If you run a scandisk do you get any errors?
As your starting fresh from a new hard drive I would fdisk it and start with a nice freshly partitioned hard drive. Personally I prefer using a Win98 bootdisk and running fdisk from the PC it will actually be used in but this is just me and shouldn't make a difference really.

Thanks for your reply!

I already did one scandisk-run with good results, but no fdsik. I don't know how a new partition can help, but i have nothing to loose (and maybe i get a 'heureka'?). Using a Win98 Bootdisk is a good idea....
When the old seagate was alive the system ran stable, so maybe i should focus at the 'new' WD Caviar.

Edit:
I do not understand, why i could install dos and windows firstly (but with serious problems) and after the second trial it did not work any longer - neither being installed from floppy nor from cd.

Someone had a similar problem?

If you have faulty ram it might give you random errors like the ones you have been experiencing. Try testing each of your memory modules with memtest to make sure they're ok.

Although this is like a diary entry:

I wasn't lucky. The computer now only displays the bios-post after starting and then it hangs....

@MMaximus: I did a full cycle of testing all ram-sticks i could find. I tried to stick them in in all possible configurations and all different slots. No change at all.

What i did additional to the ram test:

- put all add-in cards (except the VGA) out
- cleard the CMOS-Data
- tried other processors (DX/DX2)
- replaced the drives (FDD/HDD) and the cables
- measured voltages from the power supply
- did a visual control of the mainboard

I surrender.
Think the machine is gone - i have no idea left and either the mainboard is the reason or every VGA/Soundcard/RAM/HDD/FDD i own is faulty.

This was my last 486 Board without any damage and nothing to fix before it can be used.. 😠

The last time I had trouble installing Windows on a 486 was probably some 20 years ago. It would freeze randomly during installation. The hard drive was faulty.

Did you ever get DOS 6.22 to boot up from the hdd?

Billyray520 wrote:

Did you ever get DOS 6.22 to boot up from the hdd?

Yes. The system was absolutely troublefree when suddenly the hard drive died (some weeks/months ago). I replaced it with another drive and could get DOS 6.22 running. The problems began with installing windows 3.11 and some drivers for VGA/Sound.
Firstly i could install windows 3.11 (vanilla) on DOS 6.22.
Trying to install a driver for the AWE32 (re-)produced some crashes.
Trying to install a driver for the VGA did the same.
Trying to install windows 3.11 on a freshly formatted drive after that was no longer possible (i do not understand that).
This was when i opened this thread.....

Step by step the machine was going down since then and ended up at only bios-posting now (it counts the RAM and stops soon after).

See for yourself and feel free to comment 😵

Perhaps the IDE controller is the culprit here (maybe the broken HDD took it down with it)? Try disabling every single onboard device but the floppy controller and boot a DOS 6.22 floppy.

alexanrs wrote:

Perhaps the IDE controller is the culprit here (maybe the broken HDD took it down with it)? Try disabling every single onboard device but the floppy controller and boot a DOS 6.22 floppy.

Thank you - it probably would be a hot try....
There is another problem too that appeared that moment (waaahhhhh...): The keyboard doesn't work anymore (i used an old DIN - type and checked it with a new PS/2 one and an adapter).

I cannot believe this.... it's that crazy and woeful that it is making me (ughh)....

Edit: Thread can be closed.... thanks a lot for any input