So the SD card was working perfectly when you "started over again"? Did you test it with h2testw while it was empty?

Jorpho wrote on 2021-04-15, 15:46:

So the SD card was working perfectly when you "started over again"? Did you test it with h2testw while it was empty?

No I didn't even know I needed to do that. It's always worked fine. Its a small 4GB SD card. I did buy a 16gb sandisk that's on its way in the mail but I wanted to get my feet wet a bit. So you think the SD card somehow did something to the system.ini file?

It's hardly unknown for SD cards to have problems – though at least a 4GB card is unlikely to be a much smaller card that has been faked somehow.

Were you removing the card from the reader when you were installing the driver for your voodoo3? Also, what package were you using to install those drivers?

So you think the SD card somehow did something to the system.ini file?

I don't know exactly what you mean by "I couldn't go into safe mode... error, dos prompt... missing files", but that sure sounds like there were problems with more than just system.ini.

Jorpho wrote on 2021-04-15, 17:26:

It's hardly unknown for SD cards to have problems – though at least a 4GB card is unlikely to be a much smaller card that has be […]
Show full quote

It's hardly unknown for SD cards to have problems – though at least a 4GB card is unlikely to be a much smaller card that has been faked somehow.

Were you removing the card from the reader when you were installing the driver for your voodoo3? Also, what package were you using to install those drivers?

So you think the SD card somehow did something to the system.ini file?

I don't know exactly what you mean by "I couldn't go into safe mode... error, dos prompt... missing files", but that sure sounds like there were problems with more than just system.ini.

Sorry I was typing on my phone at the time, I will try to be more accurate here. Here is what I did:
(mobo is a 440bx epox mobo with Pentium 3 600mhz, slot 1, 512 MB SD RAM 133 running at 100mhz 2-2-2 timings)

First attempt
Used a 4GB SD card in an IDE to SD card reader. Reader is using primary IDE slot.
CD/DVD rom drive is IDE using 2nd IDE slot on Motherboard.
Booted to win 98 se OEM CD, Ran DOS with CD support from there.
Created new partition using Fdisk
rebooted PC and booted to CD again and back to DOS
Change directory to D:\win98\ and ran format c: /s
Then created directory on c: \windows\options\cabs
Copied files from D:\win98*.* to cabs
Installed windows from cabs folder on C:
Windows install completed
First thing windows did after booting, was detect my monitor, so I told it the driver was in the C:\windows\options\cabs folder.
Once in windows I tried installing voodoo 3 drivers 1.07.00-WHQL from Phils site. I ran setup.exe and was prompted to reboot.
I rebooted the system and I received an error saying system.ini was missing and that I needed to run windows 98 setup again.
I tried booting (using F8) and selecting DOS prompt. It said 2 files were missing or corrupted "C:\windows\dblbuff.sys" and "C:\windows\ifshlp.sys"
I tried booting into safemode and got a blue screen saying "VFAT Device Initialization Failed" and "A device or resource required by VFAT is not present or is unavailable... etc"

I thought it might have been a fluke so I tried again.
2nd attempt:
Did everything I did the first time except I installed the chipset drivers first.
After this, I rebooted the system and turned on DMA for the C drive.
I rebooted and same errors again. Missing system.ini.

I don't know if its just a crappy SD card, this is a strange error I've never seen before I I did lots of Tech support in the early 00's and used win98 extensively.

I'm going to take a stab at it being a crappy SD card as it was doing these 5 second freezes every so often. I have a spare micro 16GB SD card with an adaptor. I'll try that out.

Sly_Botts wrote on 2021-04-15, 18:07:

Change directory to D:\win98\ and ran format c: /s Then created directory on c: \windows\options\cabs Copied files from D:\win9 […]
Show full quote

Change directory to D:\win98\ and ran format c: /s
Then created directory on c: \windows\options\cabs
Copied files from D:\win98*.* to cabs
Installed windows from cabs folder on C:
Windows install completed

That's a strange way of doing things. Isn't c:\windows\options\cabs an important system directory? Do you regularly install Windows that way?

I suggest creating a directory like c:\win98cd and copying all the files from d:\win98 to c:\win98cd, and then installing Windows from that folder.

Problem solved. It was the sd card.

I installed windows that way so that I don't need the cd and so that when installing anything else in the future I won't need the cd, just direct install to the cabs folder.

Sly_Botts wrote on 2021-04-15, 21:28:

Problem solved. It was the sd card.

So, did h2testw find problems then? Or did you just have no problems with a fresh card?

I installed windows that way so that I don't need the cd and so that when installing anything else in the future I won't need the cd, just direct install to the cabs folder.

Understandable, but you could do that with a folder like c:\win98cd instead, and not have to worry about Windows deciding to do something random to a subfolder of the Windows directory. I suppose you would probably wind up with some duplicate files that way, but surely not that many?

Anyway, if it works for you, then I guess it works.

I just used a fresh card and had no problems

SD cards aren't that great for use as system drives. Doesn't mean they'll always give you trouble though.
With Win9x make sure to disable write-behind caching for SD cards since they (usually?) do not have an integrated cache and using the feature on them will often cause the system to stutter.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-04-16, 08:40:

SD cards aren't that great for use as system drives. Doesn't mean they'll always give you trouble though.
With Win9x make sure to disable write-behind caching for SD cards since they (usually?) do not have an integrated cache and using the feature on them will often cause the system to stutter.

Thanks for the advice! Done!

I got my SD card in the mail today. A Sandisk Ultra 80 MB/s 16GB. It's pretty snappy. Win 98 se installation and driver installation was pretty quick!

Awesome! Have fun with it! 😁