Don’t bother with the Windows 95 floppy edition. It kept asking for the install floppy once Windows 95 installer booted. This is becaus ethe PCMCIA floppy drive is a very odd piece of hardware for the operating system. So save yourself a few hours of trouble and construct a solid state drive out of a CF card and an IDE adapter and preload the windows disk on this.
Original tutorial found: here
For installing Windows 95 you will need:
Hardware:
- External PC with a CF card reader. You’ll find these things dirt cheap (if not already owned), sometimes 19 in 1 readers.
- 2.5″ IDE to CF adapter. I found one on dx.com, and costed me around € 1.86 with free shipping.
- CF card. I used a 133x speed 4 GB to replicate the original Libretto 110 configuration.
- The Toshiba Libretto PCMCIA Floppy Drive
Software:
- Windows 95 boot floppy. Can be found here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
- Windows 95 OSR 2.5 disc
- Libretto 100/110 Windows 95 drivers (see download section)
Preparing the IDE to CF adapter
Like in the tutorial I recieved my CF adapter with pointy sticky pins. But instead of using scissors to cut these connectors I used a file to narrow the card. If done carefully this gives a smooth edge to all the pins. Also you need to cut pin 20 (KEY) to make it fit. (You don’t really need this pin anyway)
And in the end instead of using cardboard to keep the components safe I used clear thick packing tape. This shields most potential electrical current and avoids scratching the lower motherboard.
Install, and close up the Libretto.
Time to boot it up! Insert the Windows 95 boot disk and press the power button. It’s alive! (If not: bang head against wall and hope you didn’t damage your Libretto)
Partitioning the CF flash card and loading the install CD
Start by partitioning and formatting your CF card in DOS. WARNING: Do not use your current computer to format and partition. Your old Libretto won’t understand a thing of this new technology. You will be able to install your operating system but once your operating system is installed you will most likely be left with a black blinking cursor.
Use the boot disk with fdisk utility to create partitions. Type: ‘fdisk’ and create a DOS partition.
Also don’t forget to execute ‘fdisk /mbr’ and ‘fdisk /cmbr 1’ this will repair any errors that might be present in your MBR record. Once this is done format your partition with ‘format c:’. Once completed open the Libretto again one more time and insert the CF card in the card reader on your computer.
Copy the install disk and the Windows 95 drivers to a folder (I used C:\INSTALL\WIN95CD & C:\INSTALL\LIBRETTO\DRIVERS) on the newly created partition and reinsert in your Libretto. Power on, again and boot once more from recovery disk. Move to your install CD folder ‘cd C:\CDWIN95’ and run ‘setup’.
Installing Windows 95
Here we are. Windows 95 install.
Just install all defaults, except where you need to select the type of installation. Choose ‘Portable’. This will install additional laptop components.
Installing the drivers
As always with Windows 95, you feel a bit like a crashtest dummy. When it boils down to drivers, the Toshiba Libretto is no difference. The genral rule for this device is: never thrust or install Tishiba drivers unless you are sure. If you fail to do this you will definitely have issues with wrong or conflicting drivers.
Video driver
The video driver is pretty straight forward. It’s ripped from the Windows 98 driver package and works perfect without adaptations.
Extract the L1008VID.EXE file from the VIDEO map.
Once extracted go to your screen settings. (Trough control panel, Display)
Press ‘Advanced’ and click on the ‘Change’ button to change the display driver.
Select ‘Have disk’ and navigate to your fresh extracted video driver folder.
Sound driver
This driver is a bit trickier. If you let the installer handle this installation you risk losing your floppy drive access. Let Windows 95 device manager sort it out.
Open L100SND9.EXE, this will extract all needed files.
WARNING: press ‘n’ here. Or you will be left with a dead floppy drive!
Navigate trough Control panel and System to your device manager. Select the sound driver (OPL3-SA3 Sound System). And update the drivers.
Navigate to the directory that has been created by the installer script. Should be: ‘C:\Audio.tos’
And again navigate once more to ‘C:\Audio.tos’
Reboot, and done.
Toshiba control software
These will install your Toshiba BIOS utilities and power management software. The install is a bit different like usual installs nowadays. Navigate to your control panel and use ‘Add/Remove Software’. Check the tab ‘Windows Setup’ and press ‘Have Disk’.
Use the install path of the driver package (map ‘L100CTRL’) and select ‘Toshiba Utilities’. Go to the ‘Details’ section and select all utilities.
Toshiba Windows 95 update
Pretty straight forward, this will update all Toshiba used drivers of Windows 95.
PCMCIA cards
This one is by far the most annoying. The trick here is not to lose your floppy drive. One wrong floppy driver for your floppy drive and you will be stuck with it forever.
Extract the ‘750INF95.EXE’ file and press ‘n’ to not install it.
Now go to your control panel and press the PCMCIA option. Press twice ‘No’ to activate 32-bit PCMCIA cards.
Reboot and go to your device manager. Update the ‘PCI CardBus Bridge’ device.
Update the driver and navigate to the directory created by ‘750INF95.EXE’. These should be in the ‘C:\Inf_95’ folder.
The installer will twice ask to keep newer versions of a file. This is normal, as we have updated these files with the Win95 update in the previous step.
Do this for the second PCI CardBus Bridge too (as the Libretto 110CT has two PCMCIA slots).
Voila, now you have two PCMCIA slots:
Once you insert the PCMCIA floppy drive it should automatically find and install the driver named ‘PCMCIA TOSHIBA Floppy’. If the driver isn’t found, direct it to the ‘L100CTRL’ folder. This folder contains the correct driver.
Phew, finished!
Note: I don’t have the IR drivers for Windows 95, so they aren’t included. You will be left with an unknown device, this is the IR port. As of writing I haven’t found a working driver and I don’t really have a need for this port.
Downloads
Toshiba drivers Windows 95: libretto_110_95.zip (1,0 MB)
Toshiba drivers Windows 98: libretto_100_110_98.zip (2,32 MB)
Toshiba drivers Windows NT 4 Workstation: libretto_100_110_nt4.zip (2,80 MB)