The jumper method worked, thanks! Should be fine until I can update when in Windows.

Am having another issue though.

Does the windows 98 install not support USB inputs? My keyboard works fine in the BIOS but when the CD ROM starts and it asks me to select a boot device it defaults to HDD ( I can't change it) and I just get disk read error.

sketchus wrote:

The jumper method worked, thanks! Should be fine until I can update when in Windows.

Am having another issue though.

Does the windows 98 install not support USB inputs? My keyboard works fine in the BIOS but when the CD ROM starts and it asks me to select a boot device it defaults to HDD ( I can't change it) and I just get disk read error.

Is there anything in your BIOS about USB "legacy" support? If so, make sure that's on.

If not, get a PS/2 keyboard or use a USB/PS2 adapter if your keyboard supports it (most do). Make sure it's a purple (keyboard) or universal (usually grey or beige but those colors aren't always universal) one as a green mouse adapter won't work for a keyboard.

In Windows, you'll probably need to install drivers first, even for old USB 1.1 cards. Win9x did not ship with ANY USB drivers, not even in 98SE, as far as I remember. But some USB1.1 cards and even a small number of 2.0 cards can work in 98SE, and possibly some 1.1 cards might work in older versions.

In general, I don't recommend USB keyboards for older machines unless using a PS/2 adapter, because it can be flaky in general.

Perfect, I found a setting for USB support and changed it from OS to BIOS.

That let me do it.

I'll grab an adapter anyway, since they're so cheap.

D'oh, now I'm getting a problem where during installation it seems to hang on "File allocation table" during ScanDisk before the proper install starts.

Gets to 99% and seems to stop.

Tried installing directly from disk and also copying the files to C:\WIN98 and installing from there but it seems to be the same either way. Does this mean my HDD is shot?

I'll try forcing it to skip ScanDisk, but I don't know if this looks ideal for the future.

Better run a (bootable) HD diagnostic utility just in case. Ultimate Boot CD has a few on it, or you can find floppy images for a few programs out there.

Well I ran a tool and had no issues but I'm stuck again.

Windows installed fine, except on the first reboot I got Windows protection error.

Kept doing it so I tried with one RAM stick. Now for some reason none of my disc drives can be read no matter how I plug them in or how and my HDD just gets stuck on Verifying DMI pool. If I use a cable that detects my HDD and plug it straight into my disc drive it still doesn't detect it. So now I'm really stuck.

Tried a CMOS reset etc but no joy.

EDIT: OK, disc drives are back but I still get a DMI error when trying to boot from HDD. Will format next and see if that helps.

Sounds like you're having all the fun I had with my Windows 95 build. 🤣 I used a 20.4 GB Maxtor hard drive on a motherboard that was limited to 8GB drive sizes. Works perfectly fine with the overlay software. Also, it could be time to run a memory diagnostic utility like MemTest x86 (you can make a bootable CD-ROM that works, I used one earlier today to scrub through 5x 4GB DDR3 sticks and narrow the problem to one bad stick. That system is now back up to 16GB total memory with Windows 10).

If the RAM checks out fine, the drives work intermittently, and other unusual occurrences, maybe it's time to look at the caps on the board? Weird things like this happen when inadequate power is being supplied to controller chips and stuff. I know I skipped a lot of posts before, but if the MB is older than 10 years, it's probably due for a good recap job. I just had one done to an Athlon XP system board and man is it running smooth now. Expensive, though. I paid a guy to have it professionally done and the board just looks sexy now.

It certainly makes you appreciate how much easier (usually) it is to work with PCs today!

I managed to get another drive recognised in my system and it's currently formatting now in preperation for the install so I'm sort of hopeful that it was just the other drive and this one will work. No idea if that will be the case though.

If this does fail I will absolutely run a memtest next. If it's something like the caps I might be a bit buggered since I'm not sure I could get one done reasonably nearby.

EDIT:

A tiny bit more hopeful. This drive had no issues with the ScanDisk part.

Bugger, this HDD gives me a Bad Fault in MS DOS extender error

No it doesn't.

Seems like one stick of RAM is faulty.

And by faulty I mean 65000+ errors in memtest. 😐

But if this is the source of all the problems then it certainly could be worse.

It's working!

Installed Windows completely fine and now have it running, with sound (on both soundcards) and USB support 😀

Really thrilled.

Haven't done anything with DOS yet, is it considered better to run DOS within Windows 98 or reboot to DOS?

I'd say go play a few games and see if it remains stable 😀

sketchus wrote:

Haven't done anything with DOS yet, is it considered better to run DOS within Windows 98 or reboot to DOS?

Depends on the game. Feel free to try them in Windows, and if they don't work, just reboot to DOS. Depending on what games you may need to load different drivers, some games will need very little loaded, some will want an XMS driver, some will want an EMS driver, some will work with either an XMS or an EMS driver, etc. Check out PhilsComputerLab on Youtube (Phil is another member here; he uses the same username here) where he's given some resources to help people get started. For example he's shared some menus he created that allow you to select from certain drivers to load at boot time, which will help you run various games with their differing requirements.

But if you can get a game to work properly inside of Windows, that's fine. Performance might be a little lower particularly if you're a bit low on RAM but if you're playing games that don't stress your hardware it shouldn't be a big issue.

Alrighty thanks for the info. I'll probably try and stay within 98 if I can but I don't mind booting to DOS.

Unfortunately right now I don't have anything other than a DVD drive so I'll need to remedy that.

The chap I bought that RAM from agreed to send me another stick free of charge so that's useful although 128mb has been fine so far. I'm surprised how snappy Windows is.

Biggest issue I have at the moment is my ISA card in DOS games. It works fine in 98, and it sort of works in DOS within windows 98 except for DOOM I have music but no sound effects. Now the card did install itself with no drivers needed so it could be a case of needing to install proper drivers, or I've not configured the game correctly. I need to try more DOS games though

One other really possibly really stupid question. Is there anything shared between DOS inside of 98 and native? I know native can see the files in your C: drive etc but are drivers and so on shared?

Thanks.

Installing am ISA sound card in DOS often mostly just means setting certain environment variables (such as BLASTER) to contain some very basic information that tells games and other software where to write the audio data to (it's like you giving someone your address and them mailing you something to that address). You can often set the environment variable yourself if you don't want to run the installer if you know the name of the variable and the format of the data it should contain. The install also often includes utilities for the sound card which often include utilities to test the functionality of the card, and sometimes to change various settings of the card like changing reverb or chorus in an AWE32/64 or loading a soundfont. Also regarding the environment variable, you don't always even need that if a game lets or forces you [to] manually select parameters for the sound.

In any case, have you run the sound setup programs in the games like Doom? Did you use the right settings as far as IRQ, DMA and such go?

Also, go into your BIOS and disable any functionality you don't use. For example, serial ports (or com2 for people with serial mice on com1, but for you that won't be the case) and parallel port. This frees up IRQs and the more free IRQs you have, the easier a time you'll have configuring your system for gaming.

Alrighty, hopefully I can find some sort of driver to test my setup as that sounds like it would be the easiest way about going about it.

With regards to the IRQ, DMA etc, to be honest this is where I have to admit I just don't really know what I'm doing. I remember using DOS games in Windows when I was younger but I think it was only Command and Conquer and I have no idea how I set it up, so my knowledge about that kind of thing is very weak. How do I figure out which I'm even suppose to use?

I'm using an card with a Yamaha chip, and with DOOM I just left the sound settings on the default which was Soundblaster, Port 240, IRQ 7, and I can't honestly remember what the DMA was, but it was default.

I will go into the bios though, I distinctly remember seeing Serial ports and more in there so that should be no issue to disable.

if you aren't sure how to proceed in setting it up in DOS, the way to proceed will be to get an installer for the card and just go ahead and run that (but do disable that unused stuff in BIOS before this). Which card and/or which Yamaha chip do you have again? Did you go with the ATC-6631?

Yes it was the ATC card and the chip is Yamaha YMF719E-S.

From what I gather it's the chip that's the important part, right?

Installing the proper drivers worked perfectly, now the default settings worked under Windows 98.

When I reboot to DOS to try and play Doom though, everything works fine until I then go to launch DOOM. It just gives me an entirely black screen except for the - in the top left. I'm thinking there's probably something obvious I've missed?

sketchus wrote:

Well the PC switches in and the memory works etc but... […]
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Well the PC switches in and the memory works etc but...

This Mobo doesn't seem to support HDDs larger than 30 something GB. All I have is 40+. Damn.

Apparently a BIOS update will help but to do that you need a floppy drive which I don't have (other than in this PC).

Bugger.

As far as I know most of the 40GB IDE HDDs should have a jumper to limit their capacity to 32 GB, just to avoid that kind of problems. I suggest checking their jumper settings info (on the label, thru the net, etc.) to see if they have that option.