Win98 SE -- Start Fail with Memory Message

[JFT]

Hi --

Windows fails to start, instead it hangs after issuing the message "insufficient memory to initialize windows". The problem first came up during installation of a game (Rome: Total War) and the required DirectX 9.0 on a very stable system with 256 Meg of ram, so I doubt the problem is related to the more commonly reported problem with large amounts of memory. I completed the game installation and a new s/w driver for the video card (to work with 9.0) in Windows safe mode. All the installs seem to work. The video s/w manager works, the game works, and DirectX works, as evidence by a functioning game and success with the DiagX diagnostic.

I can get Windows going by stepping through a Safe Mode start and letting everything load except the final .xvd, ntkernel. Needless to say, this is a kludge, and programs run slow, so I'd like to fix hopefully without reinstalling Win98 SE.

Things that didn't work include: (1) reinstalling DirectX; (2) playing with vcache Max/MinFileCache settings in system.ini; (3) cleaning C:, now with 18Meg free; (4) looking for another .vxd that might be less needed while still allowing a clean start; and (5) lighting a candle.

Hoping to avoid a reinstallation of Win98, I plan to do things like moving ntkernal.vxd up in the load sequence to learn whether the problem is an exhaustion of virtual memory or the ntkernal.vxd itself. I've looked over this forum for problems described similarly and found none.

Any comment or advice would be appreciated.

-- JFT

[glc]

Only 18 megs free on the hard drive? That's your problem, no space for virtual memory.

[GaryRouth]

. . . which leads you to:
1) unistalling the game on it's current partition/drive - and
2) reinstalling it to a partition/drive with more free space

[you don't really want to use disk compression on a Win9x system & consider decent game play]

If you haven't any reasonable room on your current drive, here in So. Calif. 120gb drives go on sale every weekend for about $50 (USD) or so ... and even the non-sale drives are affordably priced.
. . . Gary

[P.S. - noticed that this is your first post here: Welcome to the PC Mechanic forums . . . ]

[JFT]

Thanks for helping me realize that 18Meg is not even close to enough space on the hard drive. I installed a new Western 120GB drive, cleared about 26GB off C:, defragged, and everything works fine.