W98se's setup refuses to run from DOS but should be able to

[Kiwi]

I am dead certain that I have run installs/ reinstalls from the Command line when Win98 was either totally corrupted or nonexistent. But whatever way I've done it before either no longer works because of the limitations of the Oak CD Driver, or of an omission from the Bootdisk.Com version of the Win98 startup disk.

The new PC has a LiteOn CD/DVD combo for an optical drive, and the original MS Startup crashes running its scan of PCI Devices. That original has some way of getting "a Setup" to start without having Windows already running. But using the Bootdisk.Com version, the setup inside the Win98 Folder and the one in the Root of the CD both claim that they only run in Windows.

So the question now is, what am I forgetting? I've looked at both floppies' startups and nothing jumps out at me as missing from the one that at least doesn't roll over and play dead!

[Mesaeus]

That Windows 98 SE cd should be bootable, have you tried that ? Or does it crash too ?

[Kiwi]

I've had this CD for about six years. I got it before the second (OEM) one that I've loaned out to a friend with a broken one of his own (and who is seemingly out of town this weekend). I am pretty sure there were no BIOSes/ MB's back then that had any idea about booting from CD's, let alone from a CD that is also a DVD.

But I just ran a "Dir" on the root directory, and there is no Command.Com for certain (there could be hidden files for Io.Sys and Dos.Sys and I wouldn't see those). Good idea, but a miss! What else haven't I tried?

[tacoeater]

here is a link for you to look at which panama red provided a while back.
in a nutshell
you boot with the floppy disk
then change to the hard drive by entering c: (then hit enter)
then create a directory on c called Win98
then you go back to the cd rom.....if it is drive d you would
change to d by typing d: (then hit enter)
Note, in the link this guy's cd drive is E. don't get confused, just use
whatever drive letter your cd happens to be..
then change to the directory on d which has what are called the
cab files....for example d:\win98
then you copy everything in d:\win98 to c:win98
then change to c then change to the directory you made c:\Win98
then type setup (then enter)
ok the link is more precise.....read it
this should fix you up!
alan
http://home.pacbell.net/dbk4297/preinstall.html

[GaryRouth]

Hopefully, you've copied the files to the hard drive and are happily installing.

If not: you mention that this is a "new PC", and that Setup did indeed start from the CD [since you mention that it "crashes while scanning PCI devices"] - or is it in fact crashing in the POST device scan [which wouldn't be Window's fault]?

And of course I'll assume you switched the Boot order in the Bios to the CD/DVD drive as 1st boot device when trying the Win98se disk? [same idea, but for the floppy when booting with the bootdisk.com diskette - and which Win98se bootdisk.com disk did you choose? - it needs to match the version on your CD]

If all's well, no need to answer the call for details!
Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by GaryRouth Hopefully, you've copied the files to the hard drive and are happily installing. If not: you mention that this is a "new PC", and that Setup did indeed start from the CD [since you mention that it "crashes while scanning PCI devices"] - or is it in fact crashing in the POST device scan [which wouldn't be Window's fault]? And of course I'll assume you switched the Boot order in the Bios to the CD/DVD drive as 1st boot device when trying the Win98se disk? [same idea, but for the floppy when booting with the bootdisk.com diskette - and which Win98se bootdisk.com disk did you choose? - it needs to match the version on your CD]

From the top, I had a P-II 400 MHz snail as a backup for the past two and some more years. The primary system ran so nicely so long, I'd not used the P-II for at least a year. Then I did something to cause a sudden power-down that wiped out all the bookmarks that Mozilla had (which file it keeps open all the time), and when rebuilding that setup, was using the P-II for the Internet.

And it made me remember one of the reasons why there was less than the usual 2 1/2 to 3 years between the P-II and its successor. It's slower than it needs to be for its age, has a terrible BIOS, and is extremely inflexible about changes as a result of the crummy BIOS. It's an Intel BX motherboard, and I will never get another Intel MB for sure.

Given the age of my primary system, it was about time to replace that one, but one of the things I wanted this time, built-in PATA RAID, didn't seem generally available. Gigabyte had an XP board with it, but didn't use the circuits that nVidia had included in the Ultra 400 "G" release. The reports on how slow that Gigabyte RAID runs were widely spread on the internet.

So at first I was just going to do a quick & dirty upgrade with used parts and get the backup to a slightly less terrible level while waiting on PCI Express and 400G. But that step ended up so inexpensive, and the shopping experience was pleasant (first time to buy so much online), that I gave up on the RAID idea. I wasn't going to buy a pair of SATA Hdd's right now, I already had sufficient late model ATA-100 and ATA-133 Hdd's to go around.

So I ended up buying more stuff, but new parts, after all. Even before the P-II had surrendered all of its drives and modem, etc. Right this minute, there are three PC's in here and the P-II's replacement will end up with the bedroom TV, since it cost me so little to fix up, it can be there and not get used much, without being a monetary "waste", maybe even handle some entertainment type chores.

That one, now named Seabiscuit on the network, because it has a Palomino CPU, isn't quite fully sorted out, but the new parts had all come in and I couldn't just let them sit all by themselves. I slipped up in a way and ended up with all of the drives in the two "older" PC's latched in, buttoned down, because they were hot & noisy sitting loose on the bottoms of the cases.

So instead of running a dupe of the C:\ of one or the other, and then swapping around to make that the Master so I could wipe out most of what was in device manager, which worked fairly well on Seabiscuit, I copied the C: drive's overall structure, but not the contents of the root directory or the Windows directory. I do have a folder called CABS on all PC's, with the contents of the CD's Win98 folder all copied there. I did perform a SYS to transfer a DOS 7 startup capability to the new PC's C:\ root.

Several times since the first W9x came out, I have run my installs all from the hard drive, with no problems. That's how I started, on Friday afternoon, I believe. And got part of the way into the first quarter part, copying files to TEMP preparatory to booting up. Then Wsetup was found guilty of a fatal error. That BSOD didn't look fully terminal, as if something might proceed, if I tried a different key other than Ctrl-Alt-Del -- but two further addresses came up as fatal error BSODs and everything halted.

Three attempts to rerun the setup in the Cabs98se folder died in BSOD's after that as well, each seeming to do it sooner than the last try had done, and no run of setup found tracks from a prior attempt. I have never, ever seen those symptoms from setup. It's the exact same setup I tried the next day from the CD with the error message that it won't run without Windows, which isn't true.

I used a copy of a Win98 (FE) upgrade floppy to try running my Win98se CD. From that floppy, I ran into the first of the instances of a device driver (adaptec or Oak Sys, both are on there) rolling over and dying while doing something called Scanning the PCI Bus. It's a hard lockup, which even hangs the DVM I use, so I have to power it off (the keyboard is frozen as well) before switching the DVM to either of the working PC's.

Last March, when I was having trouble with a laptop I've never used enough to justify owning one of those, I got some files from Bootdisk.Com. One of those was a 98se startup, and it works, it does get the optical drives' drivers loaded, but something is screwed up on that one, although what it is, I cannot guess.

It is when I access the Win98 CD, in its root or its Win98 folder, trying to run the setup programs in those places, that I am answered with this denial message about not running outside of Windows. I have tried swapping out my (new) LiteOn CD-DVD drive for an Acer CD ROM and there is no change in response from either the true-to-MS start disk that locks up, or the alternate bootdisk start disk that setup doesn't seem to like.

Now, I HAD tried to keep this down to just a couple of error message queries when I started, but you asked enough stuff back, you got the entire convoluted picture. Oh, and another unpublicized feature/ non-feature of the Abit NF7's S2G version is that it really DOES have IDE RAID, and it's not mentioned on the box, on their web site, anywhere.

P.S. OK, here's the rundown: AMD XP 2800+ CPU (Barton), Aeroflow HSF, Nspire 350 PSU, Abit NF7-S2G MB, Kingston Value- Something RAM - two 256 MB PC 3200's, (present optical is the used Acer 40x), Primary HD is a WD800, 80 Gb, Secondary HD is a Maxtor 40. Video is going to be an eVGA FX 5700LE, but I put an old nVidia GF TNT in there at first. Right - almost forgot - it's in a black Kingwin (windowed) KT-424 aluminum case.

As of 8 PM, I removed the WD Hdd and cleaned off the C:\ completely, and will be starting over tomorrow afternoon with the same general setup I used last week on the upgrade to my backup PC (XP 2100+, Gigabyte GA-7ZXE, 256 MB PC-133 RAM, GF 3 ti 200 video, CD-RW optical, Maxtor 40 Primary, and Maxtor 20 Secondary) -- I copied a complete drive, then made it a master in the previous "Primary Computer", where I killed most of what was in the Device Manager, uninstalled some stuff I seldom use, etc.

I'm going to do the newest one much the same, with an even stricter cull of the Device Manager, unused programs, and this time I'm uninstalling a lot more than I did before, prior to moving the cleaned-up drive back to the newest PC.

[glc]

Appreciate the full background, but could you please condense the specs of this machine in question for us? This sounds like faulty or incompatible hardware somewhere.

[Kiwi]

Anyway, I added this to the long reply:

Here's the rundown: AMD XP 2800+ CPU (Barton), Aeroflow HSF, Nspire 350 PSU, Abit NF7-S2G MB, Kingston Value- Something RAM - two 256 MB PC 3200's, (present optical is the used Acer 40x), Primary HD is a WD800, 80 Gb, Secondary HD is a Maxtor 40. Video is going to be an eVGA FX 5700LE, but I put an old nVidia GF TNT in there at first. Right - almost forgot - it's in a black Kingwin (windowed) KT-424 aluminum case.

[GaryRouth]

Good luck with your project. If it goes well on your 2nd try, then you can breathe a little easier on the hardware side of life. If things stop during POST at all, you can always try things with the Bios set the "Fail-Safe Defaults", just to see if that gets you through (along with all the other usual hardware troubleshooting).

Since you're thinking of popping the drive in with Windows already on it (though installed for different hardware), you may want to start in Safe Mode, and try the Enum trick to help things go smoother. The Enum trick is in the Tips & Tricks forum, if you haven't heard of it before http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=9254

You're right on the borderline for Win98se with a Barton 2800 - should be OK, but if you see errors with the networking files, search MS for the patch for processors near or over the 2ghz speed (the patch is for Win98se). If you need the link, I have it somewhere at home on one of my computers there, & can post it if you get the errors.
. . . Gary

[Kiwi]

I hauled the P-II out to storage, case & all, so I only have one W2K system again. I have two copies of that OS, but tend to like dual-boots with W98 for game-play. If there are internal problems in Win98 from too-fast CPU's, that's new to me, but 1.33 MHz has been as fast as I was going until the Palomino 2100 went into a used GA-7ZXE MB week before last. I already had one of those MB's, totally trouble free since December, 2001.

I will leave the display in; there's a KVM switch or this room would be too full of hardware to get any people in here. My laptop is usually the number three, and its display plus keyboard aren't taking up much space. I wish I'd known of this lovely trick BEFORE I dismounted the 80 WD from the T-Bird PC (the one I'm using as I write this, with the original Gigabyte 7ZXE MB) -- this PC got pretty hinky as I was removing things from Device Manager, and I finally had to stop when Device Manager kept on crashing/ freezing up.

There's something else I want to try if I don't have instant success. It seems to me that when the first and all follow- up install attempts from the Hdd were committing their fatal errors, the memory addresses referenced may have been close together. It didn't penetrate at the time, but I had a sort of nightmare last night, reliving Friday evening's session; I will pull the DIMM from slot three and move the one in two down to three and see what happens.

I'm suspicious of that Kingston "Value" rating . .

[glc]

Kingston Value Ram is generally decent stuff - but it *is* possible to get a flaky module. Have you tried running Memtest86+ on it yet?

Also - you don't see this very often any more, but it *is* possible your WD and Maxtor drives are not getting along with each other if they are sharing an IDE channel. This is actually quite possible if the Maxtor is from the era right after they bought out Quantum and rebadged a bunch of Fireballs. WD's can also do strange things depending on the jumpering and cabling - with 80 wire cables sometimes they prefer cable select, sometimes they prefer master/slave jumpering - and if it's standalone, you cannot use master - it must be cable select or jumper removed.

Opticals seem to work best with 40 wire cables, master/slave, and not on a PCI card, they prefer motherboard controllers.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by glc Kingston Value Ram is generally decent stuff - but it *is* possible to get a flaky module. Have you tried running Memtest86+ on it yet?

The only MB on hand that accepts DDR is the current one, and by the time I'm writing this, it is "sort of" running, but not well enough to do much.

Also - you don't see this very often any more, but it *is* possible your WD and Maxtor drives are not getting along with each other if they are sharing an IDE channel. This is actually quite possible if the Maxtor is from the era right after they bought out Quantum and rebadged a bunch of Fireballs.

The WD is an 800, freshly produced; the Maxtor is less than a year old, maybe less than six months.

WD's can also do strange things depending on the jumpering and cabling - with 80 wire cables sometimes they prefer cable select, sometimes they prefer master/slave jumpering - and if it's standalone, you cannot use master - it must be cable select or jumper removed.

When I tried running the newly cloned (using the PC I'm writing on as source) C: drive in the new one, I did watch the memory address references it gave for the dozens of BSOD incidents it reported. All were from the same half dozen memory addresses. So I pulled out the DIMM in slot #2 (dual channel memory slots are #3 & #2 or #3 & #1), leaving behind one in slot three.

The system didn't try to power up with that one in there. No POST activity at all. No beeps, nothing. Pulled it, and put in the other, and we were off to the races. At first. But once past the initial hardware-finding stages, and into the main Windows environment, and the system is ailing badly.

This other PC has only had 512 MB's of RAM for a few months. It ran nicely for two years with only 256. But the new Abit machine starts saying it is unable to start any new programs very soon after it's running because it's out of "free memory". Not "Low on Resources", I've seen that some with "only" 256 MB's.

The current population of Hdd's among three (more or less) "running" PC's, one hulk, and a real oldie under the table, is predominately Maxtor, with one Seagate 80 now in the one I still consider my Primary PC, along with another Maxtor 40, so there is at least one more 20 or 40 GB Maxtor that the Abit could have two of the same kind, if the two Hdd's I have in it now could somehow tie up all the RAM . .

[glc]

Well, you have one defective ram module for sure, and possibly a second. Memtest86+ runs off a boot floppy, you should probably run it.

If you bought the ram as a dual channel kit, just RMA the kit.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by glc Well, you have one defective ram module for sure, and possibly a second. Memtest86+ runs off a boot floppy, you should probably run it.

It's still running right now. Is that normal? Just prior to the test (requires a reboot with the Floppy as the boot drive), I'd observed still another "Not enough free memory to run the program" error message . .

[glc]

It runs till you stop it. Look at the pass counter - you shouldn't need more than 2 passes. Any errors yet?

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by glc It runs till you stop it. Look at the pass counter - you shouldn't need more than 2 passes. Any errors yet?

No errors. But I still can't run at the 400 FSB speed (200 setting in Setup). And it still becomes useless in 5-15 minutes with no free memory remaining, even after closing everything other than Explorer and systray in the Task Manager. Once, it was out of resources about that soon.

I just ran the mem /c summary at the MS-DOS Prompt, and it has/had 604 Kb of the bottom 640 available. After that, I had two programs of consequence running, Notepad, and Windows Explorer. About 6-8 minutes into a run, I thought I might get an Aida32 report, but there was insufficient free memory. As noted, I opened Task Manager and closed all but the two needed items.

Aida32 still didn't have enough free memory!

[GaryRouth]

Windows 98 should be able to run Aida32 even on a Win98 system with as little as 64mb or less of system memory. I'm wondering if your virtual memory settings might be set a bit wrong for this system: check out the MS Knowledge Base article on that: http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1 ... and see if that helps.

I've lost track a little bit, but did you already run the spyware/virus checks?
. . . Gary

[P.S. ... on the hardware side, does the Kingston run at 3200 even when set to "By SPD"? If you're not using the "By SPD" setting for the memory now, try using it and see if your results are any different. Some modules are particular about each timing setting. And like glc mentioned, if it was a kit, Kingston or your vendor might well replace both]

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by GaryRouth Windows 98 should be able to run Aida32 even on a Win98 system with as little as 64mb or less of system memory. I'm wondering if your virtual memory settings might be set a bit wrong for this system: check out the MS Knowledge Base article on that: http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1 ... and see if that helps. I've lost track a little bit, but did you already run the spyware/virus checks?

So far, NAV is waiting on Activation, but that system doesn't have its own modem, and hasn't stayed in a fully operable state long enough to sort out what the problem is about accessing the net via the router that the other PC's on the LAN can use. But I did run Ad-aware in case there was anything that hadn't surfaced on this, th eprimary system, but might be active on that one. It found nothing.

[P.S. ... on the hardware side, does the Kingston run at 3200 even when set to "By SPD"? If you're not using the "By SPD" setting for the memory now, try using it and see if your results are any different. Some modules are particular about each timing setting. And like glc mentioned, if it was a kit, Kingston or your vendor might well replace both]

When I was arranging the purchase from Newegg, there didn't seem to be any choice under the Kingston Value RAM heading for matched pairs, so I bought two separate ones.

I haven't noted a "By SPD" line in the BIOS, but I wanted to know for certain whether the MB was bad, or the RAM, so I went out and bought two PNY Optima PC 3200 256 MB DIMMs and put those in; those aren't a matched pair, either. I paid $30 each more than the cost of the Kingston pieces.

The system is much more amenable to FSB changes with the PNY RAM without going off into Cloud Cuckoo Land; no (new) problems showed up with 180 MHz, but the "free memory" drain and rapid depletion of resources cotinues with these new DIMMs.

Aida32 did run, later, when selected as the first thing to do after a reboot, although it couldn't access a lot of stuff from the OS as time passed. It told me that the NF7 BIOS version is 6.00 PG, as of 6-14-2004. Before running Aida32, free System and User resources were 53%. Afterward, the System and User resources were 10%, and only rose to 14% when I closed everything in Task Manager other than Explorer, System Monitor, and Systray.

[GaryRouth]

Did you check the "Virtual Memory" settings? [also called the "paging file"]. Right-click on My Computer, then on "Properties". . . it's in the "Performance" tab, then to the tab on the right-hand side (which I think says "Virtual Memory", but I can't remember at the moment) -- then make sure to place a checkmark in the box "let Windows manage virtual memory" ... System resources shouldn't be disappearing that fast. We had Win98 systems in the lab running fine with 64mb for years and years - then with 128mb. 256mb was about as much as any of them ever had.
. . . Gary

P.S. ... I have the earlier NF7 in a system I put together for my sister a while back, and I was thinking it had an item for memory timings "by SPD" in the "Advanced Chipset Features" menu (somewhere near the top of that menu)

[Kiwi]

I wasn't planning to Overclock, so wasn't worried about it, but the built-in fast LAN sounded very attractive, and I lost a lot of the capabilites to tweak performance that the "regular" NF7's include. Maybe the setting you recall was part of that.

After getting the board, I found it has the included IDE RAID, after all, which I had been wanting to try out (RAID 1, disk mirroring). Anyway, I have been giving W9x's since W95 an entire partition of their own on the fastest drive in each PC, for a dedicated swap drive. Just checking that this part of my setup survived cloning, and it did. There is over a GB just for swap files.

The P-II/400 that more or less triggered the ongoing wave of hardware acquisitions and upgrades had been running "OK" with only 128 MB's since it was new, and neither free memory nor inadequate resources were among its problems. The main system (in use now to write this), that won't be three years old until next December, started out with 256 MB's of RAM and only a couple of months ago was bumped up to 512. Same thing -- no free memory or low resources symptoms.

Even if the BIOS seems quite recent, I'll run over in internet space and look for a newer version to see if flashing that to the system makes any difference, but I've never seen these problems before and on the other hand only once have had a bad MB, and it had its own symptoms (it rebooted itself a lot). I'm more and more inclined to blame this MB for what is happening.

[GaryRouth]

While it's true that the hardware might be iffy, the memory errors you're seeing don't sound hardware related (I still suspect the Windows paging file might be set too small, or be disabled). MemTest86+ should have found any bad modules, regardless of the settings. I'm wondering what would happen if you tried an over-the-top just on the problematic partition of the "not enough memory" Win98 drive = you have to do this sort of thing carefully, of course. The details are over in http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=70846

Curious to see how this turns out

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Gary Routh While it's true that the hardware might be iffy, the memory errors you're seeing don't sound hardware related (I still suspect the Windows paging file might be set too small, or be disabled). MemTest86+ should have found any bad modules, regardless of the settings. I'm wondering what would happen if you tried an over-the-top just on the problematic partition of the "not enough memory" Win98 drive = you have to do this sort of thing carefully, of course. The details are over in http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=70846 Curious to see how this turns out

I'm trying something to see if I can keep from having a second page or whatever, past the thread tree. Probably not. (Well, I don't know, maybe it did reshuffle the index display after all!)

As I had intended, I collected a couple of BIOS files from Abit, intending to try flashing for a possible fix (and Abit does say that one of the -S2G BIOSes does have a CD access problem, which I ran into at first). But the system decided to ignore floppy drives as boot devices for some reason, and I got into a mess trying to get a bootable CD working (the only ones of which I know I have are either MS NT CD's, or Symantec).

Now I have to do a restore of Registry DATs on my primary PC -- when Nero 6 kept crashing instead of writing a CD, and Roxio Easy CD lied to me when it said it knew how to write one, I tried a shareware one with a name like Ultra WinISO and now the primary PC is failing to start! (I'm presently using an "Interim" PC that was assembled mostly from used parts, and stuff from scratch & dent sales. It's working somewhat OK, but it has a few problems of its own because of the cloned drives in it.)

.. AND, I was already considering trying a reinstall atop of the Window98 as a repair. I'll check the link you offered in a little while. Mostly, I kicked back and ignored computers yesterday . . (there IS "Real Life" impinging on me from time to time).

[GaryRouth]

Always nice to take a break & relax from time to time!

...you know, I was re-reading the thread here and there, and since you've already got two nice new modules, and it sounds like they tested OK, and you sound like you've got a lot of backups available --- have you considered just starting from stratch on the Win98 machine with the biggest headaches? [a complete wipe and then clean install?] You could then just reinstall as you go, and restore what clean backups you have a bit at a time.

Some ornery problems can crop up in a hard disk that travels through a few different installations with different sets of hardware each time. And sometimes if the disk is copied with a disk-cloning software, differences in "drive geometry" can cause trouble, if the disparity between the hard disk makes is great enough. [... & I suppose I should also mention the whole can of worms that is "drive overlay" software...] A clean install would at least simplify your troubleshooting.

Enjoy your holiday weekend [it's going to be a hot one here near L.A. - 100 degrees!]
. . . Gary