Modem installation fault

Hi. Hope someone can help with this. Just installed fresh W98 after formatting. When try to load the USR modem driver using the USR Install program, get "USR has caused an invalid page fault in dirapi.dll." This happens even if I try to load the modem driver immediately after fresh Windows install. Both W98 and USR are being loaded off their original CDs, the same ones I used to load them last year.

I don't understand how this can be. I did change some BIOS settings a few months ago, but system worked fine afterward.

Does this mean one of the two CDs is damaged? Has happened on multiple reinstalls.

Alternatively, is there a way to load the drivers without using the USR installation program?

The USR site has a driver to download, but the link to it, of course, doesn't work.

Thanks.

 

Was this via the "install new hardware "? I have seen lots of hardware that won't install probably this way. What happens if you ignore the "new hardware detected ", and install via setup from the CD?

 

No matter which way, the page fault with dirapi.dll halts progress. There is an .inf file on the disk which I think is meant to install the driver manually, but it doesn't do anything when I try to run it. There are also two .vxd files which I believe are the drivers, but I don't see a way to install them without using the USR Installer, which always leads to the page fault.

At this point, the computer and W98 do not recognize the modem, which I believe was the case last year when I first installed them, because the modem will run only on com5, and needs the contents of the setup disc to configure it (I think).

I've also tried extracting the dirapi.dll from the W98 disc and putting in several places in the Windows folder, but the same error continues. I also found a copy of the driver on a download site, containing the .vxd and .inf files, but I can't get them to do anything.

Thanks.

 

Try right clicking on the .inf file, then select install. Double clicking it normally won't do anything.

 

Yes, have been right-clicking on install, but the file just sits there. I don't know if it's because the computer can't see the modem -- maybe the program doesn't do anything if no modem is seen.

Would W98 normally configure com5 on it's own? I recall last time having trouble making W98 find the modem, but I thought it was solved by using the USR disc. This time though I'm getting the page fault. Thanks

 

I don't know if modems and macromedia are linked, but here's what MS has to say about the page fault.

MS

 

But the bizarre part is that W98 is being loaded off it's original MS CD, so how could any file, including dirapi.dll, be corrupted at installation? Reinstalling W98 after reformatting makes no difference.

Does anyone know why an .inf file would fail to attempt to install? It's written in Visual Basic, which should be read by w98, and should run on a fresh install of Windows. Or am I off base?

 

If there is an inf file, try using the add new hardware wizrd, as this is what it likes. Make sure you specify the exact location on the CD.

Also, before running the wizard, go to device manager (Control Panel -> System -> 2nd tab) and delete any and all modems that are there. It could be that windows tried to install it's own driver for the modem, which would obviously not be the correct one.

Hope this helps!