PC110

Installing Windows 3.1:
Installing without using a floppy drive or port replicator

Introduction

Many PC110 owners are finding port replicators and floppy drives hard to come by these days. This rather makes the task of installing software onto the PC110 seem impossible, but if you've got access to another PC with suitable PCMCIA slots, you're in business! This page explains the procedure for installing Windows 3.1 onto the PC110 in this manner.

You need

1x PC110
1x PCMCIA hard drive
1x PC with PCMCIA slots

Smartdrive

Wherever you're installing from, but particularly if you're installing from files on the hard drive, use SMARTDRV to read-cache the source drive and write-cache the target drive. By default, most version of SMARTDRV read-cache all drives anyway, but to enable write-caching, issue the command SMARTDRV X+ (if X is the target drive) - don't include a colon after the drive letter. To check the current caching status, just issue the command SMARTDRV on its own.

The procedure

Preliminary - make sure you can boot the PCMCIA drive to DOS. A minimum configuration might involve:

  1. Enter Easy-Setup on the PC110 (<F1> at power-on)
  2. Set the startup sequence to FDD-1 HDD-1 PCMCIA
  3. Reboot the PC110, it boots into DOS on the 4MB Flash drive.
  4. The PCMCIA drive should be visible as D: - SYS it.
  5. Copy SMARTDRV.EXE and HIMEM.SYS to D:. Make up a CONFIG.SYS that loads HIMEM.SYS and an AUTOEXEC.BAT that loads SMARTDRV C+ (to enable write-caching)

Copying the installation files and installing

  1. Shut down PC110 & eject PCMCIA drive - place this in the other PC.
  2. At the other PC, copy the contents of all Windows installation diskettes into one directory on the PCMCIA drive.
  3. Enter Easy-Setup again on the PC110, and change the startup sequence to FDD-1 PCMCIA HDD-1
  4. Replace the PCMCIA drive in the PC110 and reboot.
  5. Your PC110 should boot from the PCMCIA drive, with SMARTDRV loaded.
  6. Run the SETUP.EXE program from the directory you placed the Windows installation files in.

Ensuring that write-caching is enabled for SMARTDRV will halve the time needed to perform the installation.

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Written by Daniel Basterfield. Images found on the internet. Enjoy!