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Stop errors

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Hi,

I have an Interl D845gvsr motherboard with 256 DDR 333mhz RAM, 40gb HDD partitioned into 3(c,d, and e). I had Windows XP pro in D driver and Windows 98 SE in c:. I also have a TV capture card installed on one of the PCI slots of the computer. All of a sudden one morning, my Windows XP crashed throwing an error “unknown hard error” with ntdll.dll. I tried working on it. Unfortunately, I was left with no option than to uninstall/format that D drive which had Windows XP.

I felt safe to have Windows 98. It worked well for me. All of a sudden the next day in the morning, my Windows 98 crashed throwing stop errors.

From then, I tried several times formatting drives, trying to install Windows ME/Windows XP home/Windows 98 SE, but to no avail. Now, when I am trying to install Windows 98 se the setup hangs initially at 100% before it asks me for the selection of the folder “c:\windows” screen.

I just have my c and d drives formeatted using Windows 98 bootable cd and have the c as the active partition. However, I still have very important files stored on e drive.

I ran scandisk and surface scan using scandisk tool from WIndows 98 bootable CD and the utility said the drives had no problems. Now, I am very skeptical as to what the problem could be? Is it the MBR of the HDD or is it the RAM or is it any other hardware component in the computer that is creating problems for me.

By the way, I have Intel Celeron D 533Mhz processor with 256kb cache.

Any points from you all is appreciated.

Thanks,
Subramanyam.

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In reply to Stop errors

Stop errors are usually hardware issues. Did you write down the specific message? It would be helpful in diagnosing the original problem.

If you have access to another PC, configure your drive as slave and insert it into the second computer. Copy any information to the working computer’s HD.

And while the HD is in the second PC, do a surface scan of the offending HD. If all is well, try reformatting the drive, then insert it into the original PC and reinstall 98 if possible.

Repost and let us know what happens.

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In reply to Stop errors

based on all you’ve done, if this pc were in my hands i’d stick in a Promise HDD controller for a test. but first i’d backup the data on e to a new hard. presumably it is fat32? you can use the boot disk utility from the hard drive manufacture to copy over your precious data onto the new (tested, burned in ) hard drive. if your controller is mucking up, i’d avoid writing to the drive at all, no scandsk or chdsk, just copy and verify to new disk.
that symptom of hanging at 100% during windows 98 setup sounds familiar and you might fine the answer searching that way at support.microsoft.com
i vote ram or hd controller or maybe hd

Reply To: Stop errors

In reply to Stop errors

Try the following, put out all unnecessary cards from your computer. Let in just the video card. Try to install the OS. If still not work, your problem can be with RAM or Motherboard (IDE controller).

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