Sorry, when I have a moment, I'll read through your replies/explanations. Kind of juggling tasks at the moment. ^^; I have the drivers for the sound card installed, but I can't seem to find anything for an additional device that's been added called PCI Input Controller. I've tried the Windows 98 image and the Audigy driver image, but it's still been unable to install anything for it.

Also, is there an option somewhere to re-enable ScanDisk if the PC is shut down incorrectly. I think I did something, or disabled an option, and that's why it's not doing it any more, but I can't remember what. If I go to Start > Run and type in msconfig, the Advanced options don't have ScanDisk disabled or anything. Thanks.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-10-15, 13:54:

Sorry, when I have a moment, I'll read through your replies/explanations. Kind of juggling tasks at the moment. ^^; I have the drivers for the sound card installed, but I can't seem to find anything for an additional device that's been added called PCI Input Controller. I've tried the Windows 98 image and the Audigy driver image, but it's still been unable to install anything for it.

Also, is there an option somewhere to re-enable ScanDisk if the PC is shut down incorrectly. I think I did something, or disabled an option, and that's why it's not doing it any more, but I can't remember what. If I go to Start > Run and type in msconfig, the Advanced options don't have ScanDisk disabled or anything. Thanks.

Honestly, I don't remember how to cancel ScanDisk.
But if you're constantly getting disk errors, it could mean your PCI clock is significantly overclocked.
IDE is clocked from the same source.

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-15, 14:47:

Honestly, I don't remember how to cancel ScanDisk. But if you're constantly getting disk errors, it could mean your PCI clock is […]
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DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-10-15, 13:54:

Sorry, when I have a moment, I'll read through your replies/explanations. Kind of juggling tasks at the moment. ^^; I have the drivers for the sound card installed, but I can't seem to find anything for an additional device that's been added called PCI Input Controller. I've tried the Windows 98 image and the Audigy driver image, but it's still been unable to install anything for it.

Also, is there an option somewhere to re-enable ScanDisk if the PC is shut down incorrectly. I think I did something, or disabled an option, and that's why it's not doing it any more, but I can't remember what. If I go to Start > Run and type in msconfig, the Advanced options don't have ScanDisk disabled or anything. Thanks.

Honestly, I don't remember how to cancel ScanDisk.
But if you're constantly getting disk errors, it could mean your PCI clock is significantly overclocked.
IDE is clocked from the same source.

Oh no, quite the opposite. If I force shutdown incorrectly, it no longer runs through ScanDisk anymore.

Okay, I’ve gone back and read your explanations; that does make a bit more sense. I’ll most likely re-read them over a few times, but I think I get the general gist. Thanks. 🙂 But yeah, I certainly don’t need the AGP and PCI buses overclocked.

On another note, I’ve come across another issue, though hopefully it won’t take too long to figure out. Even though the card is recognised and the drivers are installed, I’m not getting any option to toggle between audio devices. With my other motherboard I could. I could choose between the onboard sound or my Yamaha ISA card. At the moment, it only lists the Yamaha.

Even in the Soundblaster mixer/manager that was installed with the drivers, there's no device listed in a drop-down menu. So I can't help but wonder if I've installed the right drivers...? These were the ones from Phil's Computer Lab. The CD image, to be exact.

What do you have in the device manager under audio/multimedia devices? Are there any other unknown devices except PCI Input Controller? I'd suggest disabling the Yamaha card in device manager until you get the Creative card working properly.

Install a tool such as Everest that can list installed PCI devices, it'll make debugging this much easier.

Enable Scandisk at boot: edit c:\msdos.sys, AutoScan=1 must be present. Might need "attrib -s -h -r c:\msdos.sys" in a DOS window first to make it writable.

asdf53 wrote on 2025-10-15, 19:06:

What do you have in the device manager under audio/multimedia devices? Are there any other unknown devices except PCI Input Controller? I'd suggest disabling the Yamaha card in device manager until you get the Creative card working properly.

Enable Scandisk at boot: edit c:\msdos.sys, AutoScan=1 must be present. Might need "attrib -s -h -r c:\msdos.sys" in a DOS window first to make it writable.

You're a legend! Thank you. Will give those a try/check later. 😀

From what I recall, it's just the PCI Input Controller that's unknown. I can't remember the names of the cards, under the Device Manager, off the top of my head, but it lists both the Yamaha and the Creative Soundblaster Audigy, along with the joystick device. But yes, good idea about disabling the Yamaha until it's working properly.

Also, try putting the Audigy in a different PCI slot. The Abit manual mentions that PCI slot 3 and 5 share some resources with the IDE controller. Your safest bet is probably PCI slot 2 (PCI 1 is the one next to the AGP slot), or disable the HPT 366 IDE controller in the BIOS if your HDD is not connected to it.

Next step would be to run Everest, list all PCI devices, and look for any devices with names that look unfamiliar or generic, and that don't appear in the device manager.

asdf53 wrote on 2025-10-15, 19:39:

Also, try putting the Audigy in a different PCI slot. The Abit manual mentions that PCI slot 3 and 5 share some resources with the IDE controller. Your safest bet is probably PCI slot 2 (PCI 1 is the one next to the AGP slot), or disable the HPT 366 IDE controller in the BIOS if your HDD is not connected to it.

Next step would be to run Everest, list all PCI devices, and look for any devices with names that look unfamiliar or generic, and that don't appear in the device manager.

Got it. I believe HPT 366 IDE is being used. I can't quite remember now, but it could be the one two of my HDDs are using. Also, I believe I put the card in PCI slot 3, so I'll try changing it. Thanks.

asdf53 wrote on 2025-10-15, 19:06:

What do you have in the device manager under audio/multimedia devices? Are there any other unknown devices except PCI Input Controller? I'd suggest disabling the Yamaha card in device manager until you get the Creative card working properly.

Install a tool such as Everest that can list installed PCI devices, it'll make debugging this much easier.

Enable Scandisk at boot: edit c:\msdos.sys, AutoScan=1 must be present. Might need "attrib -s -h -r c:\msdos.sys" in a DOS window first to make it writable.

Right, so the devices are Yamaha OPL3-SAx Sound System and Creative Audigy Audio Processor (WDM). With the Yamaha disabled, no audio devices are listed anywhere now.

Everest only lists Windows Audio and PCI/PnP Audio. There's nothing under Windows Audio. Under PCI/PnP it lists the Yamaha as being PnP and the Creative SB as PCI. I'm not able to do anything else or delve deeper into them. I'll try putting it into another PCI bus.

EDIT: Hmm. It's gone weird again. I'm not sure if it's because I used Driver Cleaner 3.3 after uninstalling the drivers, to make sure it's completely uninstalled, but no matter what PCI slot I put it in, it no longer detects new hardware. And it doesn't appear in the Device Manager. After I put it in the fifth PCI slot, I was greeted with a blank screen again. Only this time it hasn't shut itself off.

EDIT 2: Put it back into PCI slot 3 and it's back to normal. It's detected the card again. I'm going to test the VXD drivers this time and see if they work.

Okay, so it looks like, as I suspected, that msdos.sys already had AutoBoot at 1. I tried setting it to 0, restarted, and put it back to 1, but I suspect it's still not going to work. 🙁

And the VXD drivers for the card are a no-go. It'll install them, but the volume icon in the bottom right of the Taskbar has a red no symbol on it and everything is greyed out. If I restart, it does the same thing as my old Geforce 4, where it'll try to initialise everything during boot and then gives up. I've had to go into Safe Mode to uninstall the drivers.

It just keeps getting better... What I did in msdos.sys worked and now it's running ScanDisk when it should again. Now, however, it's not letting me reinstall the WDM drivers. The last I tried I got a BSOD error after switching from the audio driver CD image to the Windows 98 CD image. Also, the machine now has a bad habit of failing to shut down all the way. It gets to 'Windows is shutting down' and just stays like that. 🙁

Managed to resolve the shutting down issue. From what I've read it's caused by a driver not closing/unloading. I decided to take out all sound cards and uninstall all audio drivers and then just install the Soundblaster. Unfortunately now, it won't install either driver. I'm guessing the issue with the VXD driver before was a conflict with the Yamaha's...? Now that that's removed, I will try those again and see. But every time I try to install WDM drivers, it fails to finish the installation. The first time it was a BSOD and then last time it froze during the installation. What I'll try later today is just installing everything, which is what I did the first time. Last night, I was skipping all the extras and just installed the drivers. If that fails, I have some other drivers from here to try. I'm not 100% sure the ones I downloaded from Phil's Computer Lab are right for this card. And if that fails, I'll have to try things out on my test PC.

Looks like I'm unable to properly uninstall previous driver install attempts. Every time I try to from Add/Remove Programs, it says 'the log file SBLive.isu is not valid or has become corrupted. No amount of re-install attempts I make work, it just crashes/locks up. So until I can find something that fully removes it, there's very little point in trying to re-install the drivers. 🙁

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-10-16, 14:34:

Looks like I'm unable to properly uninstall previous driver install attempts. Every time I try to from Add/Remove Programs, it says 'the log file SBLive.isu is not valid or has become corrupted. No amount of re-install attempts I make work, it just crashes/locks up. So until I can find something that fully removes it, there's very little point in trying to re-install the drivers. 🙁

Norton Ghost (run from pure DOS).

Reinstall the OS and make a backup.
Conduct all sorts of "weird" experiments.
In the event of a system died, restoring from the image will take 2 minutes.

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-16, 14:51:

Norton Ghost (run from pure DOS). […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-10-16, 14:34:

Looks like I'm unable to properly uninstall previous driver install attempts. Every time I try to from Add/Remove Programs, it says 'the log file SBLive.isu is not valid or has become corrupted. No amount of re-install attempts I make work, it just crashes/locks up. So until I can find something that fully removes it, there's very little point in trying to re-install the drivers. 🙁

Norton Ghost (run from pure DOS).

Reinstall the OS and make a backup.
Conduct all sorts of "weird" experiments.
In the event of a system died, restoring from the image will take 2 minutes.

Oh wow. That sounds super useful. Thanks. I'll look into it. 😀

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-16, 14:51:

Norton Ghost (run from pure DOS). […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-10-16, 14:34:

Looks like I'm unable to properly uninstall previous driver install attempts. Every time I try to from Add/Remove Programs, it says 'the log file SBLive.isu is not valid or has become corrupted. No amount of re-install attempts I make work, it just crashes/locks up. So until I can find something that fully removes it, there's very little point in trying to re-install the drivers. 🙁

Norton Ghost (run from pure DOS).

Reinstall the OS and make a backup.
Conduct all sorts of "weird" experiments.
In the event of a system died, restoring from the image will take 2 minutes.

I've found a download for Norton Ghost 2003, but does this also run in DOS? Or is there a specific version/build I need to get? Thanks.

just unzip and run under pure DOS.
GUI it`s decent intuitive.
Disk(or partition)-to-image
Image-to-"target"

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-16, 15:43:

just unzip and run under pure DOS. GUI it`s decent intuitive. Disk(or partition)-to-image Image-to-"target" […]
Show full quote

just unzip and run under pure DOS.
GUI it`s decent intuitive.
Disk(or partition)-to-image
Image-to-"target"

PS. Tomorrow morning I will delete attachment.
The program is released in 2013y., but... you understund

Awesome. Thanks for the link. Yeah, that's different from the one I downloaded; there's no DOS files/installer. I tried looking around on Google but can't find anything.

Just prepping the machine to reformat so I can start making some backup images, before messing around.

Common sense dictates that you should test the utility on your current system (and familiarize yourself with the interface and its features).
You never know what someone might suggest you download. 😀