Windows Protection Error - IO.sys

[Fredledingue]

I'm trying to install w98se on a blank, freshly reformated drive.

It scanned all drives, found no error, I exited scandisk then he used to show this:

Please wait while Setup initializes
Scanning system registry...
Copying files needed for Windows Setup...

and then nothing happened. ==> I solved this problem by rebooting via floppy boot disk (original) in "Safe mode command prompt only".

Then he accpeted to install windows.

During restart, after the installer had copied all files, I pressed Ctrl and rebooted in dos mode to replace all files for supporting big hard drives, and to edit system.ini to support more than 512 Mb of memory.

Anyway, windows doesn't want to work: Windows protection error. Pffft...!

During a test under "one by one confirmation mode", everything went ok until msmouse.vxd.

I replaced msmouse.vxd by the one I had on the old system (still on the other drive).

The I got a different error when trying to load msmouse.vxd:

Invalid vxd dynamic link call to device member 3, serie B.
Your Windows configuration is incorrect.

The drived is partitioned as following:

C: 38 Gb

E: 345 Gb

On another physical drive:

D: 120 Gb

That's the drive where windows was installed previousely and is still installed.

I think I formated and partitioned properly.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Fredledingue

[Fredledingue]

During various tests I got the following errors:

While initializing device IOS
Windows protection error. You must restart your computer

sometimes IOS is replaced by VMCPD or VDD...

Please help!

[BATSoftware]

Hello,

There are several possibilities on why this error would appear.

The most likely cause of the problem is that the device driver being loaded is not compatable with the particular hardware device and is failing during initialization of the driver. If the culprit is the mouse, then the problem could be an incorrect driver for the type of mouse device you are using. Different motherboards allow for different mouse types. Assuming you are using a motherboard with a PS/2 connector, connect a working PS/2 compatable mouse and try the install again. The setup process should recognize the PS/2 mouse and load the correct default device driver. This should get you past this problem.

If you want to use a non-PS/2 compatible mouse, the mouse (USB type mouse) manufacturer should provide you with a WIN 95/98/ME driver. If you can not locate such a mouse installation program/driver set, then I would suggest using a PS/2 compatible mouse.

Also note, WIN98 will not recognize disk partitions greater than 137GB (unless you install special unofficial patch). If you

installed WIN98 in a partition > 137GB it will fail. If SYSTEM.INI contains any references to files located on a >137GB

drive, that will cause a failure as well.

If this is a 100% fresh (ie - empty registry) install, then you should not have anything loaded other than a basic WIN98 system and you should not witness the SYSTEM.INI problem. If this is a re-install using a pre-existing registry, you are vulnerable to this problem.

BATSoftware

[Fredledingue]

Thanks for your answer, BatSoftware.

It was not the mouse or its driver.

The culprit was IO.SYS.

I solved the problem but how!

I tried maybe 15 times to replace IO.sys under DOS (the only mode that I could access my computer with) and it always yelled "access denied". I tried several ways of booting, either from boot disks (2 different versions) or by restarting and pressing Ctrl. Everytime the access was denied and I couldn't update IO.sys.

The old installation of windows was still on the old drive, which became primary slave in the meantime. The new 400 Gb drive was primary slave before and became primary master in order to install windows on it. I had to do it because the new drive is faster than the old one.

So, I reset the jumpers at the back of the drives and switched the ribbon cables to get back to the old hardware configuration. When I rebooted with the old windows on the old disk, I was able to replace IO.sys installed on the new drive with windows explorer.

So, you can change IO.sys under windows but not under Dos!

Maybe IO.sys was also the reason why windows installer didn't want to start before (see above).

I don't know how I would have made it without a second drive (<137 Gb) with windows already installed.

[Drugwash]

Probably by booting a Linux Live CD and copying the new file from a floppy, a secondary optical drive or a backup folder.

[Fredledingue]

No, no ,no

You just have to remove the attribute with the arttrib command.

see here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-w98-on-L...40&start=40

Regards

[Drugwash]

Ah yes, I remember having such problem with file attributes in WLL Installer. Got around it pretty quickly though.