Hi, I'm afraid I'm not experienced enough to give a proper solution.

However, there are a few ideas that come to mind.

The setup seems to halt at some point when Windows 3.1 based part is still being used (Mini.Cab).
Or, it's just after Windows 9x has been loaded and has continued running Windows Setup.

Maybe there's some difference between the Win31/DOS based setup part and the Win 9x native setup part, thus.

Windows 3.1 uses DOS/Smartdrive to see the HDD, whereas Windows 9x tries to load its own 32-Bit, Protected-Mode drivers for HDD access.

Troubleshooting
- Remove one 256 MB module
- Try to get an older 32-Bit Windows installed first (95, 98, 98SE), then upgrade
- Try installing Me on another PC first and install the HDD drivers for target PC.
Manually, if needed. Yellow marks in Device Manager are okay, since the IDE controller isn't installed.
After installation, shut down and put the HDD back in target PC.

The problem is, that the HDD settings (drive geometry) should be same in both PCs.
That used to be an issue with 386/486 PCs using CHS.
With LBA, though, this should normally work without bigger issues.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-11-08, 20:13:

Hi, I'm afraid I'm not experienced enough to give a proper solution. […]
Show full quote

Hi, I'm afraid I'm not experienced enough to give a proper solution.

However, there are a few ideas that come to mind.

The setup seems to halt at some point when Windows 3.1 based part is still being used (Mini.Cab).
Or, it's just after Windows 9x has been loaded and has continued running Windows Setup.

Maybe there's some difference between the Win31/DOS based setup part and the Win 9x native setup part, thus.

Windows 3.1 uses DOS/Smartdrive to see the HDD, whereas Windows 9x tries to load its own 32-Bit, Protected-Mode drivers for HDD access.

Troubleshooting
- Remove one 256 MB module
- Try to get an older 32-Bit Windows installed first (95, 98, 98SE), then upgrade
- Try installing Me on another PC first and install the HDD drivers for target PC.
Manually, if needed. Yellow marks in Device Manager are okay, since the IDE controller isn't installed.
After installation, shut down and put the HDD back in target PC.

The problem is, that the HDD settings (drive geometry) should be same in both PCs.
That used to be an issue with 386/486 PCs using CHS.
With LBA, though, this should normally work without bigger issues.

Installation is not the most difficult thing. The real pain begins after it. For example, yesterday I tried to install drivers for SB Live! 5.1, I tried different ones, one of them hung at 95%, another on the Windows Drivers installation window, the third one was installed, but I had no sound and some applications did not work, when I tried to run them, I got the Failed to load plugins error. Initially, they refused to install at all, because some files were not in the Windows/Options/Install folder and the installation asked me to insert a disk with Windows Me files. I had to manually search for them and copy them there. At some point, Window cleared my registry again (I think it was after installing Windows Installer 2.0), but this time the nvidia driver worked (although it was reset last time), but some programs didn't start again. I also often got errors that some DLL files did not open. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong..

Using single 256MB stick is going to be helpful, Windows 9x installation with 512MB or more tends not to work.

What are your SATA settings in BIOS ? SATA pots have to be set into IDE compatible mode, AHCI, RAID and "enhanced" will not work and cause problems. There's RLOEW's SATA driver but I have not managed to actually get it working on my hardware nor do I know what are the steps necessary to actually allow installation in SATA mode in the first place. Symptoms described suggest there's a problem with SATA ports configuration.

Tiido wrote on 2023-11-09, 14:34:

Using single 256MB stick is going to be helpful, Windows 9x installation with 512MB or more tends not to work.

What are your SATA settings in BIOS ? SATA pots have to be set into IDE compatible mode, AHCI, RAID and "enhanced" will not work and cause problems. There's RLOEW's SATA driver but I have not managed to actually get it working on my hardware nor do I know what are the steps necessary to actually allow installation in SATA mode in the first place. Symptoms described suggest there's a problem with SATA ports configuration.

SATA Mode is set to IDE

It appears to be a quite late board for WinME, but drivers are advertised on the SiS website. So assuming that the drivers really do work, did you try installing the motherboard chipset drivers first from SiS? It looked like they had both SATA and IDE driver packages, but I have no idea what it would be like to deal with this board if that the downloads are correct and working for WinME. If you have trouble, try things from safe mode. And when it comes to each card, install one at a time until you hit a problem. Agree on backing down to 256MB as well until things get stable with proper drivers.

It seems like 256MB did help to make the installation easier. Still got the "Your multi-function device.." error, perhaps something to do with the SATA drive? But still, the system is not stable at all. I have often Explorer crashes; the system is locking up randomly every time (after opening folders or settings), it is simply unusable 🙁