VOGONS

Search

Common searches

Windows 95 Setup on Cyrix 5x86 100 GB and CF Card

Topic actions

First post, by skel2raw

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Hi guys,

I am trying to setup my retro rig but I am encountering a Win95 setup problem I do not know how to resolve. The hardware I am using:

- MSI MS4145
- Cyrix 5x86 100 GB
- Transcend CF Card 8 GB

I created a dedicated 2GB FAT16 DOS/Win 3.11 partition. Installed everything and no issues so far.
I went over with a second 2GB FAT32 partition for Win95 with USB support. I started the setup and it went through to 100%. After the setup restarts te pc and tries to finalize the setup, I always get a blue screen saying that setup is not able to write on the hard disk and that there might be a dataloss.

Any ideas why I am getting this error message and how I can resolve it?

Thx!

Reply 2 of 5, by chinny22

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Could be a number of things.

What did you use to partition the drive?
Dos/Windows doesn't like how some partition software works. You can test this with Win9x's fdisk and create a 2GB primary partition without enabling large disk support (forces Fat16)
Exit go back into fdisk enabling large disk support and create a extended drive and a logical partition which will be FAT32.

8GB is right on the limit of what 486's can handle so even if it's detected in BIOS good chance its still buggy and cant address the drive properly.
You can test this theory with a smaller CF card or install Drive overlay software.

It also might be the CF card, only 1 way to test that!

Reply 4 of 5, by creepingnet

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Know it's resolved, just throwing my ideas out there....

I find any drive over 80GB on a 486 only works if you have one of those fast controllers capable of PIO4 and a much newer DDO like Seatools 9 My 486 Desktop which has a PTI-255W Super I/O card (dual IDE, super fast VLB card) had a 128 and later a 256GB SSD in it and it worked with Windows 95 and SCREAMS (34s boot time). But those same drives would not work even with an overlay in my NEC Versa laptops, even the Pentium 75. YMMV depending on the system and hard disk controller. Both my Versa laptops use 80GB Seagate Momentous 2.5" Drives in them, which I've also used with adapters in the desktop before.

~The Creeping Network~
My Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/creepingnet
Creepingnet's World - https://creepingnet.neocities.org/
The Creeping Network Repo - https://www.geocities.ws/creepingnet2019/

Reply 5 of 5, by skel2raw

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Well.. it is partially resolved it seems... 😁
On the 4GB CF card I am able to install Windows 95 without any issues. But now when I try to install win3.11 after installing DOS, I get the Win3.11 version of the same error. Setup says it cannot write on the hard disk.
So I am assuming now that the Transcend CF cards I am using are somehow not fully compatible with this type of usage.
Any recommendations for a CF card that might work?
My board has only PCI and ISA, so no way to use a VLB I/O card...

Also I figured that boards with an Amibios cause more issues than boards with an Awardbios. Do you guys know. whether I can just use the Awardbios from a similar board?

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window