Problem installing Windows 98se (Yes, Windows 98se).

By darkrats
in Microsoft (Windows)

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darkrats

Posted
Posted

Hello everyone.

Currently at home, with lots of time on my hands, so.......

I figured I'd try installing Windows 98 (second edition) on an older IBM Netvista (which came with XP).

1. Got me a bootdisk and powered up into MS-DOS and did a complete FDISK etc. and wiped the hard drive clean.

2. At this point my USB mouse and USB keyboard were working fine.

3. While in MS-DOS, reformatted the hard drive as FAT32 (500GB drive). That went well.

4. Put in the bootable Windows 98se disk and shut down/restarted the computer.

5. The install disk was recognized and a dialog came up asking if I wanted to continue setup.

6. Tried to move the cursor to the "continue" button and it wouldn't move.

7. Tried using the keyboard to go to the "continue" button and it wouldn't move.

Okay, so the USB ports are not working, either because they just won't work, or they won't work until Wndows 98se is installed.

So I unplugged my USB mouse and keyboard and replace them with a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.

Repeated all of the above steps just to be sure, and again no mouse or keyboard at steps 6/7.

I'd appreciate any suggestions as to what's going on. I really thought the PS/2 ports would be working.

Thanks.

post-11754-0-44881300-1354841255.png

Grand Master

Raa

Posted
Posted

As pointed out, you need to switch the computer off to use PS/2 devices.

Also, you *might* be able to use USB devices in setup - go into the BIOS and find the option for "USB Legacy" and enable it.

I think you're going to run into more stumbling blocks, but that might at least let you progress!

Community Regular

darkrats

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Yes, the computer was powered off between switching the mouse/keyboards.

Never actually got into Windows 98 to see what works, but I was able to format the 500GB drive as FAT32, so I'm thinking that shouldn't be a problem (but don't know for sure).

USB Legacy is enabled in the BIOS.

Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

Can Windows 98 even recognize the 500 GB HDD?

That shouldn't affect the keyboard or mouse working in setup.

I would try clearing CMOS (Resetting BIOS) then trying setup again

Also try making a new DOS Boot disk if you're using that to start setup, otherwise booting from the 98se CD - Chances are the bootdisk doesn't have the drivers for the keyboard or mouse

Grand Master

Raa

Posted
Posted

inb4 "should have installed 2k"

No comment. ;)

Well if the BIOS option was enabled, and you've switched off/on and still locked at the setup, i'd say it's failing the detection at the start of setup - possibly because the machine is "too powerful" for it?

Any chance of doing this in a VM?

  • Franklin Lee and Detection
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Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

No comment. ;)

Well if the BIOS option was enabled, and you've switched off/on and still locked at the setup, i'd say it's failing the detection at the start of setup - possibly because the machine is "too powerful" for it?

Any chance of doing this in a VM?

I wouldn't say 'too powerful' but newer machines are stated similar to 'xp >' due to chipset drivers etc, so 'too new' would be a better wording :)

  • Raa, Guth and Franklin Lee
  • Like 3
Collaborator

embj

Posted
Posted

Could be because Win 98SE has a hard drive size limitation of 137GB...might be getting confused. Although, I wouldn't think so at this point in the install...

As an FYI, it's best to have partitions 127GB or smaller. This is because Scandisk and the defrag utility are 16-bit programs, and they can only recognize partitions up to this size. Therefore, I'd recommend partitioning the drive up into 127GB or smaller partitions.

Here's more information on the subject: http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

Also...as another aside, GParted is an excellent free alternative partitioning software to FDISK: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

The bootdisk loads drivers for the mouse and keyboard.

I'll try clearing CMOS and starting setup again tomorrow.

Is the 98se disk the original or a copy ?

Wondering if it is a slimmed down version with some drivers removed

Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

I agree with everyone who said that your problems most likely have something to do with having hardware that Windows 98 SE doesn't know how to drive.

I don't know anyone who has attempted this, or even really thought of attempting this, but if you are a masochist with too much time on his hands who is really intent on running Windows 98 SE, you could try replacing the underlying DOS (7.0, I think) with FreeDOS. Since the old Windows 9x versions, including Windows 98 SE, are essentially Windows on top of DOS, even though they shipped with DOS integrated already, it may be possible. The main advantage, if you can get this to work, is that FreeDOS is open-source and supports much more modern hardware than Windows 98 SE. I see no reason why it wouldn't - if you can manage to integrate it properly - since FreeDOS is 100% binary compatible with MS-DOS. I admit that I am not overly familiar with DOS architecture and may be overlooking some aspect of Windows 98 SE or FreeDOS design that would prevent this, but it might be worth a try!

If you're not married to Windows 98 SE, however, it might be interesting to try ReactOS instead. While its still in alpha and not likely to be complete for quite some time, it generally supports older hardware quite nicely. It might run decently on your machine, and it would certainly be a lot easier to install and run modern software on if it works.

Grand Master

Raa

Posted
Posted

The bootdisk loads drivers for the mouse and keyboard.

DOS-era bootdisks don't have (or use) drivers for the keyboard, and once Windows setup starts, it will control both mouse and keyboard through BIOS calls.

It's very possible that ACPI is enabled on the bios - Windows 98 doesn't support ACPI, so it might be worth checking that and disabling it (if possible - which is unlikely. If that's the case, you can't load anything less than Win2k on this machine.)

  • Dashel, Guth and MarkusDarkus
  • Like 3
Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

DOS-era bootdisks don't have (or use) drivers for the keyboard, and once Windows setup starts, it will control both mouse and keyboard through BIOS calls.

It's very possible that ACPI is enabled on the bios - Windows 98 doesn't support ACPI, so it might be worth checking that and disabling it (if possible - which is unlikely. If that's the case, you can't load anything less than Win2k on this machine.)

To be fair, you could artificially disable ACPI by using GRUB 2 as your bootloader and telling it to disable ACPI before you boot the OS. Since the MS-DOS kernel never enters protected mode, this deviation should carry through to the OS. I believe that syslinux (or is it memdisk?) supports something similar too. Depending on your familiarity with GRUB, or lack thereof, this might be more trouble than its worth. (If you want to try this method without installing GRUB first, you can boot from Super Grub2 Disk and use the GRUB command line to boot the OS manually.)

Rising Star

mduren2445

Posted
Posted

your problem is win 98se does not support 500 gb hard drives without help . basically your drive is not formatted properly and win98se is going "what the *&^* is this crap?" you are running into the 137gb barrier. whoever makes your drive, go to their website and see if they still have the dos version of their software such as maxblast or dataguard for western digital... to enable 48bit addressing. otherwise you are going to format in 137 gb partitions to make this work

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