Win 98FE on a Pentium Clarkdale G6950 / GB P55A-UD4

[Canal]

Hi everybody !

 

OS: Windows 98 First Edition

Memory: 4GB (2x 2GB - Corsair)

Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD4

Proc: Pentium G6950 @ 2,8GHz

Video: XFX R7750 Core Edition VGA - PCI Express 3.0 - 1GB

Added :

IDE: Magnetic 12GB HDD + Optical CD-Drive.

SATA: 1TB HDD + Optical Blu-Ray Drive.

And also :

FDD (yes old Floppy Disk Drive 3"1/2) works fine !

COM1 (inboard 16550 serial port for mice) works fine also !

LPT1 (inboard LPT for parallel printer) works fine and printer well recognized by Win98 as before - whou !

 

SYSTEM.INI :

[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=30000

 

[vcache]

(nothing here as any value of MaxFileCache DON'T works for me...)

 

SYSTEM.CB :

[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=30000

 

 

So, it is my latest machine on which I would like to install Windows 98 first edition after my older machine from 1998 died.

This is First Edition as many of you use Second Edition or Me ! That's why I wrote that message...

Of course everything works fine in a VM but that's another story ... We all want Win98 be installed without a VM. I need that !

 

I've just modified System.ini and System.CB (great Usher's idea!) with MaxPhysPage as Microsoft recommended ... I have installed Win98 with no problem and with Usher's idea I can now run some applications in Safe Mode ! But when I run Win98 normally it stopped. Only Safe Mode Works. No "Error Memory - config.sys or autoexec.bat ... - qui applications"  message (because of MaxPhysPage mentioned)...

 

It seems Vcache.vxd Xeno's patch is intended only for Second Edition... Truth ?

I'm sure with only 2GB (not 4GB) it would be easier ... but I don't want to put one again for Windows 8...

 

I want to be added in the succesfull list of machine running natively Windows 98 in 2014 but for the moment with only Safe Mode working it's only 50% of the job done...

 

So ? Clues ? Solution ? [Added: With ESDI_506.PDR renamed as ESDIx506.PDR I can reach desktop now in normal mode (not safe-mode) !  ]

Alex - Ca/\/al.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Canal

[pangoomis]

Do you have 98 installed on a SATA drive?

Try to remove/change name of ESDI_506.pdr in Windows/System/Iosubsys.

[Canal]

No, it's an IDE drive with a native IDE controller's card (my Gigabyte mother-board have one - chip: iTE IT8213). One cable with a maximum of 2 drives (hard disks and/or optical disks).

 

Win98 seems to have recognized a lot of IDE controller (probably all of my SATA 3Gb and SATA 6Gb perhaps more... ). Don't know how it will handle all that with only 2 IRQs 14 and 15

Remark: Sadly, my CD-Drive which is IDE also seems not to be recognized by Win98 (but it's only safe mode) ... :angrym:  And it was the one I used before with my original old desktop Win98.

 

Alex.

PS: I've made no change, nothing about ramdrive, himem, XMSDSK, RAM Limitation patch... vcache...etc...

Anybody have done good results with Win98 first edition ?

 

Yes ESDI is present in iosubsys :

15/05/1998  20:01          24 406  ESDI_506.PDR

Edited November 5, 2014 by Canal

[dencorso]

[vcache]

(nothing here as any value of MaxFileCache works for me...)

[...] 

I want to be added in the succesfull list of machine running natively Windows 98 in 2014 but for the moment with only Safe Mode working it's only 50% of the job done...

No: in fact no value of vcache you've tested works for you, and that's one reason for your only being able to run in Safe Mode. Try: MaxFileCache=16384. If that's not enough for you to be able to get to the desktop out of Safe Mode, then take out one of the memory sticks (just for testing, of course!) and try again. I'm sure then you'll be able to get to the desktop. With 2 GiB or more of RAM, one needs a ridiculously small VCache to be able to reach desktop (do read Andy Aronoff post #5). And notice there's now a .pdf version of Andy's full thread downloadable from the 1st post of the current thread.

Yes: Xeno's VCache is intended for 98SE only, but you don't need it: Usher's method should be enough for you...

But if it isn't,  then Xeno's VCache wouldn't do either... you'd need RLoew's patch.

Look again at the list, and you'll see that just a handful of people were ever able to get Win 9x to work above 2 GiB without the RAM Limitation Patch. Moreover your 1 GiB video card may be enough to prevent your system from ever working out of Safe Mode...  

Now a question: you said your machine has just one IDE controller. Good. Now tell me: what's the size of the HDD you have on it (is it an HDD, SSD, or what?)? Is it set as master or slave?

Welcome to MSFN! 

[Canal]

Yes, no values works for me. I've tried 16384 as you said, 524288, 393216. All the same : boot then stopped. Andy suggest others values...

 

Remember, I have no error messages (no "not enough memory"...). Everything stopped just after DOS screen and just before Windows Desktop...

 

About RLoew's patch (RAM limitation) :

What is exactly the role of that patch ?

 

This isn't clear in fact :

"This Patch has an option to increase a memory resource that is required to

prevent the "VFAT Device Initialization Failed" Error or other Error that

occurs when the resource is depleted. This often happens with newer Ethernet

Drivers or if you have a very large Registry."

 

What file(s) will the patch change / modify ? Will my machine continue to work under my VM (VMware Player) after ?

 

No: in fact no value of vcache you've tested works for you, and that's one reason for your only being able to run in Safe Mode. Try: MaxFileCache=16384. If that's not enough for you to be able to get to the desktop out of Safe Mode, then take out one of the memory sticks (just for testing, of course!) and try again. I'm sure then you'll be able to get to the desktop. With 2 GiB or more of RAM, one needs a ridiculously small VCache to be able to reach desktop (do read Andy Aronoff post #5). And notice there's now a .pdf version of Andy's full thread downloadable from the 1st post of the current thread.

Yes: Xeno's VCache is intended for 98SE only, but you don't need it: Usher's method should be enough for you...

But if it isn't,  then Xeno's VCache wouldn't do either... you'd need RLoew's patch.

Look again at the list, and you'll see that just a handful of people were ever able to get Win 9x to work above 2 GiB without the RAM Limitation Patch. Moreover your 1 GiB video card may be enough to prevent your system from ever working out of Safe Mode...

Now a question: you said your machine has just one IDE controller. Good. Now tell me: what's the size of the HDD you have on it (is it an HDD, SSD, or what?)? Is it set as master or slave?

Welcome to MSFN! 

 

1GB of my video card ??

 

It's my old HDD (Hard-drive so Magnetic not Memory SSD) : 12GB (sold for a 13GB) set as master. CD-Drive is set at slave of course. No changes that way: same as before in 1998 For the tests, SATA drives HDD and Blu-Ray were unplugged... Win98 just seems to have recognized the multiples IDE cards ...

 

!!!  !!! Thanks !

 

Add: Of course nothing in the BIOS could help us ! Nothing about shadow-ram and so ... No option to decrease memory to 512MB :D

 

Alex.

 

PS for condor : In 1998, I was unable to run Win95 on a Win98 machine... Today I'm able to run Win98 (in safe-mode for the moment) on a 2010 machine ! Better, no ?

[pangoomis]

I don't know if this will help, but maybe install the Win98 without ACPI?

Use "setup /p i" for that.

And look in your BIOS for SATA compatibility stuff, try switching stuff there.

And you tried deleting ESDI? Maybe reverting to 16-bit realtime drivers (which are used in SAfe Mode) will help, though this fix is mainly for SATA drives ;/

Edited November 5, 2014 by MrMateczko

[dencorso]

@Alex:

Yes. The 1 GiB of your vido card (you guessed right! sorry I some words were lost on converting my thoughts into text...  )  they go into the System Arena. Do read the KB125691 and then Igor Leyko's article. There are pointers to them on the 1st post.

 

Do create a backup of your current install, then install RLoew's RAM Limitation Patch demo, and let's see whether it does get you to the desktop without Safe Mode or not! BTW, it patches the real-mode part of VMM32.VxD VxD-combo, VCache.VxD and VMM.VxD (this latter in many places). It fixes the many blorks MS never fixed in the very innermost workings of 9x's memory management, and related things.

 

And, yes, installing without ACPI may help, but won't be enough in your case, AFAIK.

[Canal]

@MrMateczko :

 

I finally try your advice and renamed ESDI_506.PDR and ... now it works ! I can reach Desktop !!

 

15/05/1998  20:01          24 406  ESDIx506.PDR

 

I've changed nothing else ... no [vcache] no MaxFileCache nothing ... MS-DOS box (and also 4DOS) works ! I'm no more in safe mode !

 

Nice, I'm amazed !!! @dencorso: Perhaps, I will be the first running Windows 98 First Edition in your list ... ?

 

Of course, I've a lot of yellow explanation mark in "System's Peripherals" but it starts now ... Ohhhh : still no IDE CD-ROM Drive ...

 

Alex.

Thanks a lot Mr Mateczko !

 

Add: @dencorso: OK, I've read that : Igor Leyko's article.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Canal

[pangoomis]

Altering ESDI isn't really a full solution, more like a workaround.

Now you have slow 16bit realtime drivers (try copying big files)

You can check that by going into the "Performance" tab in the System properties, you should see errors about MS-DOS compatibility, which is a bunch of lies, you just don't have ESDI running.

I don't know why you need that stuff though, as Win98 should just work out of the box with the setup you told.

Maybe it's just the FE that causes trouble?

I never used FE in my life, only SE.

[dencorso]

FE is more blorked than SE. There really is no advantage in running it.

No, the 1st (and only) stable 98FE machine in the list is RLoew's machine # 5.

[rloew]

@MrMateczko :

I finally try your advice and renamed ESDI_506.PDR and ... now it works ! I can reach Desktop !!

15/05/1998 20:01 24 406 ESDIx506.PDR

I've changed nothing else ... no [vcache] no MaxFileCache nothing ... MS-DOS box (and also 4DOS) works ! I'm no more in safe mode !

Nice, I'm amazed !!! @dencorso: Perhaps, I will be the first running Windows 98 First Edition in your list ... ?

Of course, I've a lot of yellow explanation mark in "System's Peripherals" but it starts now ... Ohhhh : still no IDE CD-ROM Drive ...

Alex.

Thanks a lot Mr Mateczko !

Add: @dencorso: OK, I've read that : Igor Leyko's article.

I'm not sure the reason why from your descriptions but you may need my SATA Patch to restore ESDI_506.PDR.

[dencorso]

Do you have 98 installed on a SATA drive?

Try to remove/change name of ESDI_506.pdr in Windows/System/Iosubsys.

 

No, it's an IDE drive with a native IDE controller's card (my Gigabyte mother-board have one - chip: iTE IT8213). One cable with a maximum of 2 drives (hard disks and/or optical disks).

 

Win98 seems to have recognized a lot of IDE controller (probably all of my SATA 3Gb and SATA 6Gb perhaps more... ). Don't know how it will handle all that with only 2 IRQs 14 and 15

Remark: Sadly, my CD-Drive which is IDE also seems not to be recognized by Win98 (but it's only safe mode) ... :angrym:  And it was the one I used before with my original old desktop Win98.

 

Alex.

 

Now a question: you said your machine has just one IDE controller. Good. Now tell me: what's the size of the HDD you have on it (is it an HDD, SSD, or what?)? Is it set as master or slave?

 

It's my old HDD (Hard-drive so Magnetic not Memory SSD) : 12GB (sold for a 13GB) set as master. CD-Drive is set at slave of course. No changes that way: same as before in 1998 For the tests, SATA drives HDD and Blu-Ray were unplugged... Win98 just seems to have recognized the multiples IDE cards ...

 

@RLoew: Canal's IDE HDD and CDD (just a reader? or is it a burner? just CD or CD/DVD? and if so, super-multi?) at first sight do not require patches (yours or LLXX's) for 48-bit LBA. But then he mentions there are SATA II and SATA III controllers (populated with disks? of which sizes?)... It's all very tersely described, but the fact he can get to the desktop out of Safe Mode only when removing ESDI_506.PDR, and the fact his system does not respond at all to changes in MaxFileCache, both point out to the fact he's found a very unstable seeting that seems to be stable. Probably the RAM Limitation Patch, the SATA Patch and the 48-bit Patch will be needed together to create a usable setup. Then again, even all that may not be enough.

[LoneCrusader]

...both point out to the fact he's found a very unstable seeting that seems to be stable...

Will my machine continue to work under my VM (VMware Player) after ?

No to mention the fact that a VM seems to be involved somehow...

[dencorso]

If run exclusively in a VM, by careful hiding and exposing hardware, it may be possible for 98FE to run thinking it's on a 768 kiB or 1 GiB RAM machine with a 64 kiB S3 video card, a single small IDE HDD and CD-player or whatever, with no patches. I've read about VM wizards doing that but never really cared about it enough to try and find out whether that's true or not. If not on bare metal, that's not for me. But, of course, one's MMV. But, at the end of the day, if on VM, even if stable, it's not for the list.

[Canal]

@MrMateczko : I've done a look at my BIOS about SATA setting : Everything seems correct. Everything is set to IDE as it would I think.

 

@dencorso : My LG CD-Drive is a burner. It burns CD only not DVD and it seems not be a super-multi as my LG DVD-Burner (died!) this one was a super-multi ...

 

As I said: "For the tests, SATA drives HDD and Blu-Ray were unplugged" but it's a 1TB Magnetic HDD and a LG Blu-Ray burner (brand new one) but unplugged.

Add: SATA 3Gb and SATA 6Gb for a total of 13 disks maximum. Win98 recognize OK 5 dual channel PCI controllers. And 10 fifo (2x 5) primary and secondary are invalid (yellow explanation mark in system's peripherals).

 

Discussion about VM : Everything with the VM works fine for me (no problem at all). I just need/want to run both Win98 boot from IDE Drive AND from VM Player (Win8) with multiple hardware profiles on Win98. Of course, it is not the subject of this thread !

Just to explain a bit more : On the VM I ran with 128MB (set in VMware) of RAM and it's OK. Video is a virtual VMware driver sure you know about that.

 

On IDE boot I use MaxPhysPage=30000 and get 768MB of memory and about video driver it's problematic as Catalyst 6.2 (latest for Win98) don't recognized my Radeon 7750 and the driver furnished with my card for XP don't work under Win98 even with KernelEx. Oh yes, I forgot to mention I use famous Xeno86 KernelEx ...

 

Alex.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Canal