Can't get Win 98 to load

[bonz_dragon]

I've been having this problem for a couple weeks now. I now don't know if it's a drive, motherboard of software problem.

The board is an OEM MS6367 with ver 1.2 bios and an nVidia chipset on it. The OS is an OEM CD Win 98SE.

I've tried 2 different drives in this thing, 1 a Seagate 13gig the other a WD8.4gig, with all sorts of different error mesg. The most repeating one is failure writing drive c:/ followed by 2 copies of Fat32 that don't match or no FAT file.

I've had no problem fdisk, format and installing Windows with these drives into another machine. Even tried formatting in the other machine then moving it.

So far I've changed boot disk, floppy drive, IDE cable, CD drive, jumpers from master to CS back to master. I once got it to load to the registration screen to where it needs to restart and after it restarts it's back to the beginning of setup.

Right now it has a WD 850meg drive that I used to check the board with and Windows loaded w/o a hitch.

Any ideas?

[Eric Legge]

If you have the motherboard's manual, check to make sure that all of the settings are properly set. You can download a manual from http://www.msi.com.tw

Make sure that all of the cards are properly seated, etc, and that there is nothing, such as a loose standoff screw, shorting the motherboard.

I would try entering the BIOS and setting all of the IDE options to Auto, and the BIOS settings to the failsafe, default, or setup settings.

I would have only the motherboard, RAM, video card, processor, HDD, and CD-ROM drive installed.

Eric,
http://www.legge40.freeserve.co.uk/BuyerBeware.htm

[OlegB]

I would also swap the memory. I've had a bad memory stick give me problems that seem unrelated to memory. In fact, some very similar to what you are describing now.

Dont use k-byte.

[Johnny Fist]

How much RAM do you have? I think anything over 512Mb gives windows 98 coniption fits.

[bonz_dragon]

Right now this board is using all Onboard perfs; video, sound, lan. One stick Kingston 128meg DDR 2100. So it can't be a lose card. The memory just came out of another MSI board when I upgraded it to PC2700.
I had the manual already downloaded so as to set the jumpers and identify pins. Last night I reset the cmos and booted from a floppy and entered Bios, everything was at default and auto detect drives. When I quit and saved and it restarted it went wacko, gave a check sum error then a mac error so I shut it down. Reinstalled the WD 850meg drive and it booted right up. Reslaved the 13 gig Seagate and it reads it just fine that way.

So why will it boot and run perfectly with the small drive but not let me install Windows on the larger drive?

[bonz_dragon]

Thanks everyone,
Following BPBs advice from another thread it has been resolved.
Downloaded WD utility then scaned, zeroed, and then ran Utility setup from WD.
Windows is now on the drive and everything seems to be working fine.
Never had this much trouble installing Win 98SE,