Windows 95 (by default) wasn’t CD bootable, you HAD to use a boot disk before you could use a CD for the rest. I think right after 95 came out the standard came out for CD booting. But before that OEM would make bootable CDs for their recovery media for 95.
I think at least some editions of Windows 98 couldn’t boot from the CD-ROM either but had a boot floppy with the drivers. I hit this problem recently when trying to set up a Windows 98 machine.
Windows 95 (by default) wasn’t CD bootable, you HAD to use a boot disk before you could use a CD for the rest. I think right after 95 came out the standard came out for CD booting. But before that OEM would make bootable CDs for their recovery media for 95.
I think at least some editions of Windows 98 couldn’t boot from the CD-ROM either but had a boot floppy with the drivers. I hit this problem recently when trying to set up a Windows 98 machine.
I still have those, never ever successfully used them.