# Windows 95, Virtual boot disks, and Virtualbox with USB



## SNYPER_SilentQ (Jan 2, 2013)

I've read through some old threads here and other sites. This one so far has been the most progress. 

Issues: I finally got DOS installed as one 'machine' on VirtualBox, sadly my laptop optical drive does not work, and it was cheaper for me to get a USB one, which is difficult to use with DOS, and VirtualBox thus far. I have my Win95 OEM disk, and some virtual boot disks. I got to dos "C:/" yet when I've tried to CHDIR or "C:/CD F:\" (F = USB optical drive) it says 'invalid drive specification.' so I tried my built in optical drive just to see if it would read it, "C:/CD D:/" (D= Factory/laptop optical drive) to which I got the same message. I've tried going through the 'Devices' Menu when the "DOS Machine" was running, trying the different options, none of which helped. How do I get windows 95 to install if I cannot access it from DOS?


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

Copy the CD to an ISO file. Then set up a virtual CD drive and point it to the ISO. Use that drive in your Virtual DOS.


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## SNYPER_SilentQ (Jan 2, 2013)

Thank you for your quick response, I'm still having difficulties...
I created the ISO using Express Burn (Roxio I believe? came with my external optical as firmware I guess), but I'm still having issues. First of which may be that I (just noticed) have a win98 virtual boot disk with a very small DIR. I've tried downloading win95 bootdisk images but they save as ".IMZ" ? and cannot use them as a 'virtual floppy' image or otherwise. When I tried directing the virtualbox to the win95 ISO the screen stays blank, and doesn't even look like it did before (Loading MS-DOS, etc.). 
1.)Where and how do I get a good working 95 bootdisk image
2.)If that doesn't correct the issue, what am I doing wrong?


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

The 98 diskette image should do fine. Just boot with CD support and it should load the CD drivers. Then just run the setup from the CD. 

The standard 95 CD was not bootable, but if you really get desperate you can create a bootable version by using the 98 floppy modified to invoke the 95 set up and creating your own bootable ISO.


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