windows98 = the devil?

[ninthebin]

hey,

problem1
*******
I got a pc that had 98 on it, but the guy formatted and didnt know what to do from there, so I whacked 98 on with a clean install and then it gives a registry error upon boot, something like "windows has detected errors and will repair upon reboot", upon reboot it opens scandisk says there is a problem with windows/system.dat and then say its fixed, but upon boot it does the same thing...

I have installed 98 onto it about 5 times from 3 different copies, and it does boot into safe mode without problems...also XP is on now and works fine (but there are only 98 drivers for the comp so I need to be in 98)

anyone come across this before?

problem2
*******
I then proceeded to try 98 on an older pc to see whether it was just the cds thats were borked, this time met with different errors of missing files upon the install

95 does go on the machine fine, and I have just installed 98 to an old Hard Disk on this machine (im home now) and its fine :S

what gives?

 

[ninthebin]

as an update...problem 2's error:

"You started windows with a verson a dos thats incompatable with this version of windows

insert a startup disk matching this version of windows"

 

[su root]

It sounds like Win98 doesn't like you.

Some of these messages would be a good addition to the weirdest MS error messages

I have seen the "windows has detected errors and will repair upon reboot" one before. it is very annoying. If it doesn't repair itself, then it needs a format.

 

[ninthebin]

it has been formatted so many times...both of them give the same error EVERY time...doesnt even give me the dignity of random errors

 

[nerd4life]

Anyone else had this problem ?? This may be the answer to your problem as well. In the past I've tried to install a normal Windows 98 copy onto say a hewlett packard machine that comes with a restore disk. They would always throw up all kinds of errors after installing windows like it had a bad I/O card or some crap. Soon as I got hold of the restore disks they installed and worked great.

I remember a Emachine and an old HP that this happened on.

 

[repo man11]

NIN, did you ever try copying the 98 disk to your harddrive, and installing that way? It might not make a difference, but it is faster. And it is nice because you don't have to hunt down the 98 disc when you install something new, it is allready there.

 

[Rotary-Motion]

hi

i had a packard bell that had its own type bios so you couldnt use a normal systen disc to install you ahd to use the special ones that come with the puter?

i think dell is like that and compaq?

and on mine i got wierd errors and no joy!!!

Dumped board in the end got jetway and k6 500 amd.....

just a thought?

 

[ninthebin]

well this computer was originally custom built for the guy, it has a FULLY integrated flex-atx motherboard which took god knows how long just to find out which one it was so we could get drivers...then windows fecks about :|

one thing, I underclocked from 500Mhz to 400Mhz (it was originally on 550MHz and causing BAD errors) but in my reading about the system.dat I have seen that controls the hardware side of the registry - so could it be its getting a mismatch between what the CPU says it is and what the clock says it is or something?

 

[HardwareJedi]

No I doubt thatthe CPU is the problem. Windows just adjusts to new cpu speeds. Through all this you never mentioned running fdisk before formatting. Start at the start... use fdisk first to delete any partitions and then start over creating a partition set to use fat32, make the partition active, etc.. That will rebuild the Boot sector, The MBR, and system areas on the disk. The problem may be a corrupt Master Boot Record. Then run your format/s to make the Disk bootable. You can then install from the Win98 CD if your MB supports boot from CD? If Win98 complains about already having an operating system on the disk, it is seeing the Dos sys files needed to boot from. Just start the PC from the CD telling it to Boot with CD support, then go to D:\ and run setup instead of just booting directly into the Install routine. I believe you can also just Fdisk the drive and windows will format it and everything and then install, but I have never tried that method.

 

[ninthebin]

I used fdisk many a time...I havent got around to low level formatting it yet, and they are quite old so I hope they are using decent hard drives with a company that supplied the software

 

[Audioaficionado]

Do you have the MBR write protected in the BIOS?

Have you reformated just the MBR?

 

[ninthebin]

im trying to find the low level format software for an old western digital drive...if anyone knows where I can find this as I have been looking on the site, and I can not find it...

and I think that it may not work with older drives even if I do find one...

 

[repo man11]

Their LLF utility is bundled in their Data Lifeguard utilities. They have a couple of different versions, one of them is for older drives and OS's.