ME partition copied to the flash drive and...it sorta boots. The system won't boot past the main menu; I believe this is because my boot device itself is a usb device...I've noticed while launching Windows ME on my old laptop, keeping a flash drive plugged in during boot would completely cause freezing upon boot. If anyone has a solution, please tell me!

Edited December 15, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[deomsh]

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

When booting from an USB flash drive, is it possible to boot WinME in safe mode? Don't forget to set a MaxPhysPage line in SYSYEM.CB, say [386Enh] MaxPhysPage=20000.

[FantasyAcquiesce]

14 minutes ago, deomsh said:

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

When booting from an USB flash drive, is it possible to boot WinME in safe mode? Don't forget to set a MaxPhysPage line in SYSYEM.CB, say [386Enh] MaxPhysPage=20000.

It worked!

Windows ME successfully entered safe mode. I just need to figure out why ME will boot with a broken hard drive, yet cannot boot without it.

I can't figure out why ME won't boot normally though. I patched the system before putting it on my flash drive, so I don't think I need to remove the 4 of 8 (1gb) ram sticks in my PC.

No USB mouse is working either in safe mode, so I cannot explore windows unless I had a ps/2 mouse.

Edited December 15, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[deomsh]

Good! Next step: go in Device Manager and disable ALL usb controllers. Without mouse: use TAB, arrow's and ALT+e to go to right places, and SPACE to enable/disable white square boxes (sorry, can't upload pictures, I have only 20KB upload space left...). Further if you want to disable SATA for the time being, set hard disk controllers to "None" (or something like that).

[FantasyAcquiesce]

6 hours ago, deomsh said:

Good! Next step: go in Device Manager and disable ALL usb controllers. Without mouse: use TAB, arrow's and ALT+e to go to right places, and SPACE to enable/disable white square boxes (sorry, can't upload pictures, I have only 20KB upload space left...). Further if you want to disable SATA for the time being, set hard disk controllers to "None" (or something like that).

Hard drive won't be an issue at the moment; it appears to be broken. When I inserted a Windows XP CD, no hard drive came up. Oddly my PC's BIOs can report the size though (1TB).

[deomsh]

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

What exactly is your idea with WinME on that USB flash drive?

[FantasyAcquiesce]

1 hour ago, deomsh said:

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

What exactly is your idea with WinME on that USB flash drive?

I'm planning to copy my Windows ME partition to a hard drive using clonezilla.

Kinda in a dilemma at a moment; both 1tb hard drives I tested on my machine are broken...so, I'm wondering if I should using my 160gb hard drive that has Windows XP and Vista...but I don't wanna lose the data. I don't have any laptop to desktop hard drive converters on me...and copying the whole hard drive would be 160gb of space (at least 60gb if not including unused space) 

Edited December 15, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[deomsh]

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

Still do not understand fully: has you old laptop a working hard drive (other than the 160GB you mentioned) and you want WinME clone to it from the USB flash drive?

[FantasyAcquiesce]

1 hour ago, deomsh said:

@~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

Still do not understand fully: has you old laptop a working hard drive (other than the 160GB you mentioned) and you want WinME clone to it from the USB flash drive?

I do have a Windows ME installation on my laptop, but I have no need for it at the moment (because Windows ME is already installed there).

OH, I just remembered about my Thinkpad R60 that I forgot of...perfect call!
Copyzilla + VMWare Windows ME installation + SATA drivers should make it!

EDIT: Cancelling desktop hard drive (1tb) installation until I can get a new hard drive. Instead, I'm gonna try it on my laptop.

Edited December 16, 2019 by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~

[LoneCrusader]

On 12/15/2019 at 3:24 AM, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

...I figured I could originally work around the ram by manually setting ram limitations..

You don't have to limit RAM to boot into DOS. rloew's RAM patch runs from DOS...

Run 98 or ME SETUP; when the system asks to reboot the first time you want to stop it here and reboot to a DOS prompt rather than letting it continue to the second phase. Run the WININIT command to pack VMM32.VXD. Then run PATCHMEM. Then reboot as normal and let SETUP complete.

On 12/15/2019 at 3:24 AM, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

...dead-end of no SATA CDROM or Drive Drivers...

Google GCDROM.SYS. Add to your bootable disk. For AHCI-only controllers you will need rloew's AHCICD package.

On 12/15/2019 at 3:24 AM, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

...In theory, would it be possible for me to simply install Windows 9x on a virtual machine, install required drivers there, then convert to my physical machine?...

Maybe possible, but IMO it's best to develop a more universal method as I've described above. Building your own customized installation CD (and method) would alleviate many of the annoyances of manual installation.

On 12/15/2019 at 3:24 AM, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

...I successfully had my Windows ME partition copied to the flash drive and...it sorta boots. The system won't boot past the main menu; I believe this is because my boot device itself is a usb device...

I've never tried this myself, but IIRC, when Windows loads the USB driver stack it loses communication with itself (because the former "HDD" it was using as mapped by the BIOS disappears) and can't recover. This can be fixed by disabling the specific USB controller where the drive is attached in the Device Manager, but this requires trial and error with Safe Mode to find the right controller.

On 12/15/2019 at 3:24 AM, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

I've noticed while launching Windows ME on my old laptop, keeping a flash drive plugged in during boot would completely cause freezing upon boot. If anyone has a solution, please tell me!

The laptop BIOS may not properly handle bootable USB devices. Have you been able to boot with other USB drives? Different hardware can produce different results here. I've created flash drives that should have been bootable before but only worked on certain hardware, while others created differently worked everywhere.