Windows 98 on Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop

[Tommy]

Windows 98 holds a ton of memories for me, such as being the first OS I used when going online and the one I thought had the most awesome login sound ever! Truth is, I love it way more than Windows 2000. But anyway, back to my point.

I'm attempting install on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop and even if I can't find drivers, I just want to get it installed and working just to say I did. Here's my current configuration.

Intel Duo Core Centrino processor running at 1.6GHz x2

160GB Hard Drive

2GB of RAM

I think that's all the basic information you need. Now, here's what I tried. Obviously, I tried just the regular install disk (second edition by the way). I get through the first part of setup, no problems. Reboot. Not enough memory to initialize Windows. Okay...so I set MaxPhysPage to 30000 and at the time, MaxFileCache to 131072. Reboot. Yay! It worked! Now the second part of setup continues. I get through that. Reboot. Third part. Windows 98 splash screen. Uh oh.....black screen. D: Called it a failed attempt.

Next try. I slipstreamed the new service pack onto the CD which included the patched esdi_506.pdr file. Get through first part of setup just fine. Reboot. Aww, crap! Memory error again. So this time I set MaxPhysPage to 30000, MinFileCache to 4096, MaxFileCache to 131072 and the ChunkSIze to 1024. Reboot. Okay, second part of setup finishes. Reboot. Third part. Oh my...it's working! Third part just about begins....first I get a blue screen about some warning that the computer needs to use compatbility mode for something and will happen on reboot. Reboot. Third part of setup begins. Then I start getting file errors. One I think was desk.cpl...and there was something else I think had to deal with the time. Then....freezes....nothing else happens. Needs to be manually rebooted. Safe mode won't work...nothing else I try works.

So, based on that information, would anyone know where I'm going wrong exactly? I feel ashamed to hold the title of a computer professional but this one has me stumped. I try reading stuff on the forums but it's so advanced for me, especially since I've been using 2000/XP for years now. Any help would be more than greatly appreciated.

Edit: I better mention I used the full 160GB for one partition.

Edited November 19, 2011 by SearanoX

[schwups]

Windows 98SE on Inspiron 1525

[Tommy]

Thanks for the link! But I'm still not having any success with this. Has anyone gotten this working or know of a way how to. I tried RLoew's 137 and RAM patch to no avail. I also set MaxPhysPage, etc in system.ini but still it's just a black screen when I try booting it up to start the 3rd part of setup. Should I just install Windows 2000 and forget about Windows 98?