Check and see if you have a Admin Password set in BIOS Setup. You can still boot the CDROM from the Diskette Drive on a parallel port cable with a W98 boot disk, and you would have to do that anyway with the W98 CD, as that is not selfbooting. If my memory serves me, the CP BIOS did not support the CDROM being Bootable until fairly late BIOS versions, so 1st I would update the BIOS to A16 and see if that helps, but if you have that Admin Password set, that will probably not help.

Thanks for your message!!!

Yes, the admin-password is set.

But I don't know, what it is. Isn't it possible to reset the BIOS and to update it to A16 afterwards? May the password be canceled then so that I can change all values?

I have some hard news; resetting the BIOS will not clear that password and until it is gone, you will not be able to change the settings in BIOS. The passwords if any, service tag and Asset Tag if set are all stored on a small chip soldered into the mother board, and it is not a viable solution to try and change that, as it is soldered into a double sided circuit board. Unless Dell is convinced that you are the legal owner-and that is difficult to prove to their satisfaction- they will not give you a Master Password to remove that Password someone else left set. Is the diskette set as 1st in the boot order as it is now? If it is, you may be able to Flash the BIOS to A16 and then install Windows 98SE, but you will always be stuck with whatever is now set in BIOS Setup. If the Harddrive is 1st in the boot order, you are out of luck unless Dell will assist you.

Hey !!!

Yes, the Diskette Drive is set on first boot device, second boot device is HDD. So I can do, as you described.

I'll flash the BIOS to A16 in Win 95, then I'll format C:/, and then? Should I take a boot disk of Win95 or the one of Win98SE? Or should I take any universal disk?

I have an intern CDRom and an intern DiskDrive, but both are in the same Modular bay. Is it possible to first boot from Diskette, then to change the drives in the bay and after that to install Win98SE from CDRom?

Since your Diskette is set 1st, I wiil advise you further. You need to get a Parallel Port Floppy Only Cable off Ebay(?)as there are many. Be sure you get one for the CP series. This will enable you to have the CDROM in the Internal Bay and your Floppy drive on that cable,and use the Floppy with a W98 Boot Disk to boot and then do a DOS switch to your CDROM to install W98. The Harddrive should 1st be DOS Partition Deleted as W95 required FAT16 Partitions of 2.1gb maximum size, W98 will work with FAT16 but there is no advantage(several disadvantages) to doing that. So remove the DOS FAT16 partitions and then remake one Primary DOS FAT32 Partition for the whole drive. You do this by answering the Large Disk Support question in FDisk with Y. After making the new partition, you will be prompted to reboot and format. When you get back to the A: prompt, type and enter this command: format C:/s
When you finish that, reboot again and this time select Start your computer with CDROM Support. When back at the A:\prompt, put the W98 CD in the CDROM, type and enter SETUP; that should get you started.
The BIOS Flash Can be done at any time as it is not OS specific, but before you do so, there is a File on the Diskette you make called RUN_ME_REG that should be run under Windows before doing the Flash in DOS. It is only needed for W98/98SE and is to prevent the BIOS update from switching the Laptop to ACPI; for W98, you need to stay with APM. W98 will install either way and this insures it remains as APM.
One other caveat: If there is a NON DOS smallish partition at the head of the Harddrive in Fdisk, do not delete that,
as it is a Suspend to Disk Partition and is needed by that utility. Since it is NonDOS, it does not interfere with Fdisk nad Format on the rest of the drive.

Message Edited by leduke30 on 12-15-2003 10:40 AM

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@kjhgf wrote:

Hi !

I've got the following problem....

I'd like to change from W95 to W98 SE on my Latitude CP 166ST (BIOS A08) and am not able to turn the 'first boot device' into CD-ROM.

When I open the BIOS-Setup I'm able to change the fields by pressing the arrows UP and DOWN but It is not possible to change the values by the arrows LEFT and RIGHT.

Does anyone know how to proceed in this case?

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Hopefully you've solved your problem by other means by now, but here's another possible solution.

At least on my Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop with the most recent version of the BIOS (A23), there are two options during booting: F2 to enter the BIOS and F12 for other boot options. F12 allows one to override the boot order set in BIOS, so you can boot from the CD first.

Regarding resetting the BIOS admin password, take a look at the comments at:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_network&message.id=2078

Read his other posts; his BIOS are locked by an Admin Password which he does not have. The CP/CPi do not have the F12 One-time Boot order option either.