Laptop without floppy drive or OS

[AAntunez]

I just purchased a used Fujitsu B2131 but it came without an OS (boots to Caldera DOS C: prompt). It didn't come with a floppy drive or cd drive. I do have the Fujitsu bootable disk and Windows 98 recovery cd however. I also have a Sony Vaio PCMCIA cd drive and a Sony Vaio USB floppy drive that I've tried to use on the Fujistu to no avail (doen't recognize them and they don't power on in the Fujitsu). I also have two networked desktops that have cd drives and floppies. Now I'm not sure how to use any of these to load the Windows 98 onto the Fujitsu.
HELP ME PLEASE!

[Murf]

Welcome to CTH

I see know one answered, this is a tough one. Your options are:

1. Sony Vaio PCMCIA cd drive to work
2. Sony Vaio USB floppy drive to work

On the Fujitsu that may be tough.

First can you boot the Laptop and when the first screen comes up hit DEL or what ever screen it tells you to use to get into SETUP, see if there is and entry in there to enable USB, it may be disabled.

Also enabling PCMCIA, this may be why it won't see it.

[volvo-driver]

>I just purchased a used Fujitsu B2131 but it came without
>an OS (boots to Caldera DOS C: prompt).

This is comon on ebay vendors to keep Mirosoft's lawyers off
of their backs - they wipe the drives and install something
that nobody cares about but proves that th ecomputer isn't DOA.

>It didn't come with a floppy drive or cd drive.

Good deal, huh?

>I do have the Fujitsu bootable disk and Windows 98 recovery
>cd however.

Good.

>I also have a Sony Vaio PCMCIA cd drive and a Sony Vaio USB
>floppy drive that I've tried to use on the Fujistu to no avail
>(doen't recognize them and they don't power on in the Fujitsu).

That's normal - Vendors keep you captive to their overpriced
acccessories.

>I also have two networked desktops that have cd drives and
>floppies. Now I'm not sure how to use any of these to load
>the Windows 98 onto the Fujitsu.
>HELP ME PLEASE!

Like the other gentleman pointed out make sure that all of
the settings in the BIOS are correct - it jst might be that
whatever seller you got it from also restored all of the BIOS
settings to facotry default.

Then, your options are, as far as I can see:

1) acquire a Fujitsu Lifebook CD drive: I know that
ebay.etcompany@verizon.net (781-341-2533,
10a-6p EST) has the CDs and the floppies

2) this is not for the faint of heart but I did it with a
couple of older IBM thinkpads:
You pull the hard disk out of the laptop and install it
on an adapter to an IDE port on a desktop and see if
you can read it -not just the first few tracks but the
entire drive. If so, zip up the entire drive into a
backup file. Then create a new directory (perhaps
C:\W98CD) and copy a MS Win98SE CD into it. Then
reinstall the drive back into the lifebook and install
from there - i.e. go into the W98CD direcotry and run
setup.
BUT MAKE SURE THE USB ports are switched on,
the internal modem (if any) is switched on, the IR
port (if any) is on, and a ethernet card is in the
PCMCIA slot so that Windoze sees them during
installation. For new installs I prefer 3Com cards - both
desktop and laptop - since every version of Windows has
had 3Com's full driver package on the CD.

The above trick won't work with your Fujitsu restore
CD as the image would be wiped as it was installing
itself.

I still think that acquiring the proper CD drive is the best
way of attacking the problem - you'll need it sooner or
later to install other software. A laptop that can't talk
to the outside world except through a tether cord (i.e.
the network cable) isn't very portable.

Mike

[AAntunez]

>I just purchased a used Fujitsu B2131 but it came without
>an OS (boots to Caldera DOS C: prompt).

This is comon on ebay vendors to keep Mirosoft's lawyers off
of their backs - they wipe the drives and install something
that nobody cares about but proves that th ecomputer isn't DOA.

>It didn't come with a floppy drive or cd drive.

Good deal, huh?

>I do have the Fujitsu bootable disk and Windows 98 recovery
>cd however.

Good.

>I also have a Sony Vaio PCMCIA cd drive and a Sony Vaio USB
>floppy drive that I've tried to use on the Fujistu to no avail
>(doen't recognize them and they don't power on in the Fujitsu).

That's normal - Vendors keep you captive to their overpriced
acccessories.

>I also have two networked desktops that have cd drives and
>floppies. Now I'm not sure how to use any of these to load
>the Windows 98 onto the Fujitsu.
>HELP ME PLEASE!

Like the other gentleman pointed out make sure that all of
the settings in the BIOS are correct - it jst might be that
whatever seller you got it from also restored all of the BIOS
settings to facotry default.

Then, your options are, as far as I can see:

1) acquire a Fujitsu Lifebook CD drive: I know that
ebay.etcompany@verizon.net (781-341-2533,
10a-6p EST) has the CDs and the floppies

2) this is not for the faint of heart but I did it with a
couple of older IBM thinkpads:
You pull the hard disk out of the laptop and install it
on an adapter to an IDE port on a desktop and see if
you can read it -not just the first few tracks but the
entire drive. If so, zip up the entire drive into a
backup file. Then create a new directory (perhaps
C:\W98CD) and copy a MS Win98SE CD into it. Then
reinstall the drive back into the lifebook and install
from there - i.e. go into the W98CD direcotry and run
setup.
BUT MAKE SURE THE USB ports are switched on,
the internal modem (if any) is switched on, the IR
port (if any) is on, and a ethernet card is in the
PCMCIA slot so that Windoze sees them during
installation. For new installs I prefer 3Com cards - both
desktop and laptop - since every version of Windows has
had 3Com's full driver package on the CD.

The above trick won't work with your Fujitsu restore
CD as the image would be wiped as it was installing
itself.

I still think that acquiring the proper CD drive is the best
way of attacking the problem - you'll need it sooner or
later to install other software. A laptop that can't talk
to the outside world except through a tether cord (i.e.
the network cable) isn't very portable.

Mike


I don't have a problem acquiring an external floppy or eternal (non-Sony)cd-rom drive to load the floppy bootable disk but the problem I'm having is knowing whether a "generic" external cd or floppy drove will work right out of the bag. How do they work with just DOS?

[volvo-driver]

>I don't have a problem acquiring an external
>floppy or eternal (non-Sony)cd-rom drive to
>load the floppy bootable disk but the problem
>I'm having is knowing whether a "generic"
>external cd or floppy drove will work right
>out of the bag.

I'd get the real Fujitsu stuff - ther is more than
one vendor out there that advertises the stuff.
That way you KNOW it will work.

>How do they work with just DOS?

Floppies work from DOS just fine.
CDs work with the MSCDEX driver. Once you
have the floppy in hand you can meks a Win98
boot floppy from oneof your desktop machines.
It will have MSCDEX on it.

Mike

[AAntunez]

Well I finally got a Fujitsu floppy and it reads the floppy, but it doesn't load the Fujitsu bootable diskette. It says I can't load it on my computer even though it is a Fujitsu B series bootable diskette. It runs through a "Starting Windows 98" message, launcehes the Fujitsu splash screen then tells me I can't load it on this system. Also the Sony PCMCIA cd-drive now powers on but is not recognized (the Fujitsu Windows 98 recovery cd is in there). So lost! I even tried making a Windows 98 bootable from another pc and it won't even recognize it in the floppy drive.
What if I start from scratcha nd reformat the hard drive and try to load Windows XP professional (I have the OS CD). What can I expect there? Not sure what to do now.