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MS-DOS games give black screen on load, computer stuck in boot loop (Win98SE)

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First post, by koifish

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I've edited my original post to reflect changes in my situation.

This is a problem for DOS programs that run within Windows 98 as well, they load a black screen, but I can exit them by using Alt+Enter to go to windowed mode. It gives an error and says it cannot run the program in Windowed mode. At that point all I can do is close the program out. Unfortunately I cannot seem to do this when the program is running under MS-DOS mode.

The biggest issue is that after trying to run a DOS program in MS-DOS mode, the system has gotten itself into a boot loop. I can access BIOS but if I try to boot Windows 98 then I only get the same "Windows is now running your MS-DOS program" message and then a black screen. If I press ctrl-alt-del here then it resets the machine, but then goes back to the same "Windows 98 is now running your MS-DOS program" and loads the same black screen. I cannot boot back into Windows 98 desktop.

I am not seeing a loss of video signal, as the monitor still remains active (no standby mode message, power light stays green and doesn't change to amber). Rather it just appears to be sending a black screen.

Here's my system specs from BIOS:

Pentium 4 @ 1.6GHz
512MB 266MHz RAM
nvidia GeForce 200 MX
Gateway on-board sound card
3.5" DS/DD Floppy Drive
CD-RW Drive (not sure on speeds but probably not relevant anyway)

Mine was a thrift store special and I found it as-is, save for the RAM which I added.

What should I do to resolve these issues? Thanks for any help!

Last edited by koifish on 2016-07-25, 05:51. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 4, by koifish

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eL_PuSHeR wrote:

Hello.

Be advised that Abandonware isn't supported here.

My apologies, I only wished to indicate the exact version I was running, in order to prevent any possible confusion over another, similar release. I have revised my original post to reflect change in situation.

Reply 3 of 4, by Jorpho

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I think I've heard of this problem before.
Re: Booting Dos from floppy questions

But it's easy enough to fix -- boot off a boot floppy and delete, edit, or rename the C:\autoexec.bat and C:\config.sys to get out of the reboot loop. The original config.sys and autoexec.bat from before you made the shortcut will have been renamed to config.wos and autoexec.wos when you used the shortcut so they won't be lost.

Also:

Mine was a thrift store special and I found it as-is, save for the RAM which I added.

The topic is a matter of some debate, but I find Win9x starts to get unstable with 512 MB of RAM. You may want to consider using HIMEMX to slightly reduce the RAM available to Win9x, maybe to 448 MB or so.

Reply 4 of 4, by MrEWhite

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Jorpho wrote:
I think I've heard of this problem before. Re: Booting Dos from floppy questions […]
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I think I've heard of this problem before.
Re: Booting Dos from floppy questions

But it's easy enough to fix -- boot off a boot floppy and delete, edit, or rename the C:\autoexec.bat and C:\config.sys to get out of the reboot loop. The original config.sys and autoexec.bat from before you made the shortcut will have been renamed to config.wos and autoexec.wos when you used the shortcut so they won't be lost.

Also:

Mine was a thrift store special and I found it as-is, save for the RAM which I added.

The topic is a matter of some debate, but I find Win9x starts to get unstable with 512 MB of RAM. You may want to consider using HIMEMX to slightly reduce the RAM available to Win9x, maybe to 448 MB or so.

W98 works perfect with 512MB here 😜

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