win98 install problems

try to enable L1 internal cache from bios.

Doesn't seem to make sense! Funny though! Have you thought about the possibility of a bad hard drive? How about ram? Did the operating system do the system checks or did you skip them with: setup /ie /is /iv? I would do a through scandisk and possibly a ram check. Good luck!

Either the L1 or L2 Cache's are turned off in CMOS settings or you are running without RAM (or known good RAM), in the box.

Did you FDISK and clear all known partition(s)? Did you Partition and Format the drive properly? Did you make the 1st. Partition active?

I once had a bad stick of RAM in a box that actually tested good w/ a software testing utility but made the install fail each time tried, however the test MS told me through the KB was to shutt off the L1 & L2 and load windows....Well w/ them shut off it actually did take like half the night, but it did finally install. (Pointed out that the RAM in the box was fine but the CPU had died. (If the RAM was bad in that case the install would have failed the article told me). So I'd look only in those 2 areas. RAM or CPU....Also check the processor fan and the heat sink media. (You didn't perchance use old dryed up heat sink paste or media did you?) Did you apply nice fresh paste?

Good Luck.

Check all your connections from the memory to the floppy. Unplug and replug them in, are you using an old cdrom drive? What is the speed listed on the front of the drive? I had some old cdroms on the side until I found that they were for 386 and 486 computers. They will work but are problematic. And MS is vary bad at telling you how long something will take to load. Try letting it go and see what happens. A 233 computer should run 98 fine, try copying the win98 folder to the hard drive and run setup from there.

well.. interesting :) win98 takes only 30 minutes on PII 233Mhz... i think ur hardware is not configured properly ... nd not synchronizing with all devices ... how many memory modules u have installed?? ... if more than one ... check the RAM's BUS speed ... may be one module have 66 MHz nd another one is 100 MHz or 133 MHz... use same BUS speed memory ... another possibility is bad sectors in your Hard Drive.

plz contact dell technical support on a tolfree no i am sure i will help you with that.as i am myself working in dell.its avery lengthy procedure.so my advise is plz call them
Tharun