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Virtual Machines WON'T see ISO as booatable.

TechticalWolfTechticalWolf
edited July 2015 in Software
Hi,

First off, I have been using WinWorld as my source for vintage operating systems (it saved my Omnibook 900 from certain trash) and software. Recently, I had to reinstall Windows 8.1 (because I messed up/destroyed the kernel trying to reinstall Windows XP) with all of my backups in one place. After getting my drivers and most of my software back, I said it's time to get a VM program installed. I first installed VirtualBox 5, which was new, so I decided to give it a go (from my normal VMWare Workstation). I pop in my ISO for 98, and it goes through the good ol' format your HDD and blah-blah-blah. Then I get to the graphical interface part of the install. The icons were corrupt, and the Windows 98 logo was missing on the top left. I continue the install, and after getting to where I can select where to install Windows 98... it gives me an error (I don't remember.. I was getting frusturated at the time). I try restarting, it gave me the same errors, then I finally remade the virtual machine. Now I can't even boot to the ISO! So then I gave up and called VirtualBox a POS, and installed VMWare Player 7. Same problem, won't boot to ISO. Could anyone explain why this is not working? I have tried running the applications as an adminstrator... help? :)

Comments

  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    Are you sure the one you are currently using is bootable? Because some of them aren't.

    I remember when VirtualBox 4 first came out, it had all kinds of wacky and subtle problems. I think over time, most of those got fixed, but I would expect problems with their new 5.0. That's Oracle's standard operation. :P
  • TechticalWolfTechticalWolf
    SomeGuy wrote:
    Are you sure the one you are currently using is bootable? Because some of them aren't.

    I remember when VirtualBox 4 first came out, it had all kinds of wacky and subtle problems. I think over time, most of those got fixed, but I would expect problems with their new 5.0. That's Oracle's standard operation. :P

    I am positive that the ISO I am using is bootable. I burnt it to a disk a couple of days ago and put it in a Omnibook 900 and it worked just fine. I've also tried more then just VB5, I've used VMWare Player 7 and VMWare Workstation, and they all give me the same problem, they won't boot from disk... any suggestions? I am running Windows Update as we speak because I did just install Windows 8.1 today... so we'll see how it goes, but any other suggestions or anything that could fix this?

    EDIT: Before I reinstalled Windows 8.1.. the ISOs used to be able to boot just fine in regular virtual machines.. so I don't know what it could be. :P
  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    TechticalWolf wrote:
    I did just install Windows 8.1 today...

    My condolences. :P

    Your host OS should not matter. It is probably some setting in your VM's IDE/CD settings. But if it is being difficult, just throw a boot floppy at it.
  • TechticalWolfTechticalWolf
    SomeGuy wrote:
    TechticalWolf wrote:
    I did just install Windows 8.1 today...

    My condolences. :P

    Your host OS should not matter. It is probably some setting in your VM's IDE/CD settings. But if it is being difficult, just throw a boot floppy at it.

    Ok.. I did a bit more testing.. I used my physical drive with a random copy of Windows 7 Pro I have.. and it worked... still doesn't explain why I can't use Windows 98... I'm going to see what happens if I mount the 98 ISO to my PC then let VMWare run it from there...

    GOOD NEWS: Windows ME (yes I know, a horrible operating system) works.. but it still doesn't explain why Windows 98 ( Retail, 101 ) won't work. It is the Retail Full version... and I'm sure I am not clicking on the upgrade edition or anything like that. Could someone check to see if Windows 98 SE ( Retail Full, or 101 ) English is corrupt by any chance?
  • ShadowProphetShadowProphet
    I had a problem with the retail iso a few months ago, and from what I can understand, the retail version is not bootable. However, the OEM version is. I haven't done any research on why this is a thing, but my best guess is that computers in the 98 era were just being introduced to the world of bootable cd's. A lot of computers still didn't support it, so Microsoft decided to ship the retail edition with a boot floppy and a non-bootable cd. But anyways, try the OEM version, and if that doesn't work, as SomeGuy wrote, use a DOS boot image.

    I also remember VirtualBox HATING Windows 98, so try this with VMWare.
  • TechticalWolfTechticalWolf
    ShadowProphet wrote:
    I had a problem with the retail iso a few months ago, and from what I can understand, the retail version is not bootable. However, the OEM version is. I haven't done any research on why this is a thing, but my best guess is that computers in the 98 era were just being introduced to the world of bootable cd's. A lot of computers still didn't support it, so Microsoft decided to ship the retail edition with a boot floppy and a non-bootable cd. But anyways, try the OEM version, and if that doesn't work, as SomeGuy wrote, use a DOS boot image.

    I also remember VirtualBox HATING Windows 98, so try this with VMWare.

    Thank you! I must have gotten confused when I downloaded retail... I do remember that atleast one of my .iso files in my archive of Windows files were OEM.... ah.. thank you! When I did have the OEM and was using it on VirtualBox.. it looked corrupt as all heck. Thanks!
  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    ShadowProphet wrote:
    Ithe retail version is not bootable. However, the OEM version is. I haven't done any research on why this is a thing, but my best guess is that computers in the 98 era were just being introduced to the world of bootable cd's.
    More specifically, existing machines at the time had a wide variety of often incompatible CD drive that required their own drivers. Many used different interfaces, different controllers, and even IDE ones often had different features that made them oddly incompatible.

    So there was no guarantee that a single set of drivers would recognize any random CD drive out there - even if the motherboard knew how to boot a CD, which many also did not. (Early on there were also several different incompatible, methods of bootstrapping from a CD)

    Rather than dealing with users asking why it would not work, they simply made the retail versions not bootable. OEMs, however could guarantee that their CDs would boot by including their own drivers. By 1998, most new CDs were IDE so they mostly used the same Microsoft IDE drivers.
  • BlueSunBlueSun
    I guess I've just always used OEM versions then, because I've never noticed a 98 CD being unbootable.
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