Problems installing Windows 98 - Help!

[ThickChick]

Having a bit of a problem here and I'm hoping someone can help me as this forum has been brilliant so far in help.

We've recently bought a new PC for the kids and the old one is being cleaned up for a hopeful sale.

I formatted the hard drive on it by piggy backing it onto my PC using FAT32. When I came to installing windows98 back onto the hard drive it gets as far as preparing to install Win98 and then a setup detection message flashes up.

It says it is message SU0013 and basically says that it cannot create files on the startup drive and cannot set up Win98.

Can anyone tell me why it is doing this and what I can do to correct it? The rest of the message doesn't seem to apply to me (at least I don't think it does) and I am puzzled why I can't re-install Win98 back onto that drive. It was running Win98 and then WinME after that prior to formatting it .

I have checked the jumpers after I had changed them to slave to allow it to work on my pc and it is definitely back on master.

Is it me, is the hard drive stuffed or is there a simple explanation?

Please help!

Cheers

ThickChick.

[DougL]

Hi ThickChick

i would say its best to create partitions and format with the drive in the PC. Something seems to have gone astray with the formatting process i.e is the partition active? have a look at this link

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000372.htm

Doug

[Panama Red]

Here's a great step-by-step tutorial for installing 98. If you need to create a boot disk, go to Bootdisk.com and download one.

http://www.waynescomputerworld.com/cleaninstall.html

[GaryRouth]

It might be easiest just to start over - beginning with the hard drive slaved in another PC can be more difficult than it needs to be. Of course, when putting the drive back in it's original case, set the jumper back to "Master" (or to "Cable Select" if it's recent enough for that).

This next procedure assumes that you have a regular Windows installation CD for either Windows 98 or Windows Me (your choice as to which to use - if you have a Windows 98 2nd Edition CD, that would be best). A "Recovery Disk" is different = you'd have to follow the instructions that came from the system builder for that.

Since you are thinking of either donating or selling the older computer, first check that the hardware is OK.

MemTest86 can test the memory ( http://www.memtest.org )
Hard drive diagnostics can check the hard drive.

Since you've had the hard drive out of it's original case, you can look at the label for it's brand/model information. With that in hand, go to the manufacturer's website and download the hard drive diagnostics for your model (DataLifeGuard for Western Digitals, for example). These downloads for older hard drives generally create a bootable floppy diskette that the diagnostics will start from automatically, when the computer is started from that diskette.

To be completely certain that the drive is entirely erased, some diagnostics will offer the option of "zero-writing" the hard drive. This takes a long time in general - so don't start this one if you're in a hurry.

Some diagnostics will also perform a check to see if the Bios of the system's motherboard is recent enough to support the full capacity of the hard drive. If the current Bios does not, the best solution is to go to the website of the motherboard's manufacturer & look for a Bios update that will allow the hard drive's full capacity to be "seen" without using a "drive overlay" program, such as "EZ Drive" or "Disk Manager" from Ontrack, as a workaround. Flashing the motherboard's Bios has to be done carefully - so pay attention to all the details from the motherboard manufacturer's site.

If the full capacity can't be seen by the current Bios, and no updates are available, you'll need to use the installation utilities from the hard drive's manufacturer to install the drive, using their version of a "drive overlay". All this has to be done before you install Windows.

If you are lucky enough that the Bios is recent enough to support the hard drive's full capacity, and both the hard drive and memory pass their diagnostics, you can use your Windows installation CD to format the drive with FAT32 as part of Setup. Use fdisk first, to create a Primary DOS partition and set it as "Active".

Before starting the installation from the Windows installation CD, there are two more things to do: 1) disable the Bios Antivirus setting, and 2) set the boot order to CD-ROM first, floppy next, and then hard drive (when done, you can put the hard drive first to speed booting).

Once all this is set - just put the Windows CD in the drive, and this time things should go well -- just follow the prompts! I usually recommend the "Custom" option for installing Win9x - that way you can include most of the extras, in case the computer's next users might need them (like the Accessibility Wizards, screen savers, system utilities [like the ancient Backup], things like that).

Have an antivirus installed before connecting the computer to the Internet again (since a ton of Security Updates will be necessary) - and if you've a hardware firewall (included in most recent routers) with a broadband connection - have this computer connect from behind the firewall.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[late edit - Panama, I just saw your post - I need to remember those sites! It saves a lot of typing.]

[Panama Red]

[late edit - Panama, I just saw your post - I need to remember those sites! It saves a lot of typing.]

Yeah, but I keep the links in a file cuz I have enuf trouble remembering the links let alone being able to remember the instructions as well as you!:D

[ThickChick]

Thanks yet again Panama! You are turning out to be my regular knight in shining armour! :)
Had a few probs going through the suggestions on the web site you gave me but I have persevered, ended up deleting the partition and re in-stalling it and now it is busy re-formatting it using the set up disc. Fingers crossed this time!

Thanks also to Gary and Doug for suggestions. As soon as win98 is installed and working properly I shall be hopefully passing it on to someone else! It won't be the best PC on the earth but it will be fine if someone needs a cheap PC for basic use. It suited me fine until I discovered games! ;)

I'll let you know the progress. It seems to have been sitting at 50% of the formatting process for a long time now!:mad:

ThickChick.