Josey

It was installed on my first PC, and I still use it today. Happy birthday!

Hello again everyone, Sorry it's been so long since the last update. I haven't been able to spend much time working on it lately. I reinstalled Windows and installed the CT4670 using the Liveware 3.0 driver CD. Mostly it works better now. Skype now works and most games/software made for Windows 95/98 work, but DOS sounds still don't work at all. Also Audacity won't open anymore (if I try to open it I get a BSOD saying something about the soundcard driver crashing). I might try the Liveware 2.0 driver CD when I have time, but for now I'm pretty happy. Everything I want to work works, apart from DOS sounds, but there's always DOSBOX for that. But when I have a bit more time I'll try other drivers and might try a different soundcard at some point. Thank you everyone for all your help! I love having a working Windows 98SE again.

Thank you. Sadly it didn't work, and I've also noticed that Skype can't use the soundcard for some reason. I've ordered a CT4670 to try next.

Thanks guys. I'll try 269601USA8.exe first. Where can I download it?

Yesterday I finally had some more time to work on my Windows 98SE! I decided to reinstall with some smaller partitions, and mostly everything went very smoothly. I ended up using a 256mb nVidia GF 6200 graphic card, which had a driver disc. When trying to install the drivers using the CD the installer failed saying that it couldn't find any nVidia chips in the computer. I then tried the drivers from nVidia's site, but that installer also failed saying something about the PCI ID of the card not being included in the driver. So I installed the driver manually, ignoring a warning from Windows that the driver wasn't made for this card. That seems to have worked. I can get true colour and go up to HD resolutions. Videos seem to play fine. I then tried out a few games to see if 3D graphics were working, and they all played fine apart from Tomb Raider 1 which looked pretty awful (the videos weren't playing smoothly, and the in-game graphics looked almost like Super Mario!). Is this a DOS issue? I'm having the most trouble with the soundcard. While tidying the house I found a SoundBlaster Live Value (CT4780), so I used that. I've tried about nine different drivers which all claimed to work with this card, and which all didn't in different ways! Some of them seemed to install fully, but no sound would come out of the speakers. Some would play MIDI, but not WAV. Some caused lots of BSODs. In the end I found a driver that made WAV and MIDI work, but it was a newer WDM driver, and the MIDI/Gameport had errors (missing files) while installing, and SoundBlaster 16 Emulation wouldn't install at all. I'm guessing that's why when I tried Tomb Raider 1 again only the music played (no sound effects, or audio during the videos). I'm thinking about trying a different soundcard...maybe a CT4620 or a SB0060? Has anyone on here tried these cards? Apart from that I'm very happy with the install. Thank you everyone for all your help getting me this far.

I managed to do it! In the end I booted into a Puppy Linux live CD and popped the patches on a floppy, and then used the Windows 98 "Start with Command Prompt" option to install them. After that Windows 98SE installed with no problems! I still have to install all the drivers for the soundcard, graphics card etc... and annoyingly I won't have time to do all of that for a few days, but I'm so excited to have got this far. In Windows I can see all 500gb, but I might still think about the SSD, and if I don't get the SSD I'm planing on making some four 125gb partitions.

XCOPY won't work for me. Seems that the XCOPY program isn't on the disk I'm using. I'm almost there! I've changed the disc drive, the install disc and the hard drive. I think (I'm hoping anyway) it might have been the hard drive that was at fault, as today it wasn't showing up in the BIOS, so I plugged in a 500gb SATA 2.5" hard drive I had. Now it all goes fine to the end of step 3. When I go to run the patches it says something like "Cannot open MSDOS.sys - Rerun command specifying full path to esdi_506.pdr". Is this a known issue, or another odd error? The other odd issue is that fdisk is seeing the 500gb hard drive as 18gb. I think I might have to order another one. I'm thinking maybe a 120gb SSD, as they are getting very cheap now. Would that work ok?

Thank you everyone. I already was (on most of my attempts) copying the files to the hard driver using the "COPY *.* C:\WIN98" command. I was sort of following this: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install98stepbystep2/indexfullpage.htm but most of the time using "setup /p i" instead of just "setup". I'm going to try this again with a different install CD, a different CD drive, and if that doesn't work I'll try swapping the ram (which rloew said might be an issue). And I'll try installing it from USB. It might be a few days before I can try all of that. I'll let you know how I get on.

rloew said I should try a different install CD, so I did. It still did the vga.drv error, but only the first time. Since then every time it gets to 100% of step 3, and then just before it reboots it has three errors. They are: 1) "(error #1 f) Setup could not finish copying a file. Source file: 'C:\SYSTEM.NEW' Destination file: 'C:\WINDOWS|SYSTEM.DAT=SYSTEM.DAT'" 2) "(error #1 f) Setup could not finish copying a file. Source file: 'C:\USER.NEW' Destination file: 'C:\WINDOWS|user.DAT=user.DAT'" 3) "Application Error - SUWIN cased a General Protection Fault in module KRNL386.EXE at 0001:81AA." Is there anyway I can do the file copying, or whatever it's trying to do, for Windows?

I had a reply from rloew, and he said to do this: 1. Make a CD with all three Patches added to the Boot CD you created before. 2. Use the Setup CD to Partition (if necessary) and Format your C: Partition. 3. ReBoot with the Setup CD and Install Windows until it asks to reboot. 4. Insert the Boot CD with the Patches, then let it Reboot. 5. From the Boot CD, apply the PATCHATA and PTCHSATA Patches. 6. ReBoot with the Setup CD and wait until it crashes with the "Not Enougn Memory" Error. 7. Insert the Boot CD with the Patches, and Reboot. 8. From the Boot CD, apply the PATCHMEM /M Patch. 9. ReBoot with the Setup CD and finish installing Windows. 10. When it is installing the Hard Drive Drivers, answer No if it asks you to Reboot. I started this, but at step 3 it again says "Error loading vga.drv". If I keep trying, it sometimes comes up with a different error (for example "Error loading user"), and twice the error didn't pop up and it goes for a little bit longer, but then the first time another error came up saying "Message SU995003 - Setup cannot load a required library [0x138b}, and the second time it said "Cannot load from drive C". I have no idea what's going wrong. Does anyone have any idea?

I tried today to install Windows 98SE! But I'm having a few problems, and I was wondering if someone might be able to help. When I start the Windows 98SE setup it asks if I want large disk support, and then after I say yes, it asks me to reboot with the boot floppy in drive A. Do I install the patches now, or after it's formatted the hard drive and copied the windows files over? I don't have a boot floppy, or access to a floppy drive apart from the one in the case I'm using for the 98SE build, so I made a 98SE boot floppy CD. I put the boot CD in and booted into it, and then swapped the disc with the Windows 98SE setup CD. It then formatted the drive and started putting the Windows files onto the computer, but it couldn't copy vga.drv over. Any idea where I went wrong? Looking at rloew's manual for the patches...for the PATCHATA patch he says "1. Download and UnZip the Program to a known location. 2. Copy the PATCHATA.EXE to C:\PATCHATA.EXE" How do I do this? Do I do it in DOS? For the SATA patch, when he says "Boot to DOS using a Floppy Disk", do you mean use a DOS boot floppy? Would a DOS boot CD or USB also work? If not how can I make a floppy for booting into DOS? Can I make it on a linux live cd, or on Window PE? Oh, and by the way, I ended up not using the Nvidia 7950GT, because it covered one of the PCI slots, so I got a £3 256mb Nvidia 6200 at a local shop, but that has stopped working (it was fanless, and I think it might have over heated as it was very, very hot when I removed it), so I'm now using a 512mb Nvidia 7600 GS, which a friend had. Because the Nvidia 6200 wouldn't have needed the NSIZE patch, I haven't ordered that yet. Will Windows install with the Nvidia 7600 GS, without the patch, or should I order that before I try again? I've also emailed rloew for advice. Thank you, Josey

Thank you rloew. I'm just try the one I've got then.

Thank you. I will use SETUP /p i. Yes I'm using the G31 board, for now anyway. Are there any generic 1394 drivers for 98SE? I've got a 1394 PCI-e add-on card, which only has drivers for Windows 2000 and up. I was about to order one that had drivers for 98SE, but then I wondered about generic ones. I've had a google and can't see any, but just in case I've missed something I thought I'd ask.

We started building yesterday! All of our IDE cables were on the small side, so by the time the we had all the drives plugged in and working we were out of time. We'll install 98SE next week now. One question...is there any down side to installing using "SETUP /p i"? If not I may as well do that to avoid issues, but if there is I'll try it without. And if I don't use "SETUP /p i" should I use "SETUP /p j"?

I now have everything, including the patches, ready for the build over the weekend! I'm so excited to get started. I'll let you all know how I get on!

Excellent! Thank you.

My friend still wants to wait to build his in the summer, but we'd decided to build mine together at the end of next week! Yay! Today I ordered "XFX TS Series 430W" PSU and "Crucial 2GB DDR2-800 UDIMM". My plan is that I'll see how it runs with just 2gb, and then in a few months I can upgrade to 4gb if I want to. In a day or so I'll order the patches I need from rloew. I know I'll need the "WINDOWS 95/98/SE/ME RAM LIMITATION PATCH" and "NVSIZE". I was planning on using a SATA hard drive but as my motherboard has IDE, and I have a spare 60gb IDE hard drive I'm thinking I'll use that, for now at least. If I'm not using SATA, will I still need rloew's "SATA Patch and INF File for Windows 9x"? And is there any other patches or software I'll need from him? And, what's the best way to install Windows 98SE with 2gb of ram? I'm guessing I can't use the patch until Windows is installed. Thank you.

Thank you. Will do.

Yesterday the 7950GT arrived! It looks lovely. And today the GA-G31M-ES2L arrived. It's so, so small. It looks brand new. I'll let you know if I learn anything else for sure about PSU's. I'm going to try using a new one for now. QuoteOn 3/19/2016 at 9:56 PM, Josey said:Thank you.`` I didn't post that...my account hasn't been hacked has it?

Thank you.``

Thank you. The BADCAPS site looks very useful. I ended up winning a very low bid on eBay for a GA-G31M-ES2L with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.80Ghz SLB9Y processor. I agree that the smaller board with only two ram slots isn't ideal, and it might not be the board I end up using, but it was so cheap! I'll have a look at it when it arrives, and see what I think. I'm looking at PSU's today...I read on one site that when building old computers you need to use old PSU's because new ones don't have a -5v rail. Am I right in thinking, that because I'm using a newer motherboard, I can use a new PSU, or does some of the older hardware (for example the floppy drive) need the -5v rail, or something else only on a old PSU?

I've found a few more possible motherboards... sadly all used. GA-965P-DS3http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2456#sp - About £20, from 2007 I think. It uses "solid-state capacitors", which they claim last longer. Would this board be good? And I've found lots of used motherboards from around 2009 using the G31 chipset, which sell for about £10 to £50. For example the GA-G31M-ES2L http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3485#sp - Would these boards (and the Intel G31 chipset in general) work ok? Well, hopefully I won't run into too many issues, but even if I do I'm considering doing two builds now, one for Windows 98SE, and after that, just for a fun hobby, building an 'older' PC to run OS/2, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 using older hardware, and trying to learn how to replace capacitors myself! The Windows 98SE build is my priority, and my focus, and for that one I want to use the newer hardware recommended on here. Then afterwards I'll start thinking about the other build, and maybe seeing if any local PC repair shops have any motherboards with faulty capacitors that they would give me to practice on.

Thanks guys! So, if I come across any issues with the card I should be able to fix them using older drivers or a patch. Everyday now I'm looking at motherboards, trying to find the right one at the right price. Can't wait to start building!

I've ordered it! It was buy it now for £11, or make an offer, and I offered £5.50 and got it for that! Great deal.

Sounds like a winner! Great! Sorry to be a bother, but just to be on the safe side before I buy, does anyone know of any DOS compatibility issues with this graphics card?