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Thread ID: 26619 2002-11-01 01:59:00 Win 98 installation problems Chas2 (2406) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
95004 2002-11-01 01:59:00 My Problem
Installing a windows operating system
My computer is ASUS A7N226-VM motherboard with an Athlon 1800 xp cpu. ASUS 40x12x48 CDRW 20G hard drive and floppy. 256 DDR SDRAM no PCI installed.
When I switch the computer on it boots up ok and goes through to "no operating system found"
I can get into the BIOS and everything looks OK not that I relly understand it all.
OK so everything seemed fine so far. I formatted the drive and then tried to install windows 98SE.
At first I got about 15% of the way into the process then got a series of error messages, such as
"W98 SETUP caused an illegal instruction in module VGA.DRV at 0002:1D4"
"Bad fault in MS-DOS extender"
"CAB file errors"
"Invalid DPMI return"
I looked in the README file that goes with windows and it talked about cab file errors being a problem reading the CD Drive.
I followed the instructions for extracting all the cab. files to the hard drive ( 7 Hours) and then run setup from the hard drive, still with the same results.
Now I dont seem to be able to past the first few minutes of 98SE before I get a hang up with "Aplication Error appearing on the screen"
I also tried to install Windows ME with the same result.
I have also copied win98 to the hard drive and run setup from there. Same results
Only other clue I have as to possible problems is the screen (under windows setup) is not always displaying Text correctly it appears torn. The monitor I have is an old one but worked ok on other computers I have played around with.
Got any ideas.
Regards
Charlie.
Chas2 (2406)
95005 2002-11-01 02:14:00 Has your disk got any scratches or marks on it? Is the CD itself in good working order?

FAQ #1 gives instructions on installing Win 98.
Heather P (163)
95006 2002-11-01 02:22:00 I'd suspect a memory problem. It may be being run too fast. Try using the BIOS setup to drop the "frontside" speed one step. This will slow your CPU, but it might let you install an OS. :D Once it works, you can try various combinations of settings to get the speed back up.

Your monitor just shows (or not ;-)) the text that is sent to it; it won't be the problem.
Graham L (2)
95007 2002-11-01 02:49:00 Thanks for your reply.
I have tried 3 different disks all with the same problem.
Also I have copied the win98 dir to the hard drive and run set-up from there. Same problem.
Chas2 (2406)
95008 2002-11-01 02:55:00 My suggestion would be start from scratch. Reformat the drive using a boot disk then try again.

If that doesn't work then I'd suspect the CD drive itself - see if you can borrow one from somewhere and use that.

A thought. Did you run fdisk first? If so, did you set your primary partition?
Heather P (163)
95009 2002-11-01 02:55:00 Thanks for your reply
I now suspect memory as well I did try changing the jumpers to run the dram at 100MHZ and the CPU at 100MHZ instead of both at 133MHZ
I got a bit furhter into the installation but not much.
I think I may need to return the DRAM and have it checked.
Unless it can be checked from a DOS utility anyone know if it can.
Chas2 (2406)
95010 2002-11-01 02:55:00 Check that the voltage to the cpu and/or ram is correct. crozier (2004)
95011 2002-11-01 03:58:00 Also most importantly check that Virus Warning in the BIOS is disabled, else the boot sector wont be written to, and thus no OS can be loaded. Terry Porritt (14)
95012 2002-11-01 04:12:00 Did it take 7 hours to copy the cabs to the HDD? Something seriously wrong there if it did. Sometimes, there can be problems with the bios control of CD drives (i.e. when you boot from a CD). I don't believe there isn't particularly good error recovery in the bios CD driver. Once the operating system is started, an installed CD driver takes over. Try setting the bios settings for the CD drive to PIO mode 0 and UDMA disabled. Once you can get the OS loaded, you can reset the bios settings for the CD, as the operating system CD driver is a lot more robust. At worst, you may have to try another CD drive. wuppo (41)
95013 2002-11-03 21:58:00 Thanks for your suggestions.
The 7 hours was to "extract" the cab files from the CD-RW to the HDD not copy them.
I have checked the memory with a DOS memory checker utility and it all checks out OK.
Yesterday I loaded DOS then Windows 3.1 from a set of floppies that all worked OK. So what does that tell me.
As you suggest it could be problems with the CD_RW I will try what you suggest.
Chas2 (2406)
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