win98 second edition probs

[desmocat]

man. i am having some problems. here are the specs on my system:
abit bh6 m.b
300a o/c to 450
128 Mb pc100 ram
ati xpert98 8Mb agp
modem blaster 56k
soundblaster 16 soundcard
8.4 gig maxtor
13.6 gig maxtor
toshiba 40x cd-rom.
to start with,I had win98 on the 8.4 and it was running fine,(it was peg-legged http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif,but i went legit and bought a full version and that's when the following started:
I went to install win 98se on the small h.d after a re-format because of a boo-boo when I tried to install linux. Reformat went ok loaded 98 se (full version) and everything was ok. Next afternoon, powered up and got a windows protection error,(that's all the screen said)went into safe mode,
and it told me to shut down the computer, then it went into auto shutdown. It said that windows didn't finish loading on the previous attempt. This happens several times in a row, then it will let me start up normal. After a couple of days, I wiped the 8.4 and format/c'd the 13.6 h.d.
I installed it on the 13.6, went off without a hitch, all it asked for was the driver for the modem,which went in without a problem.
Got on the net, surfed a little while and then shut down, and thought, i'll see if it gives any probs now that it is on a brand new drive. Yup, upon power-up, same story, windows protection error! boots to safe mode, then I restarted it and it loaded o.k
This is driving me nuts, thats why I am asking for a little help from you guys. I don't know if it makes any diffrence, but the 13.6 is dma-66 and the 8.4 is dma-33. (motherboard supports both)Also got an updated driver for the video card when I had it on the 8.4,because I've seen video drivers make windows act kind of flakey if they were not relatively new.If anybody has any advice or needs more info, I'll be back later today after some zzz's(night-shift http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif)
thanks in advance, mp

[Susan]

Are you bringing that chip back down to 300 prior to reinstall? I've seen posts where it's necessary.

[desmocat]

Susan, I haven't backed my chip down yet, but thats a start. This afternoon, I tried to start it up and the first time I did, it wants to go into safe mode,then I can immediately do a restart and it boots up fine after that. I will mess with it more on monday morning when I get off from work.Thanks for the input http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Axel]

What does device manager tell you - what conflicts does it list?

Have you updated your virus definitions and done a sweep of your system lately?

Have you done a thorough scandisk and a full optimization defrag with fix errors checked in safe mode with your screen saver turned off lately?

Those won't hurt and there's about a 20% chance that might fix the issue.

[desmocat]

Hey Axel, whats going on.. I dont get any conflicts on the device manager,and when I load my drivers for the modem, they go in without a hitch. I used the maxblast utility to do a low level format on the hard drive and then booted with the win98se boot disk,and set the partition, made it active and all that good stuff.It installs fine, and even when does the shutdown thing several times during the install process, it will boot up fine during those restarts, it only does the protection error after I shut it down after it is completely installed.
I have to work tonight, and tomorrow morning when I get home,I will try and install it again.The virus checker is the mcaffe that came with it and I did a scan before and nothing showed up. To susan, backing down the chip to 300 didn't help,thanks for the suggestion anyway. This will not get the best of me,grrrrr! I will try that stuff you told me Axel and I'll get back with you here or by email. Thanks for the help..mp one thing I thought about, if something is messed up with the boot disk,could this be a cause of this? Just wondering..Axel, it also did the same thing on my brand new 13.6 gig maxtor with nothing on it when I loaded 98se on that drive.

[This message has been edited by desmocat (edited 01-31-2000).]

[RayH]

I had an FIC 503+ board that didn't like low level formats at all...had the same problem. It would load for a bit of time with a regular format! c:/ format/s/v