changing OS on old dimension 4100

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

Think of Windows 95 as a pre-beta release of Windows 98 Second Edition. It was
not ever ready for prime time. Why not stick with Windows 2000, a far more
stable operating system, after upgrading the memory in the 4100 to its supported
maximum of 512MB. I would guess that the dissatisfaction with Windows 2000
comes from the fact that it does not have enough memory to run acceptably.

.... Ben Myers

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:47:15 -0500, snogal
wrote:


I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

"Any suggestions are welcome!"

Now that the computer won't boot, my suggestion is to use that
opportunity/reason to move into the third millenium.

You can get a BRAND NEW Dell computer with Vista for $299 + tax and possible
shipping. Yes, it is the cheapest possible from Dell, and yes, no monitor is
included, and yes, you will not be able to design the next space shuttle on
it, but if you can scrape together the cash, that, in my opinion, is the way
to go.


















"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

snogal wrote:
I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal


Doing this is a mistake in my opinion, but if you insist go to
http://www.bootdisk.com/ and download a 95 disk. 95 requires drivers
for the CD which is why you can't boot a 95 CD.

with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first (or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post (power
on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from the
screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to attempt to
boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot windows 2000
what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at that point and
booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at least a 20gb hard
disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to install on the dimension
4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95 will), and is much more stable
than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

correction:
if you can boot windows 2000 what is stopping you form just sticking the
win95 cd in at that point and booting from it?
should read:
if you can boot windows 2000 what is stopping you form just sticking the
win95 cd in and running windows 95 setup?

"Christopher Muto" wrote in message
...
with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first (or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post
(power on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from
the screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to
attempt to boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot
windows 2000 what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at
that point and booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at
least a 20gb hard disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to
install on the dimension 4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95
will), and is much more stable than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

Christopher Muto wrote:
with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first (or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post
(power
on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from the
screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to attempt to
boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot windows 2000
what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at that point and
booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at least a 20gb
hard
disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to install on the
dimension
4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95 will), and is much more stable
than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

I think Win95 isn't a boot CD. At least mine isn't. Here's a note from one
Web page...

Note
If you are installing Windows 95, it will be necessary to boot your PC using
the supplied floppy disk, then select 'Install Windows from CD-ROM' from the
menu that appears.

But, sheesh, Win95! I still have install floppies for 3.11 if anybody is
interested... Dean

"Dean-MN" wrote in message
...
Christopher Muto wrote:
with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first
(or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post
(power
on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from the
screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to attempt
to
boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot windows 2000
what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at that point and
booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at least a 20gb
hard
disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to install on the
dimension
4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95 will), and is much more
stable
than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

I think Win95 isn't a boot CD. At least mine isn't. Here's a note from
one Web page...

Note
If you are installing Windows 95, it will be necessary to boot your PC
using the supplied floppy disk, then select 'Install Windows from CD-ROM'
from the menu that appears.

But, sheesh, Win95! I still have install floppies for 3.11 if anybody is
interested... Dean

that thought did cross my mind, but i believe that the windows 95 boot disk
(as with 98) existed primarily because many machines at the time did not
have bootable cd rom drives and that provided a way to boot the machine and
load the driver. look around for a windows 95 cd but i appear to have
tossed them all. window 98 second edition is the bare minimum i would
install... but a dimension 4100 with 256mb and 20gb can take xp and run it
just fine without the fuss of locating/downloading/installing any drivers so
that is the way to go. you can buy a dell xp cd on ebay for dirt cheap and
it won't require activation if installed from booting from the cd (search
ebay for "dell xp cd" then narrow it down by category "software"). of
course you should purchase a license or coa sticker from someplace to be
legal, but this is a good and inexpensive way to see how easy it is to
install and if you like it before shelling out the big bucks on a very old
but solid machine.

My recollection agrees with Dean's. The Win 95 CD, any version (A, B, C) is not
bootable, and a boot floppy is needed to get the whole thing going. But why,
oh why, Windows 95?

.... Ben Myers

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:08:24 -0500, "Dean-MN" wrote:

Christopher Muto wrote:
with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first (or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post
(power
on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from the
screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to attempt to
boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot windows 2000
what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at that point and
booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at least a 20gb
hard
disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to install on the
dimension
4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95 will), and is much more stable
than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

I think Win95 isn't a boot CD. At least mine isn't. Here's a note from one
Web page...

Note
If you are installing Windows 95, it will be necessary to boot your PC using
the supplied floppy disk, then select 'Install Windows from CD-ROM' from the
menu that appears.

But, sheesh, Win95! I still have install floppies for 3.11 if anybody is
interested... Dean

On Jun 30, 3:04 pm, Ben Myers
wrote:
My recollection agrees with Dean's. The Win 95 CD, any version (A, B, C) is not
bootable, and a boot floppy is needed to get the whole thing going. But why,
oh why, Windows 95?

... Ben Myers

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:08:24 -0500, "Dean-MN" wrote:
Christopher Muto wrote:
with the dimension 4100 bios set to have the system boot from cd first (or
second, after the floppy) and a bootable cd rom in the optical drive, you
should see a message appear on the screen momentarily at boot that reads
"press any key to boot from cd rom". perhaps you are not looking at the
screen and are missing this message. it should appear after the post
(power
on self test) messages or big blue marble / dell logo vanishes from the
screen. it only lasts a couple of seconds and then advances to attempt to
boot from the next device. but that aside, if you can boot windows 2000
what is stopping you form just sticking the win95 cd in at that point and
booting from it? finally, if you have 256mb of ram and at least a 20gb
hard
disk why not install windows xp. it is a breeze to install on the
dimension
4100, won't require any drivers (windows 95 will), and is much more stable
than 95. good luck.
ps. windows 2000 is way better than 95, why don't you think it is?

"snogal" wrote in message
...

I made the big mistake of installing win 2000 from a dell precision
workstation onto a Dimension 4100 that had win 95 on it. Boyfriend
wanted a better OS and well, I am stupid. all I want to do is to
uninstall 2000 and reinstall 95. I have 95 disk but the PC will not boot
up from the disk despite going into setup and making the cdrom the first
bootup drive.
Any suggestions are welcome!
snogal

I think Win95 isn't a boot CD. At least mine isn't. Here's a note from one
Web page...

Note
If you are installing Windows 95, it will be necessary to boot your PC using
the supplied floppy disk, then select 'Install Windows from CD-ROM' from the
menu that appears.

But, sheesh, Win95! I still have install floppies for 3.11 if anybody is
interested... Dean

Yep. I have Win 95 A and B. Neither is bootable. Gateway supplied
the boot floppies.