Play DVD on Windows 98/ recover Windows Me ?

Any suggestions on how I can get my HP laptop to play DVDs again?

Here's the sad story:
It used to play fine under the original Windows Me with WinDVD that came with it.

WinME was such a pain I partitioned the HD dual-boot and use Windows98 almost exclusively now.

In the meantime I biffed WindowsMe somehow.

I installed Media Player 9 under Win98 but it says it can't do DVDs except under XP.

I was thinking I could do a factory recovery of the original WinMe, but it looks like that will blow away my Win98 and other partitions as well.

Several questions here:
Can I get Media Player to play DVDs under Windows 98?
or
Is there another player that will do it?
or
Can I do a recovery of my Windows Me to its current boot partition without losing the Win98 and other partitions?

Thanks and Happy New Year, DaveBo

I think ghost runs automatically when you recover, so I *think* that there may be a way to run it manually to recover part of the file. not sure, though, and I never got it working a few months ago. (we wiped out the partition twice, and then just installed XP instead.)

Why no just use XP instead?

Cyberlink PowerDVD is good $44.95/ $69.95 (Deluxe/Standard)
The Core Media Player (TCMP) is good $~10 USD for DVD Support (paypal).

I would suggest upgrading to xp because ME's preformance is horrible.

there is no release of WMP9 that is meant for windows 98

grab WMP10 and things will probably sort themselves out

Does anyone know if I can do the factory recovery/restore of Windows ME into its original partition without blowing away the entire HD?

Scenario:
HP N5340 laptop
2 bootable primary partitions: WinME & Win98SE
3 data partitions, I think all are FAT32
using Powerquest BootMagic

BTW Windows Media Player 9 is working under Win98, it just doesn't see the DVD because it's missing the decoder/codec thingie, so I don't think WMP10 would make much difference.

Thanks, DaveBo (I hate computers!)

I wouldn't count on keeping your data.

You can download plug-ins for WMP that would prolly get the DVD option that you want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveBo

BTW Windows Media Player 9 is working under Win98

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yup, i was thinking of WMP 8 :eek2:

also doing a factory restore will wipe out anything you have on partition (possibly drive)