RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2024-10-30, 12:34:

This maybe?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126366132159?mkcid … emis&media=COPY

Oh, awesome. Thanks. Looks like I wasn't wording it correctly. ^^;

I’ve fancied one of them seemed handy having 999 floppy images on one usb stick specially if you can get a few of the smaller sized sticks

Ordered myself one. Along with another HDD, PSU, and replacement CPU fan. 😀

Just need to settle on a sound card and get some speakers.

I want to get a workspace setup in my garage so I can tinker more I can’t keep assembling and disassembling everything every time I want to play.
Wife said dining room table is off limits 🤣

Having 999 floppy images I can have the old selection of games like flightmare, burgertime, conquest, digger, boulder dash , Bruce Lee, loderunner, evolution, etc.

Greywolf1 wrote on 2024-10-30, 20:00:

Having 999 floppy images I can have the old selection of games like flightmare, burgertime, conquest, digger, boulder dash , Bruce Lee, loderunner, evolution, etc.

Goteks are cheap enough I put one in every PC I have, I'm not doing anything fancy with mine just boot disks or driver disks so find the stock gotek firmware good enough.
What I've learnt though is keep disk 00 as a scratch disk, as you'll format it by mistake when you forget to change the disk mid project!
I've got a txt file on disk 99 which is the index of the other disks eg
Disk 95 = Win95 boot disk
Disk 98, Win98 boot disk
(I also try and assign meaningful numbers where appropriate)

Okay, I've replaced the fan on the CPU. What I failed to do was a before and after check. I can't quite tell if it's made a difference. Maybe a bit?

Here's the recording again of the old fan: https://imgur.com/1jKNoej

And the new one: https://imgur.com/a/2x4MG2C

I suspect I will end up investing in that controller adapter.

Received my Yamaha speakers. 😁 Jesus, they've got some wellie! I think they even put my main computer's speakers and subwoofer to shame. 🤣 As the PC didn't come with an audio cable, I'll need to get one. Plus, I'm out of plug sockets on the extension for the subwoofer, so I can't plug that in until I can find/get an adapter. Hopefully once that's connected up, the left and right speakers will work correctly. What I mean by that is, as they are, the volume knobs aren't doing anything. No adjusting turns the volume down, so they're pretty loud unless I adjust the volume in the audio properties.

Okay, first major cock-up... I suspected there would be something I'd overlook due to my clumsiness. >_< Looks like I can't make use of the floppy emulator. The one thing I overlooked was the lack of spare bays/front panels in the tower. So there's literally no where it can go. Apart from investing in a bigger ATX tower, which isn't a priority at the moment, there's not a great deal I can do with it. So I'm going to have to get an external floppy drive anyway.

Second major cock-up... This is why I need someone to literally spell things out to me because I'm bloody useless. >_< Bought another ATX PSU, but it's a mini ATX PSU I need. So the new one is too big to fit. D:

Third cock-up - no idea what I've done, but now Windows refuses to boot up. It takes ages to do anything and then asks for a Boot disk, which I don't have at the moment. 🙁

All that's different really is that the first HDD is in the second bay and the new one in the top. The top one isn't even plugged in. So unless the boot order has somehow screwed up...? The jumper for the new HDD was placed in the Master, which took me ages to get it out, so could that be why...?

EDIT: Not sure what's going on. Even with or without the jumper, the BIOS isn't recognising the original main HDD anymore.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-11-02, 14:20:

Third cock-up - no idea what I've done, but now Windows refuses to boot up. It takes ages to do anything and then asks for a Boot disk, which I don't have at the moment. 🙁

All that's different really is that the first HDD is in the second bay and the new one in the top. The top one isn't even plugged in. So unless the boot order has somehow screwed up...? The jumper for the new HDD was placed in the Master, which took me ages to get it out, so could that be why...?

EDIT: Not sure what's going on. Even with or without the jumper, the BIOS isn't recognising the original main HDD anymore.

Do you have a hard drive plugged into a shared IDE cable but no power to the drive? I've seen cases where that caused an issue with hard drive detection.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-11-02, 16:02:

Do you have a hard drive plugged into a shared IDE cable but no power to the drive? I've seen cases where that caused an issue with hard drive detection.

It's okay now, I've managed to get it sorted. I think I'd connected an IDE cable the wrong way round. ^^;

Also, I'm not sure what I have exactly, but I take it, if I were to get a couple more IDE ribbons and/or an extension, is there something I need to check and keep in mind first? Definitely need to double check these things before I get any.

Ordered some IDE, 4 pin molex connectors, and some IDE extensions anyway.

I don't suppose anyone can recommend some software/drivers I should gather to install? As I can't use the floppy extension at the moment, I might just have to put a load of stuff onto a CD instead. Obviously there's up to date graphics drivers, sound drivers once I get the sound card... Apart from that, I'm drawing a blank.

Typically for Win 98 drivers I would install chipset drivers, graphic card, sound card(s), DirectX (which version you plan to use), and the USB storage driver (for flash drives).

If you're making a CD of drivers, you might also want to include programs for benchmarking or general utilities.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-11-02, 22:53:

Typically for Win 98 drivers I would install chipset drivers, graphic card, sound card(s), DirectX (which version you plan to use), and the USB storage driver (for flash drives).

If you're making a CD of drivers, you might also want to include programs for benchmarking or general utilities.

Ahh, yes. That makes me think of Win/7Zip actually. The latest version of DirectX will probably be 9. Or 9.0c. I'll need to find out what the USB storage device is.

Oh. That's helped me remember QuickTime as well.

Does anyone know what the latest driver version for the Nvidia Riva TNT is? I'm not sure if the one I've found is.

Re the Floppy emulator, while setting up the PC just run it with the case off and drive hanging out. Once the PC is up and running, I find I hardly use the floppy anyway if you have networking and / or CD drive setup.

DirectX (in a nice table format)
http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/directx.htm

TNT drivers
While not the latest other people have benchmarked and found 30.82 give the best performance for a Win98 PC
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/win9x-30 … QEaq9-9u-PxxOJI

I'd also include...

Latest Intel Chipset driver for BX motherboards
https://theretroweb.com/chipsets/283#driver

instmsia.exe aka Windows Installer 2.0 (required for certain programs, e.g. daemon tools)
Daemon tools
Both can be found here https://www.philscomputerlab.com/daemon-tools … windows-98.html

And you archive program of choice

chinny22 wrote on 2024-11-04, 00:20:

Re the Floppy emulator, while setting up the PC just run it with the case off and drive hanging out. Once the PC is up and runni […]
Show full quote

Re the Floppy emulator, while setting up the PC just run it with the case off and drive hanging out. Once the PC is up and running, I find I hardly use the floppy anyway if you have networking and / or CD drive setup.

DirectX (in a nice table format)
http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/directx.htm

TNT drivers
While not the latest other people have benchmarked and found 30.82 give the best performance for a Win98 PC
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/win9x-30 … QEaq9-9u-PxxOJI

I'd also include...

Latest Intel Chipset driver for BX motherboards
https://theretroweb.com/chipsets/283#driver

instmsia.exe aka Windows Installer 2.0 (required for certain programs, e.g. daemon tools)
Daemon tools
Both can be found here https://www.philscomputerlab.com/daemon-tools … windows-98.html

And you archive program of choice

Honestly, I wish I thought outside the box a bit more sometimes. Literally. ^^; But yes, I could just have it hanging out of the case. I still need to wait for the additional cables to arrive first of course.

I've been reading through this thread - Generic Win98SE Installation & Setup Guide. I believe they list a few of the same things you mention, particularly the DirectX versions. Thanks for the link for those Riva TNT drivers. I think that thread also contains that link, but I couldn't tell what device it was for. The links appear to be dead, sadly. But I'll try looking up that version. 😀

I've added a Windows 98 folder with every program/driver I've downloaded that I'll either burn to a disc or put on a USB. That also includes Bus Master ATAPI drivers, the latest BIOS, the drivers for the sound card I've ordered, Intel chipset drivers, and a few additional ones such as the PS/2 rate, FreeWheel 2.4, and EndItAll.

I need some advice regarding the IDE 40-pin cables. I'm not having much luck and I'm still missing something. I've ordered myself some additional female to female ribbons and I've just had a couple extra male to female ribbons. However, all that's going to do, is increase the length of a single ribbon that may be connected to a HDD or the CD-ROM. I need a splitter. Something where I can chain multiple female connectors so I can connect the CD-ROM, the floppy drive, the floppy emulator, HDD 1 and HDD 2. I have 3 male IDE connectors on the motherboard. I don't necessarily need to chain all those devices to a single IDE connector on the motherboard, but I need to chain 2-3 of those devices at the very least. Am I right in saying I need some male to male connectors, too? Or is there some kind of adapter I've overlooked? Thanks.