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re-install CD ROm

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by chathere

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How can I reintstall my CD Rom on a reformatted hard drive. My hard drive crashed and now I was able to reinstall part of Win98(I can see many file for Win98 in the dir)but I can get Win 98 to start now can I use the CD Rom Drive without booting from a boot disk. The drive is a BCD E520C and I have not been able to find a driver, if that is what I need. I got an error message on start up about "windows protection error you must restart your computer" Please help! Thanks!

9 replies

by alpha-male

You may be facing several issues here. I'll try to help with what I see...

You can use the CD without a boot disk...what you'll need is to install a generic ATAPI CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE.

You can get them here:

http://www.driverzone.com/summary/cdrom-summary.htm

Now, the Windows protection error. Can you boot into safe mode? If so, you may be able to resolve your issues there then complete the install. Most likely (since this is 98) the problem is hardware related. Maybe an AGP card?

If you can't boot into safe mode, I'd fdisk the drive and MBR, reformat again, download a bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com and start with a clean installation of your OS.

Good luck...hope this helps!

by chathere

I have done all of the listed suggestions. I was told by a friend to check the memory. That maybe one of the memory sticks is bad. Then to go through all of the above again. Thanks for trying but I do not believe I need a bootdisk because I have the original Win98 and the oemwin98 install cdrom.

by thechas

You do NOT need a driver for the CD-ROM drive, unless, you need to access the CD drive from a DOS window within Windows.

The MSCDEX file is only needed for DOS access.

What you need is the IDE bus-master driver for your motherboard / chipset.To help identify your motherboard/chipset, and to get links to motherboard and chipset manufactures to download drivers, go to either www.motherboards.org
or www.wimsbios.com
Both have the tools and links you need.

I have had so much trouble with CD-ROM access while installing W98, that I now only install W98 from the hard drive.
What I do, is create a second partition, and copy the W98 CD, drivers, and updates onto that partition. (I use a hot-swap bay on my main system to make this easier.)
When Windows installs, I follow the following sequence to finish the setup.

Install Chipset drivers
Install DirectX
Install Video card driver
Install other devices and drivers
Install desired Web browser
Install Windows updates.

Chas

by thechas

One side thought, if your Windows installation is as corrupted as it seams, you might be better off finding a way to backup your files.
Then, fdisk and format the drive, and start over from scratch.

For W9X, it is a good idea to wipe the drive and start over every 6 months to 2 years.

Chas

by thechas

I will attempt to provide more details.
If you have further questions, please be specific as to what you do not understand.

You do NOT need a driver for the CD-ROM drive itself, unless, you need to access the CD drive from a DOS window within Windows.
(you only need the driver for the CD-ROM itself if you use the CD drive for MS-DOS programs)

The MSCDEX file is only needed for DOS access. (Other than for installation, Windows 9X does not use the MSCDEX file. For installation, the access is taken care of by the startup floppy.)

What you need is the IDE bus-master driver for your motherboard / chipset.
(This is the driver that Windows 98 uses to access the CD drive. The default driver on the Windows 98 CD is old and has very limited function.)
To help identify your motherboard/chipset, and to get links to motherboard and chipset manufactures to download drivers, go to either www.motherboards.org
or www.wimsbios.com
Both have the tools and links you need.
(At www.motherboards.org, use the mobo ID tools to identify who made your motherboard from the BIOS string.)

I have had so much trouble with CD-ROM access while installing W98, that I now only install W98 from the hard drive.
What I do, is create a secondpartition, and copy the W98 CD, drivers, and updates onto that partition. (I use a hot-swap bay on my main system to make this easier.)
When Windows installs, I follow the following sequence to finish the setup.

by thechas

Install Chipset drivers (from system, motherboard, or chipset manufacture.)
(Chipset mfgs include AMD, Intel, SiS, VVIA, ALI)
Install DirectX (from Microsoft)
Install Video card driver (from video card CD, or mfgs web site)
Install other devices and drivers (Modem, sound card, printer, scanner)

(This is the order for installing "system" drivers that I have found works best.)

Install desired Web browser (The W98 CD has IE4 on it. I assume you want to update to either IE6, Netscape, or Mozilla)
Install Windows updates. (There are a number of security and system updates that you will want to download and install from Microsoft.)

Since you cannot access the CD drive, (I assume that you cannot get on-line with this PC either.) you will need to download the IDE Bus driver from the manufactures web site, and use a floppy disk to copy the driver file onto the PC.
Then, install WinZip and extract the file if it is a .zip file.
If there is a setup.exe file, run it.
Otherwize,go to device manager (right click on My Computer, and select properties) choose the appropriate device, (in this case, IDE controller) select update driver, and point the driver wizzard to the folder with the driver files.

There is a pretty good tutorial on finding and installing drivers posted at www.driverguide.com

Chas

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