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WIN98SE Install Problem

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by ga.solutions 1 view

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Ok..first off I feel kinda stupid for asking this, but I've been fighting this particular problem for far too long...

I have an older ACER Laptop, Pentium II 366MHz w/712MB of Ram and 20Gg Hard drive.

I've been trying to re-install WIN98SE on this on this machine again after wiping the hard drive of WIN XP Pro.
After it gets to approx. 60% I can here the CD Rom spin up and down likes its trying to find files, then it says it can't find a particular .cab file.

Here's the part that throws me off...If I reinstall WIN XP Pro, I have no problems at all.
I know the WIN98SE disk I'm using is good, for I've used it on other machines without any problems what so ever.

Any ideas?

8 replies

by jaqui

got a win98 ebd?
boot up on it and format the hard drive.
copy the ontents of the win98 directory from the cdrom to the hard drive.
then run the setup.exe from hard drive.

you might find a bad cab file during copy process.

by willcomp

Take your Win98SE CD and make a copy on a good quality CD/DVD burner. Use high quality media as well. This has worked for me several times.

For reasons unknown, some optical drives have problems reading media that other drives handle without problems. Also have seen optical drives have trouble reading certain sectors on media (assume it's a laser positioning issue).

By the way, any reason why you closed this prior question without rating answers or providing comments?

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6239-0.html?forumID=48&threadID=169100&start=0

Dalton

by ga.solutions

After an a terrible experience with this laptop (although it make me understand them even more) I finally found out that the disk I had been using was the problem all along.

As too why I didn't answer that question again....I felt that once was enough, I wasn't sure the first time I placed it that I had it in the correct spot. Sorry if it created any problems.

by thechas

I believe that you are hitting 1 of 2 W98 bugs.

First off, you can have problems installing W98 on a PC with more than 511MB of RAM.

The work around is to edit the max cache statement in one of the system files which you cannot do until W98 is up and running.

Here is a link to the Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253912

Or, you are running into an IDE controller that the native W98 driver cannot properly recognize.

The simple work around for the RAM issue is to reduce system RAM to less than 511MB. Edit the max cache statement. Then place the rest of your RAM back into the system.

For the IDE controller, the best thing to do is copy the W98 CD onto your hard drive and install from there as Dalton suggested.

Chas

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