installed external h.d. now can't boot WIN98SE

[bootless]

Howdy,

I have been installing the incredibly beneficial unofficial updates for WIN98SE. I have used of Auto-Patcher for Windows 98 Second Edition. Thanks to MDGx, soporific and everyone else for making my system better and better.

My problem is on November 26th 2007 I addded a My Book 500 gig external hardrive and thereafter my machine would not reboot itself. I already had 2 My Book 500 gig h.d.'s installed and working with no issues but when I removed one of them and replaced it with a new one is when my boot issue started. I have had to rely on the manual method, scanreg /restore, on every reboot since. I have been using the registry from November 25, 2007 on every reboot. What a pain in the rear, lol.

Things on my system are not running well at this point. I have searched high and low for possible fixes for some time now and have given up trying to figure it out on my own and seek help from the experts.

My box is not infected with any virus, spyware etc.

Info-

WIN98SE, Version 4.10.2222,

CDUTYPE-6

542 MHZ

mem ram 384

BIOS-Phoenix Bios 4.0 6.008/30/99

Intel Pent-3

Misc info-

The 11-25-07 cab file is 8256 kb. Any subsequent cab file that does not boot is always approx 30,875 kb. There have been some cab files that have a size approx the same as the 11-25-07 cab file but they don't allow a boot. I have tried to reboot from one of these and I get the message, you have restored a registry with no errors, but it won't reboot.

In System Information Config Utility , I use the selective startup, with the following items checked:

-Process config sys

stacks=64,512

fiiles=65

buffers=40

process autoexec.bat

-LH C: Windows\audos.com

-at path C:\program~1\WIN98RK;%Path%

-Set Temp=C:\Temp

Load start up group items,

(I know all the startup items, my A.V. etc. nothing funky)

In System Information, the following text appears,

clean install using Full OEM.

CD/T:C:\Wininsto.400 SRC Dir= D:WIN98 /IZ/IS/IQ/IT/ll/C /U:xxxxxxxxxxx

(My "D" drive is a CD drive)

---------

Other misc info-

My registry does not back itself up everyday automatically anymore either.

When I manually boot using 11-25-07 regsitry, I get a message, windows has found new hardware-Human Interface Device, I click cancel and then it recognizes one of the external h.d.'s then another message, windows has found new hardware Human Interface Device, I click cancel and it recognizes the second external h.d. Why do I click cancel? Because if I click, OK, the external h.d.'s were not recognized by Windows or they did not show up in the tree and are not accessable.

In Device manager, under Human Interface Devices, 2 items show up-

HID compliant device

and

USB Human Interface device

Nothing in Device manager has any symbols by the device.

However, when I look at my tree the "D" drive has the same symbol as an unassociated program. It still works.

Lastly, on successful or unsuccesful boots the same info appears in the DOS screen as follows-

(I may not have all the spaces and slashes exactly as they appear)

C:\>LH C:\Windows AU30DOS.com

Vortex DOS audio Driver (2.007) Aureal Semiconductor PCI Audio Pro enabled at ports 220-22FH, Interrupt5, DMA3, Joystick 201h

C:\>Set temp= C:\Temp

C:\>

--------------

I searched the Western Digital homepage and followed their recommendation to go into the BIOS and set the first position for boot to "hardrive", it was already set to, "hardrive". Thus, this did not solve the issue. The default setting for the BIOS for first position is "removable", fyi. They also said to disable the "boot from usb device", but my BIOS don't have that setting anywho.

I used google to search for people with the similar problem as I am having but did not come up with anything similar.

A unique problem I am having now is that after running I.E. for a while and after opening numerous pages in new windows, the I.E. page icons, at the bottom of the screen, go black and then after the black icons appear I attempt to open a new I.E. window a new window will open but there is no html page in the new window just a blank screen. At that point I have to reboot to fix the problem. Concurrently once this happens I can not open any internal windows from my tree either. Nothing works. From a laymans point of view it looks like windows is tuckered out or run out of gas and only rebooting will fix the issue.

Thanks ahead of time for your help,

bootless

[soporific]

Hey there Bootless,

I'm glad you're still getting lots of mileage out of Win98 ... well, that's because you found MSFN

re your problem: i think you'll need to provide more info on exactly what you did when you installed the OS, in particular, what hard disk was where and what drive letter it was assigned to each drive. And what exactly did you do with the drive swap, more info please. All the other info you provided was interesting but not as relevant as us needing to know the installation structure of your setup.

Without knowing more, the only thing i can think of at present is that the boot info that the OS needs to boot with was on the other drive that you took out. It doesn't matter if the drive you took out didn't have the Windows directory on it, it is still possible that the drive was being used to hold the boot info.

Sop.

PS -- if we fix your problem, your user name will be misleading!

Edited February 7, 2008 by soporific

[fishindude]

Hi, bootless.

A number of things to try:

1) Does your machine boot without the USB drives attached? If it does, shut down, plug in the known good, turn it on, and fire up your machine. Does it still boot? If so, you may have a defective new drive or #2, below.

2) Does your BIOS have a setting called "boot other device" or similar? If so, disable it. If this helps, it sounds like your new drive may be flagged as active. What does the new drive contain? Is it another OS?

3) Your IE problem is just what you thought it was, especially if it's IE6. The more IE windows you open, the more unstable it becomes. In my personal experience, and this may be fixed by some of the wonderful patches on this site, IE6 does not play well with 98. I think IE 5.5 SP2 is the best version for 98. Better still is to use Firefox - tabbed browsing will solve the problem, you only need 1 Firefox window open.

If it's starting to look like "defective drive" be very careful. A defective USB device can take out your motherboard.

Also, the entries in your autoexec.bat and what you see on the start screen are commands that enable your sound card in DOS. If it was working before, these shouldn't be a problem, although Aureal cards can be a pain in 98.

[bootless]

"I'm glad you're still getting lots of mileage out of Win98 ... well, that's because you found MSFN"

Without a doubt 100% accurate. I love WIN98SE because historically speaking I have been able to fix eveything that has gone wrong. I am surrounded at home by WINXP and use WInXP at the office but at home my primary has been WIN98SE. All my friends who visit and find out I am still using WIN98SE think I am looney toons. Then I show them my 400 hp '63 Vette and state older toys are for older boys, lol.

I installed my OS on my C:\Windows drive. It has never changed since I bought the box in 1998. The swap file is located in same directory. If my memory serves me correctly at one point in time I did move the swap file to a D drive as I was told it would be faster but that was not the case and I moved it back. That D drive went to drive heaven as it died many years ago.

Fishindude,

1) "Does your machine boot without the USB drives attached?"

That was one of the first things I tried. Sorry I forgot to mention that.

No, it did not and still does not boot without the USB drives attached. I actually returned the first external and got a new one had the same boot problem but Windows did and still does recognize the second external after the boot procedure I described above. Now, the last external I purchased is full and I am pained to think what lies ahead when I purchase another new external, same brand for sure.

2) "Does your BIOS have a setting called "boot other device" or similar? If so, disable it. If this helps, it sounds like your new drive may be flagged as active. What does the new drive contain? Is it another OS?"

Boot from other devices, from memory, yes I think it does and I am pretty sure I moved it to bottom position. I am not sure If I can actually disable it or maybe I don't know how but I did not see that option if memory serves me correctly. I will check it upon next boot and post back to confirm.

The new drive does not contain an OS just a folder with the drivers. After I was in the BIOS, the Dell splash screen is coming on which hides the first screen which is where I would always see the option to go to the BIOS. Trying to remember how to get to the darn BIOS now............

3) Yes, I am using I.E. 6.0.2600. Thanks for the confirmation, I also use Firefox and I have had the worst luck with Firefox. I have uninstalled and reinstalled it a couple of times too. It always feezes up on me and I have to use the sledgehammer to unfreeze it aka control-alt-delete. When doing scandisk scandisk says that Firefox has created, and I am paraphrasing, tons of errors, so not sure what the issue really is, scandisk or Firefox. Probably scandisk, lol.

I can't install any new programs or update any old programs due to boot/registry issue. I tried implementing the last release with autoupdater but alas my PC would not reboot to follow the installation.

Will be back tonight after I get the kids to sleep.

thanks again,

presently bootless

[fishindude]

Will your machine boot in safe mode?

You said the new drive contains "drivers". Did you install new drivers for it when you first installed it?

If you can't disable "boot from other device", can you change it to another device, say, floppy or cd rom? Although if 98 isn't booting with no other drives attached, this is probably not the problem.

There are a number of DOS commands you might try to fix this, I just want to make sure it's not a device or driver conflict first.

I gotta tell ya, though, if you've had the same Win 98 on there for 10 years with no re-installs, you've done very, very well.

[fishindude]

Oh, sorry, on a Dell press F2 at the Dell splash to access BIOS.

[bootless]

Fishindude,

Following up:

I went into my BIOS and there are 4 options in this order presently,

-first boot- hardrive, with subcategory-a)hardrive and b)bootable addin card

-second boot- ATAP CDROM drive

-third boot- Network boot

-fourth boot- Removable devices, subcategory a) floppy drive

I tried to find something with which to "disable" but that is not an option.

So, I went in and switched the 3rd and 4th positions,BIOS look like above now, disabled the splash screen, saved and exit and what do you know my system booted on it's own. I am having problems with my Nero as it keeps freezing on me. Anyway, it rebooted, and I ran Nero again and it froze again and I had to cntrl-alt-delete to unfreeze it then the system was frozen so I had to restart. This time no reboot. Darn. I went back into the BIOS to see if any of the settings had changed, and found no changes. Again I had to do manual reboot.

Re: drivers-

When I installed the first external I had to go to the site to get the driver. The second external initially did not have a folder with the driver in it so again i went to the site and found the driver and installed it. The system still did not recognize the external. Windows did not find any new hardware when it searched for plug and play, I was frustrated so I went with the option, pick hardware from a list.

I went with hard disk controllers, looked down the list found Western Digital, but there were 3 options so I did them all. One thing thing that was corn-fusing is that one option with 2 choices says Western Digital USB External hardrive or Western Digital external HDD. That is when I looked at the boxes and saw that the first external had a USB and a firewire option and the second was just a USB. Maybe why there are two different drivers? The second Western Digital choice says, Storage Adapter Bridge Module, (WDC). Still didn't work.

I think at some point after this on a reboot Windows somehow decided the new external was a human interface device as the found new hardware mini screen appeared and it installed the driver for the h.d. for a h.i.d. Can I just delete the 2 human interface device options that exist from the device manager?

I just saw there was a ? in the list from install new hardware. Maybe that's always there not sure.

I also have a bevy of other external h.d's that I have used in the last 5 years. A list of them for sure. What I found is that I couldn't have 2 different manufacturer external's hooked up at the same time. One wouldn't work unless I unhooked the other. Fine, did that. That is why I thought by using only the MyBook h.d. I would solve that problem until I figured out I had purchased the same MyBook but one with USB/firewire and one with just USB where the drivers are definitely different for both. Knucklehead I am.

To answer your newest question, Yes, I can boot to safe mode. Never has been an issue to go to safe mode.

No, this is not the original OS install from 1998 but this OS install is from approx. 2001. I had 2 internals die within the first 3 to 4 years. I am on my 3rd internal "C" h.d. with this one on it's 7th year (approx). I have backed up whatever is important so ifn' it does die have a nice trip to heaven. Since I am talking about it here it too will probably die any second now, lol.

So, bottom line is I think I screwed up the driver association if that makes sense.

That is all I know.

thanks,

Edited February 8, 2008 by bootless

[fishindude]

It ("driver association"), does make sense, but it's more like a conflict.

First, let me say that we all reach a point where trying to fix a broken OS gets to be a lot more work than just wiping it out and starting over. Usually, the grimly determined are faced with data loss that is unacceptable. You have all your stuff backed up, so you're in good shape. You can actually choose whether you want to fix it or re-install. It's your time.

Now, that being said, it's starting to sound like just maybe there's a hardware problem. Your boot problem could be developing bad sectors on your hard drive. Or, with the Nero crashes you're having, the logic card could be going on your optical drive.

But, to troubleshoot, do this: Start in safe mode and go to device manager. Disable everything non-essential to working on your computer - leave your keyboard, mouse, display adapter, IDE controllers, primary hard disk, monitor, and system devices ON. Disable all ports, cd roms, usb controllers, modems, network devices, etc. While you're in there, remove any devices no longer present on your system - these show up in safe mode. When you're done, re-boot. Hopefully, the machine starts. If it does, go back to device manager and enable 1 device. Reboot. Keep following this procedure until Windows doesn't boot - at that point, the last device you enabled is causing the problem, whether it's a driver conflict or actual bad hardware.

If you can't access a device in safe mode, do your registry fix to get your machine running, but follow the same procedure.

[fishindude]

But first: try uninstalling that last driver you installed for the externel HD.

[bootless]

Howdy,

I'm back.

When I read your last instructions I was a little a lot nervous. I looked at the future issues I might have in what could go wrong when activating all the things I disconnected. So, I punted then regained motivation in the need to move forward.

So, I started with removing the things that initially caused the problem,

-Human Interface Device.

No boot.

Then moved on to-

-Human interface devices

and

-All Western Digital devices.

Booted. Yippie.

Then, once rebooted I plugged in both the external storage devices working prior but system could not see them.

Big bummer.

Got one of the externals working. The other just wouldn't work. Worried I had lost the data, 400 gigs, still don't know since I haven't been able to get it to work.

Restarted, no boot.

Punted again, gave up.

Bought 2 more externals. Neither of those work presently, either. Both are same brand,USB 500 gig WD. (I can't get a 750 gig to work so i stick to the 500 gig)

Today, tried again. This time removed:

-Human Interface devices.

-All Western Digital devices.

-Two "USB storage devices" adapters, one is for the Western Digital firewire option external (from add remove programs).

-Tried to remove the USB/Firewire combo driver from Add remove programs but wouldn't allow me to, message was, I was hooked up to a network and it couldn't find the msi to remove it. (Maybe this has been the boot problem all along since maybe it was looking for a network something or other to boot from??????)

Restarted and REBOOTED. Yippie.

Plugged in one of the new externals but no go. Windows loaded 2 generic storage drivers instead of loading 1 generic then the Western Digital driver. Arggggggggggg.

Something happened had to reboot.

Crossed my fingers, unplugged the external, restarted and REBOOTED.

Double yippie.

Fishindude, you were right, hardware problem indeed.

Now, how do I get my system to recognize a usb external h.d. in loading the correct driver?

Then, how do I gt my system to boot with them plugged in as it had done previously for the last few years?

Lastly, a new question.

I have been using external h.d.'s with WIN98SE all FAT32. Can I plug these externals into an XP machine and be able to get to the data? Will it read them? If no how can I make that happen?

thanks again,

now bootless only when externals are plugged in..........

[dencorso]

Lastly, a new question.

I have been using external h.d.'s with WIN98SE all FAT32. Can I plug these externals into an XP machine and be able to get to the data? Will it read them? If no how can I make that happen?

Don't worry! Win XP will read them and write to them all right.

And NUSB 3.3 ought to give you acess to them in Win 9x.

Don't give up yet, I'm sure you'll get it all sorted out.

Frustration is a part of the game, but if it has worked OK before,

you can make it work once again. Good luck!

[bootless]

Thanks for the info and words of support dencorso.

Since I was bootable again I proceeded with the WIN98 updates, December of 07, and after the second boot I got a new to me message and basically the blue death screen, "Windows protection error". I had to manually reinstall older registry and stop with the updates.

Also, I during the installation of the updates I got the message, ...this update is looping the USB devices may not work in Windows.... update q253697. Also, Hotfix for USB Driver q281533 was looping and was not installed. Does this further support the issues I am having with my usb devices or is it normal.

thanks.

I went into System Information,Components,Storage to check out what drivers were listed for each hardware device and I think I may have found the issue.

System Information-components-Storage, Advanced Information and History tabs-

WD 5000AAKS Externa

DiskDrive

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\enum\SCSI\WD______5000AAKS_EXTERNA1\OXUMSS&DISK&0000USB&VID_1058&PID_0902&MI_00&57442D57434150573339393336333300

Alloc resources: None

Forced resources: None

Boot resources: None

Filtered resources: None

Basic resources: None

Current Driver Letter Assignment: F

Driver: DiskDrive\0014

Driver Date: 4-23-1999

Western Digital USB External HDD

HDC

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\enum\USB\VID_1058&PID_0902&MI_00\57442D574341505733393933363333

Alloc resources: None

Forced resources: None

Boot resources: None

Filtered resources: None

Basic resources: None

Driver: HDC\0005

Driver Date: 11-18-2005

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR

File Size: 4700 (0x125C)

File Date: 10/10/2003 4:23 AM

Western Digital USB External Hard Drive

HDC

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\enum\OXUMSS\DISK\0000USB&VID_1058&PID_0902&MI_00&57442D574341505733393933363333

Alloc resources: None

Forced resources: None

Boot resources: None

Filtered resources: None

Basic resources: None

Driver: HDC\0008

Driver Date: 11-18-2005

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR

File Size: 4700 (0x125C)

File Date: 10/10/2003 4:23 AM

Driver: OXUMSS.PDR

File Size: 18913 (0x49E1)

File Date: 10/17/2005 5:16 PM

------------------

WD 5000AAKS Externa

Original Configuration Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008 to Date

Alloc resources: None

Western Digital USB External HDD

Last Change Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Alloc resources: None

Original Configuration Tue Jan 24 10:38:06 2006 to Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR 10/10/2003 4:23 AM Size: 4700

GENERIC NEC FLOPPY DISK

Original Configuration Fri May 24 00:20:04 2002 to Date

Alloc resources: None

Western Digital USB External Hard Drive

Last Change Sun Mar 02 23:30:00 2008

Driver: OXUMSS.PDR 10/17/2005 5:16 PM Size: 18913 Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008 to Sun Mar 02 23:30:00 2008

Alloc resources: None

Original Configuration Mon Mar 26 14:30:02 2007 to Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR 10/10/2003 4:23 AM Size: 4700

Under Complete History-

Western Digital USB External HDD

Last Change Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Alloc resources: None

Original Configuration Tue Jan 24 10:38:06 2006 to Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR 10/10/2003 4:23 AM Size: 4700

Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 895C

Original Configuration Fri May 24 00:20:04 2002 to Date

Alloc resources: None

---

Western Digital USB External Hard Drive

Last Change Sun Mar 02 23:30:00 2008

Driver: OXUMSS.PDR 10/17/2005 5:16 PM Size: 18913 Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008 to Sun Mar 02 23:30:00 2008

Alloc resources: None

Original Configuration Mon Mar 26 14:30:02 2007 to Mon Jan 28 20:00:18 2008

Driver: MXOIOSTB.PDR 10/10/2003 4:23 AM Size: 4700

Edited March 6, 2008 by bootless

[fishindude]

Hi, bootless.

I agree with dencorso. Your data will be OK as long as the drives actually work, you can read them from an XP (or, 2k or Linux) machine. And I also have had impressive results with NUSB 3.3. I'd give it a try. You have to uninstall all USB storage drivers first, including any 2.0 controllers, and then install NUSB. Don't delete your 2.0 controller drivers, just rename them or move them to a new folder.

This may be a dumb question, but I hope it's not insulting. Has your machine ever worked with the new drives attached? If so, it may be a file system problem. If they came pre-formatted from WD, I gotta believe it would be in NTFS, which 98 can't see.

That's some unusual stuff you're seeing. If you actually have a USB HP 895C, try unplugging that before you plug in a drive and see what happens.

The weird driver reports and registry listings are probably beyond me - I hope some of the kindly, helpful wizards who populate this site will weigh in. In particular I'm concerned with why your machine is rejecting the updates from Autopatcher. My own 98 install is over 3 years old and they went through just fine. As they were specifically USB updates, they could very well be the key to your problem. Soporific would be the one to help with this.

[bootless]

Thanks fishindude,

"Has your machine ever worked with the new drives attached?"

Yes, it has worked with every external I have used except for the last one I bought but I am sure it is related to the driver issue at hand now.

"If they came pre-formatted from WD, I gotta believe it would be in NTFS, which 98 can't see."

Actually, they come pre-formatted to FAT32 and if one uses XP then one has to reformat to NTFS.

Yes, I have a HP 895C, it plugs into the normal printer location. I also have a generic NEC floppy disc drive. On the NEC under disk drives the box that says "removable" is checked, that shouldn't be checked, correct?

I haven't had any problems with Autopatcher in the past either. First time I've ever seen that message. Coincidence?

Well, I have been thinking about removing the registry settings for the Western Digital USB External HDD and trying that device again. It can't hurt can it? That has the wrong drivers associated with it to start with. Could it be causing the other problems too?

In one of my log files from the day I got the windows protection error message, I saw a line, the BIOS was not compatible with my OS. Same BIOS I've been using from Day 1 with this OS, lol.

I've booted since that error message with no problems so it might have been related to the updates and the screwed up drivers, not sure.

Hopefully, the wizards that hang out here can shed further light on my issues. Thanks fishindude for sure!

thanks,

Edited March 5, 2008 by bootless

[fishindude]

Hi again, bootless.

1) XP can read and write FAT32. If necessary, you could recover your data from an XP machine. You wouldn't have to format those drives to use them.

2) The NEC disk drive should be checked as removable. Removable refers to the media itself.

I don't think it's coincidence. I think if you can find out why it's doing it, you may solve your problem. I would try uninstalling your WD drivers and running autopatcher again. If it works, I would try NUSB and leave the WD drivers alone.

As for the registry, the plea goes out once again for the registry wizards. It may solve your problem or it may totally hose your system and force you into a clean reinstall. Be very careful.