Win 98 VIA drivers for Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 Mobo

[Alb]

Hello,

As I want to install Windows 98 SE on my PC with an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 Motherboard I downloaded the necessary drivers from VIA Site.

Here they are:

- Hyperion 4 in 1 Driver, containing: INF update, IDE bus master driver, AGP driver and IRQ routing driver

- Hyperion Pro Driver Package 5.21a, containing INF V3.00A, AGP V4.60A, V-RAID V5.80C and RAID Tools v5.81, VIA IDE Falcon Storage Device driver v.2.60A (as an alternative of Hyperion 4 in 1 Driver)

- VIAVT6420VT8237 SERIALATA V220e (Serial ATA driver)

- nusb33e.exe (Windows 98 SE USB drivers)

- VIA_USB2_V2.70p1-L-M (VIA USB2.0 driver for Windows XP 32 bit, Windows 9x, Windows 2000)

Am I supposed to install them after the Windows 98 SE installation?

Could you suggest me the right procedure?

Best Regards

P.S.

In my PC there are two hard disks, one IDE and the other SATA and an AGP video card (I must say, also, that I'm not interested in the RAID Storage technology)

[Rjecina]

First because you will use IDE and SATA hard disk you must make decision about that:

Windows 98 SE will be installed on IDE or SATA (or it is dual bot) ?

If it is IDE you can after installation connect SATA and in this way solve all majority of your problems ?

There is other option (installation on SATA) and if you want to do that maybe you will need to do something similar to me.

I have not worked with this MBO, but I have worked on new Windows 98 SE installation on SATA hard disk (+IDE DVD ROM connected) last year with AsRock 775i65G. First thing for me has been to enter BIOS and change configuration in legacy mode which is supporting Windows 98 SE on SATA hard disk. Maybe you will need to do something similar if you want to install Windows 98 SE on SATA ?

In the end it is not important which version you will choose because in my thinking you will need sooner or latter enter to BIOS, or you will be without SATA in Windows 98 SE. Real question is do you need SATA hard drive with Windows 98 SE ?

[Alb]

Hello,

I want to install Windows 98 SE on the IDE hard drive (80 GB) and a Linux distribution on the SATA hard drive (500 GB). The two OSes will be in dual boot and the boot loader (I think) should be on the MBR of the IDE one, so, it seems to me that I'll have however to enter BIOS and change configuration in legacy mode even if I don't need SATA hard drive with Windows 98 SE (am I right?).

Best Regards

P.S. In my PC there are, also, an IDE CD/DVD ROM and an IDE CD Writer.

[dencorso]

Divide both HDDs in at least two partitions and use the first partition in each HDD for each OS. 12 GB should be plenty for 98SE.

Install 98SE on the IDE, give it VIA Hyperion 4in1 v456 and VIA SATA v220e. Then install VIA USB2 V2.70p1-L-M, backup Usbhub20.sys v4.90.3000.11 (from VIA) and install NUSB36e, then boot to DOS and put Usbhub20.sys v4.90.3000.11 back, replacing the one installed by NUSB. After rebooting you should be all set.

Now disconnect the IDE HDD and install Linux in the SATA HDD. Reconnect the IDE. By selecting the boot disk in BIOS, you should now be able to boot either OS an see/access all HDDs, except for the Linux boot partition (because it'll be formatted to Ext2 or whatever). There are programs that let you access Ext2 from 9x/ME, so Ext2 should be preferred. Moreover, Linux doesn't really need a second partition for the pagefile, it can use a common pagefile inside another partition, and that can be FAT-32.

Once you know for sure you can boot OK from each HDD to the OS in it, set the IDE as default boot in BIOS, then edit the [Options] section in MSDOS.SYS to say this:

[Options]
BootDelay=0
BootMulti=0
BootGUI=0
BootWarn=0
LoadTop=1
DoubleBuffer=1
DblSpace=0
DrvSpace=0
AutoScan=2
Logo=1
DisableLog=0
WinVer=4.10.2222

Add a CONFIG.SYS like this (customize it, especially the [9X] section, to your liking):

menuitem=9X, Win 98SE (98SE2ME).
menuitem=GR, Grub4Dos Boot Loader.
menudefault=GR,5
menucolor=7,0

[GR]
install=grub.exe

[9X]
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:ON /EISA /V
DOS=HIGH
SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WIN\ /E:2048 /L:256 /U:255 /P
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\DBLBUFF.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,2)
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ANSI.SYS

LASTDRIVE=Z
BUFFERS=64,8
FILES=50
FCBS=40,8
STACKS=18,256

SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
SET TMP=C:\TEMP
SET TMPDIR=C:\TEMP
SET PROMPT=$P$G
SET WINPMT=$P$G

SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM;

COUNTRY=055,850,C:\WIN\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS
INSTALL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY.COM

Add an AUTOEXEC.BAT like this:

@ECHO OFF
WIN

Add Grub4DOS to the root dir of the IDE HDD

and add this MENU.LST (take care, the SATA HDD may be sd0, instead of hd1... if so, adjust):

default 0 
timeout 4 

title LINUX
map             (hd0) (hd1)
map             (hd1) (hd0)
map             --hook
rootnoverify    (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader     (hd0,0)+1

And now you should be able to multiboot from the keyboard, during startup, without needing to go into BIOS.

HTH.

[Alb]

Hello,

Thanks you all for your instructions they are very interesting (even if a little complicated for an inexperienced person like me ). Best Regards

[glocK_94]

If you don't want to go though the trouble of installing a boot manager like Grub (not that hard if you follow Dencorso's instructions), just know that your MOBO allows you to choose which disk you want to boot from.

All you have to do is press F11 during startup.

So, if your main system will be 98, you can just set the Boot priority to IDE in your BIOS. If you ever need to switch to Linux, all you have to do is press F11 at startup and select the SATA drive.

This way, your disks would be fully independent and, if for some reason, one of them fails, you'll still be able to boot the other one.

[Alb]

Hello, this is a very good news! Thanks a lot . You must know that I recently bought this MOBO, used, on Ebay, and I don't know it well (the old one was a Soyo 6BA+III-2BA6 (with a Pentium III 500 MHz, 256 MB of RAM).