98SE troubles

[TmEE]

I had used same 98SE setup for 4 years on 6 different computers and it had no problems whatsoever, up until I put it on a 250GB HDD and had wonderful time with tons of corrupt files after crossing 137GB barrier (I'm ultr@ happy that it did not wipe out the FAT !!!)... I also had SP15 installed, later on SP21 installed.

Now I have done a reinstall, having SP21 installed, and now latest KernelEx and AutoPatcher aswell, and my setup is highly unstable, I get lot of crashes. Also, in my last setup, the RAM got freed up on program exits and I always had 400MB out of 512 left to use... when the free RAM amount went too low I could ran some MD emulator which seemed to "release" all used resources and getting the RAM count back to ~400. Now it has no effect, RAM gets used eventually and I need a reboot... for the RAM thing, might this change anything that my 1st setup was done on a 166MHz Pentium1 with 32MB RAM and latest on a 1GHz Celeron with 512 ? Or something did some system tweak to get such "minimalistic" behaviour (if there is any such tweak) ?

For crashes, it does not seem to make any difference if I have KernelEx installed or not, maybe the AutoPatcher has something to do with it... Sometimes when I start a program it terminates with a illegal operation error, and will run on the next try, sometimes I have to run some other program first... its all really weird...

[alexanrs]

Weird, incredibly weird...

I'd try reinstalling from scratch. Install a clean copy of Windows 98, install all the necessary drivers and test. If it is all okay, then apply SP 2.1 and test again... If it is all fine, backup your Win98 directory and install AutoPatcher and tehn.... well, you got it.

[TmEE]

I'll do some clean installs on one of my HDDs, if I succeed in a good setup I have a good copy to use next time Right now I cannot afford to do any reinstalls on my current (not so well working) install...

[Herry_D]

Hi. I started using Win 98SE at the end of Oct, but in that time I came across

an invaluable piece of information: Norton Ghost 2003. The last to use DOS.

Look here: http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?

and here: http://www.helpscreen.com.au/forum.php?msg...p;enotifypost=1

and here: http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1150190239/9#7

The concensus I got from all of the (MANY) posts I've read on a bunch of

forums is this... Make a big "D" partition as a holding place for Ghost images.

Install Win 98SE clean and immediately make a Ghost image of it so the

45 to 75 minutes it took you to install the base 98SE can be now done in

about 30-60 seconds. Yes, I said SECONDS.

Add your various drivers (MoBo, Video, Sound, etc...) then make another

Ghost image.

Add your security proggies, make a new Ghost image.

Add a few more proggies, make a new Ghost image.

Repeat the above until you're fully loaded up.

By doing it this way, if something screws up on, say, the 10th program

you install, your last image that has programs 1-7 on it can be restored and

you're not having to reinstall 10 programs, just 3.

Do a Google search but be sure to look for Ghost 2003 Build .793.

That one works the best with big hard drives.

If you can't find it, PM me and I'll help you look.

Herry

[SeeAScot]

I have been using a similar procedure for years - going back to win 3.1. However, rather than creating an image file, I merely use two HDDs, and copy the partition I am working on to the second HDD for backup, repeating as necessary at each waypoint in the install, (ie installed Windows and add drivers- backup, few more programs - works so far, recopy partition to the backup drive, etc etc.)

I started with Partition Magic and then went to Partition Commander when it first came out.

I will admit to cheating a bit, all my drives are SCSI, and my systems always have two drives, so I can put the swap file on the second one for greater speed (putting a swap file on a different partition of the SAME drive will probably slow things down), plus a third in a removable cartridge. As the SCSI ID numbers are changeable from the front of the cartridge, I can swap a drive between drive 0 and drive 2, just by changing the SCSI ID number with a switch. This means I can work on installing a new OS from scratch on a different drive from that of the OS(s) I am currently using is on, change the SCSI ID number, and be back on the drive with my working OS. 'Sides 15k rpm SCSI beasts make the SATA Raptors look SLOW!

Tip.

Many of us have drives which were replaced because they were too small to hold our OSs and all the data we have as well. While these drives are too small for daily use, they can be used to install a new OS. After the new OS has been installed and is working satisfactorily, you can then copy the partition to the main HDD in your computer, allowing the install of a new OS while not disturbing your working OS. Of course to do either of these, you have to have organized your HDD into at least two partitions, one for your OS and applications and one for everything else, or you have to have two HDDs so organized.

A side advantage is that after you have copied the partition and it has become your working OS, you can merely put the small drive which has a copy of the finalized version of the OS on the shelf. Then should you get some sort of virus or have other ugly things happen which trash your OS, you can merely recopy the partition from the drive which is on the shelf - and viruses aren't real good at traversing a six foot or better air gap Total time necessary to repair a completely trashed C: drive, < a half hour!