IBM Aptiva Recovery CD Issues

[grommit2007]

I have encountered an issue with an IBM Aptiva recovery CD (for restoring Windows 98 Second Edition). When I tried to use it in VMware Workstation Pro 12 and Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 using a standard Windows 98 boot floppy image, I used the PKUNZIP.EXE utility on the CD to extract all .imz files located in \RECOVERY\US to decompress them to the C: drive. At first it appeared to be extracting correctly. However, upon rebooting the virtual machine, it says "No Operating System Found". I then decided to do some further investigation on the issue and discovered that in addition to the .imd files in that folder, there was one .imd file which I discovered needs to be extracted as well. I then found out PKUNZIP does not appear to extract .imd files, so I then tried several extractors in order to try and extract this .imd file. I am suspecting that this file is not an ImageDisk .imd file.

Is it possible that anyone can help me with this .imd extraction issue?

[redspl]

Uh oh, can you transfer these files to your Windows/Linux PC and try to unpack them with either WinRar or Xarchiver? I think that will be the easiest way.. Btw, why aren't you booting from that CD normally? Isn't it bootable??

[grommit2007]

I have tried WinRAR and XArchiver but it does not work.

[grommit2007]

Here is the .imd file in question:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

[mkbea1985]

Hi grommit2007,
After opening the recover.exe file with notepad it will show the correct commands to extract everything including the imd file.

When booting from the win98 boot disk make sure it's the one with the ram drive and not the banana.sys cd driver non ram drive, go to the recovery\us directory.

The imd file is just a powerquest image file and the program is provided already on the disc. Type pqer.exe /CMD=RESTORE.SCP /IMG=CIDGEUS.IMD /PWD=xwbdbgmlbu and hit enter. You'll get a few error messages but it's nothing to worry about, keep hitting enter until the restore process happens when it's done it will ask to reboot. Make sure you boot right back into the 98boot disk and not the hard drive otherwise it will screw up the process. Go back to the Recovery\us directory and now you can extract the imz files. The proper command according to the recover.exe file is pkunzip.exe -sxwbdbgmlbu -$ -d -JHSR -o *.IMZ C:\ After the process completes you can now boot from the hard drive and let the process begin. it will boot into 98 setup customized for ibm aptiva and will reboot a couple of times with different processes until it finally brings you to the desktop. In case you have trouble I just did the process myself and created a ghost image that is installable on any computer or virtual machine and you could use that if you wanted. Hope this helps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5CLvV ... sp=sharing

[grommit2007]

Thank you.

[grommit2007]

Do you happen to have the Software Selections CD that came with the recovery disc?

[mkbea1985]

Unfortunately no, I bought the disc on ebay years ago and the seller didn't include the software selections cd. However if you're interested you may want to consider the other Aptiva recovery cd's I uploaded from the windows 95 era as what they have is a lot more interesting. One of the discs includes plus 95 with aptiva desktop customizations which includes animated icons and other desktop enhancements along with the aptiva in-store demo and 7th level kidsroom and lots of other stuff. I know 98 se is your favorite os but you could do a generic 98 se upgrade on top of the 95 aptiva recovery install.