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Win98 fails to start

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Lukeno1, 2011/09/10.

  1. 2011/09/10
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    At the moment, on my Pentium 4 machine, I am unable to boot Windows 98, as MSDOS.SYS appears to be corrupt (garbled characters inside it), and also to keep deleting itself as well, even when I put in a working version. Any ideas?
     
    Lukeno1,
    #1
  2. 2011/09/10
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Try re-installing Win 98 over itself.
     
    PeteC,
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  4. 2011/09/11
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Trying to, setup is stuck trying to find PnP devices... have no idea what to do :L
     
    Lukeno1,
    #3
  5. 2011/09/11
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Format and a clean install may be your best bet.
     
    PeteC,
    #4
  6. 2011/09/11
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    It's quite probable that I'll end up doing that at some point, as I have no ideas whatsoever as to what could cause this... nor have I ever seen any Windows installation hang up at this stage! :L
     
    Lukeno1,
    #5
  7. 2011/09/11
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    PeteC,
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  8. 2011/09/11
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    No faults found on either the extended or short tests.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #7
  9. 2011/09/11
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Maybe malware at work? Doesn't explain why install hangs at detecting pnp devices though.

    You could try setting BIOS to defaults - long shot.
     
    PeteC,
    #8
  10. 2011/09/11
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Setting BIOS settings to defaults would knock out one of the IDE channels, causing the whole thing to not go anywhere (and also knocks out USB support). I did run a virus scan from within XP earlier (which still boots as well as it ever does off that machine), and found nothing.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #9
  11. 2011/09/11
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Ahh - it's a dual boot system - that might explain why the Win 98 install is hanging. Generally speaking the older OS should be loaded first as I'm sure you are aware :)
     
    PeteC,
    #10
  12. 2011/09/11
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I am aware, hence why I had initially disconnected the system drive containing Win2K and XP, and had this issue even then. ;)
     
    Lukeno1,
    #11
  13. 2011/09/16
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Reformatting worked fine, now I have a new issue in that I cannot currently see the FAT32 partition of the XP/Win2K drive in Windows 98, despite the fact that XP shows it correctly. I can see the NTFS partitions (thanks to Paragon NTFS for Win98), but not this one partition - and couldn't see it even before I put the Paragon NTFS program in, and, at 110 GB, it falls under the 127/137 GB limit.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #12

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