VXDs are drivers. Have you gone into safe mode and disabled some "!" devices? Have you REM'd out the TSRs in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT incase real-mode drivers cause a conflict? (Win98 can boot with these files blank)? Is your "DOS7" the actual MS-DOS 7 as it came from Windows 95/98 (and not some haphazard patchwork repack)?

The 486 part shouldn't matter (and before anyone argues about it to promote their tualatin auctions, i've win98se'd fine on my 100-160mhzs without 98lite)

I had this kind of crash. It cames from the RAM. They weren't firmly set in their slot.
In can also come from a bad power supply or a bad HDD.

Get another win98se iso with cd boot options.
I had trouble installing with 98 for awhile turned out I had bad sectors in the area where win98 wanted to install swapped hdd all sorted for that part 🤣

Greywolf1 wrote on 2024-11-04, 15:36:

Get another win98se iso with cd boot options.

486s can't el torito

Just sharing my woes incase it inspired a solution.
And it would be Lobito not torito unless you meant a load of bull 🤣

Greywolf1 wrote on 2024-11-04, 16:08:

And it would be Lobito not torito unless you meant a load of bull 🤣

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9660#El_Torito

Try copying the whole CD to the hard drive and install from there. 😀

dos7.1 copied off a ms cd. no! renamed, theres 2 rems in the config at install. cant even get to safe boot. have 2 98se copies. will have to find the 2nd copy and try that. plus get a new floppy usb drive. using cf cards. i can boot off 512mb but refuses to boot off a 2gb for what ever reason. it can see it in the bios ok and read it when its a d drive. i will drop out 1 ram stick and see that happens as well.

When you realise how much of a noob you are when it comes to computers when you don’t recognise basic terminology 🤣