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pbatard / rufus

The Reliable USB Formatting Utility
https://rufus.ie
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Rufus does not like Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE bootable ISOs? #466

Closed andreas--e closed 9 years ago

andreas--e commented 9 years ago

Well, I've tried so many of them now, but Rufus simple does not accept them. e. g. https://staff.washington.edu/curreri/windows-98-boot-cd-download-this-iso/

http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/ISO/AllBootDisks_ISO_Image_Downloads25/Win98SE_bootdisk.iso

Rufus will always complain that the ISO is neither based of winpe/bootmgr nor ISOLINUX. Great. WinPE is mainly used for XP/7/Vista/8 but not for Win98/Win98SE. (Not that I know of at least). Still, Win98/Win98SE still ARE the perfect choice for flashing BIOSes etc. Consider that most of the flashing tools themselves are for DOS.

Would there be any way to convince Rufus to write Win98/Win98SE to a pen drive? Rufus is a great tool pointing in the very right direction - but when it comes to 98/98SE, you will try in vain. I've also scoured the net about this and dozens of users have run into this issue, ending up with manually copying 98/98SE or using other tools. I can't believe that Rufus and its author like to block this important functionality just by stubbornly relying on their stupid WinPE thing. And please excuse the tone, but I've already wasted more than half a hour because of this for nothing. Plus, the error message couldn't be any more cryptic tech lingo...

pbatard commented 9 years ago

I can't believe that Rufus and its author like to block this important functionality just by stubbornly relying on their stupid WinPE thing.

And I can't believe that some people don't understand that developers who aren't paid for it, and provide software absolutely for free, don't want to waste their limited spare time supporting an Operating System that is completely obsolete by now, instead of using that same time to, say, improve accessibility for visually impaired persons, something that will benefit a lot more people than the dozen or so people who, in 2015, think that using Windows 98 is a good choice. There is such thing as prioritization and not trying to add every single possible feature under the sun.

Besides, you do realize that Rufus does allow you to create either a FreeDOS or MS-DOS boot disk to run your DOS flash tools. Why on earth would you want to use Win98 for DOS based tools? Win98 is NOT the perfect choice for flashing BIOSes. DOS is. And Rufus will happily create a DOS bootable disk for you.

Closed as NOT_GONNA_HAPPEN.

Sopor commented 9 years ago

@andreas--e In 2015 you don't need DOS to flash... Try read the manual and you will find that you can put your USB-stick and flash it from BIOS/UEFI without using any OS at all.

andreas--e commented 9 years ago

NOTE: When I meant "Windows 98" I actually meant DOS7 that comes with it. I never planned to run the GUI of Win98 with that, nor would I ever want to do so in future. I only need console mode, because AWDFLASH will instantly refuse to work when anything Windows-like is running or residing in memory.

@Sopor- Wish it only was so easy!! It's a very old board (that still came with USB 1.1) that I wanted to flash, whilst booting from USB was NOT possible. Or at least it did not accept the pen drive I chose for booting, whilst---read on---this worked perfectly on my main PC.

Thanks to Rufus and its developer, I could make it happen, but NOT with a bootable disk.

-> Next task to solve: Get the data (flash tool + BIN file) off the USB just by accessing it from DOS. <--

-> Success! Pen drive finally recognized, LUN set and assigned to drive letter S:

So Rufus did help me after all, just had to find a way how to get access to the data on the FreeDOS-formatted USB drive. Thank goodness FreeDOS is readable under MS-DOS as well. So thank you for this great software (after all) ;).

TheArcaneBrony commented 6 years ago

How about installing win98 for legacy apps, or at least some nostalgia/fun?

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