Hello,
I have 6 floppy disks with Windows 3.11 and want
to install it on VirtualBox running CentOS 7.4
The target is Windows 98 SE.

I have an Windows 98 SE upgrade CD
so I must install Win 3.11 first, and then
upgrade to Win 98 SE.
First file on disk1 with Win 3.11 files
is CONTROL.HL_

Is it a need to install MSDOS 6.22 first
before installing Win 3.11?

1. How to burn a CD/DVD with K3b to get an .iso file
of the 6 floppies as a beginning?

ostene

Although I don't understand your comment "The target is Windows 98 SE", does this help (3.11 for Workgroups rather than 3.1 but the same concept should apply)?

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51190

Unless you have a pressing requirement to have *exactly* the version of 3.1 that is on those floppies, why don't you have a look on the web for ready-made Windows 3.1 ISOs or even ready-made VMs?

Above link looks good.


There could be other ways like switching floppies in vbox menu or command line. Building in qemu where you can switch media. Boot to network share where all files are. Others.

I can confirm that switching floppy and CD images work with VirtualBox. I have installed both DOS 6.22 and Redhat 9 successfully without any problems.

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First of all Windows 98 is a TOTALLY different piece of software to Windows 3.11 and will not co-exist.
If I decode your post correctly, you are running VirtualBox under CENTOS and you wish to install Windows 3.11 in a virtual machine.
You WILL need to install DOS first on that Virtual machine and then get that dos to read the floppies to install Win 3.11

If you want to install Win98 then you should create a different virtual machine and install WIN98 to that.

You should then be able to choose either virtual machine to run.

Or if you really want you could actually run both VMs and switch between them if you set them to idle when inactive or have a lot of resources.

My goal is to have Win98 SE installed under VitualBox.
I have a CD titled "Windows 98 Upgrade" for users of
Win 3.1x and Win 95.
Since I only have "Win98 SE Upgrade" I have to begin
with "DOS 6.22" and then "Win 3.11" and at last install
"Win98 SE Upgrade" to get a "Win98 SE" working system.

An alternative is of course to find a ready made file I
can download (.ISO-file), which I still not have found.

thanks ostene

If I remember correctly, the UPGRADE CD just looks for an original 98CD just to verify you have it. There is no need to install it first though.

You might consider trying DosBox instead of VirtualBox. I've definitely heard of people running Windows 3.1 in that. Windows 98 should work too.

Ok,I try to install my Windows 98 SE Update CD.
Coming to Settings/Storages with my cd in optical
drive I must do a decision in Storages Devices.
Under Controller:IDE I have two choices
both with an icone and
...Win98...vdi
...Empty

Press Start for Optical Drive I get error message
FATAL. No bootable medium found! System halted.

What am I missing here?
ostene

To use a real CD you need to select the pass through option under the optical disk settings.

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If you have an ISO backup copy of that CD, you can use that instead. It will be faster and save wear on the CD.

1 members found this post helpful.

To make a iso backup, put the win98 CD in the drive and type in the terminal Then as dave mentioned, just point to the iso file in the VM setup.

After the iso file boots it might ask to insert the first disk from Windows 3.11. So, I hope you have a floppy drive. You can make a file of the floppy with dd too. Then, feed the floppy file to the VM.

I don't recall if the upgrade needed very much. It may just have needed command.com and sys file but maybe it looked for Win3.1 folder too. Might search on that.

Now my Storage Devices in settings are:

Attributes
...Controller: IDE IDE Primary Master (CD icon)
...(CD icon) win98.iso
...Controller: SATA
...(?? icon): Win98_elCAD.vdi SATA Port 0 (?? icon)

At start I again get: FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted!

The issues are here but what
ostene

I don't remember if the upgrade was a boot disk or just a setup program. I believe it was the later and therefore you need to install from MS-DOS. You also need to change the hard drive virtual controller from SATA to IDE.