HELP INSTALLING WIN98SE TO ACER NETBOOKS

[libnw]

Purchased a new (key code included) Windows 98SE installation package from Amazon.  After several days of trying to install this OS on my new ACER ASPIRE ONE D255e netbook, the 3.5" floppy will not recognize the external Samsung CD/DVD device to load the OS files.

 

I got around this hang up by copying and pasting the CD start up disk to a 64gb thumb drive, then click on setup,

 

This worked flawlessly in copying the OS files to the C;\ drive of the netbook.  It went so far as to successfully get to the first "reboot" to the point of recognizing the components on my computer.  Then the hang up occurred!  Screen said there was insufficient memory to progress; and that I needed to delete other running startup programs, or work with my autoexec.bat or config.sys files.

 

QUESTION NOW:  HOW DO I OVERCOME THIS HANGUP?  SECOND QUESTION:  WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO THE AUTOEXEC OR CONFIG.SYS FILES TO MOVE ON WITH THE INSTALLATION?

 

FRANK:

 

FIRST EDIT 2015/05/29:

 

Nothing seemed to work to resolve this "insuffient memory issue until I stumbled upon the MS forum and it addressed this issue.  Turned out that there was a "System.Ini" line that had to be added to fix this.  Here is MS solution, and it works:

 

QUOTE:

"To work around this issue, add the following line to the [386enh] section of the System.ini file:
 

MaxPhysPage=30000
                

This limits the amount of physical RAM that Windows can access to 768 MB. To do so, use the following steps:
 

1. Use any text editor (such as Notepad) to edit the System.ini file.
2. Add the following line in the [386Enh] section of the file
   
   MaxPhysPage=30000
   
                           
3. Save the file, and then restart your computer.

If this problem occurs during Windows Setup, use the following steps to resolve the issue:
 

1. Restart your computer. When you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, press the F8 key, and then choose Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.
   
   For Windows 98, restart your computer, press and hold down the CTRL key until the Startup menu appears, and then choose Command Prompt Only.
2. Change to the folder into which you are attempting to install Windows.
3. Edit the System.ini file. To do so, type edit system.ini, and then press ENTER.
4. Add the following line in the [386Enh] section of the file
   
   MaxPhysPage=30000
   
                           
5. Save the file, and then restart your computer. Windows Setup should continue.

UNQUOTE.

 

The above solved the memory hangup during the initial install.  However, additional hangups occurred rapidly after that, primarily in the hardware, and plug n play features. After the hangup, I had to restart manually, only to discover that starting in "Safe Mode"  windows didn't recognize the above feature in safe mode!  Now the Memory area again in the safe mode after it was resolved in the normal mode.  Go figure!!!!   Please write back if you have a clue what might be going on here.

Edited May 29, 2015 by libnw

[jaclaz]

Something like this one?:

http://www.cnet.com/products/acer-aspire-one-d255e-13639-10-1-atom-n455-windows-7-starter-1-gb-ram-250-gb-hdd/specs/

 

Which processor?

Which speed?

How much RAM?

 

The basic steps to install a Windows 9x on such a kind of PC is usually to install DOS to the internal disk, copying to it also the setup files and to run the setup from the internal disk itself, like in here:

http://www.nickh.org/computer/instlwin9x.html

and - more loosely - as in here:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/laptopinstall98stepbystep1/indexfullpage.htm#.VUkJBL0Zk_g

 

Just use the USB stick as if it was the CD-ROM in the above, but very likely the USB stick will be C: drive and the partition on the internal hard disk will be D:, so you will have to adapt to your actual drive letter assignment, and of course this assumes that you already partitioned the hard disk (using FDISK or similar) and formatted the target filesystem.

 

Then there may be issues anyway with too fast processor or too much RAM.

 

And it is very possible that you will need to run the setup with a given switch:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/186111

http://thpc.info/how/switches9x.html

 

jaclaz

[submix8c]

JFYI (re RAM) -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/118097-day-to-day-running-win-9xme-with-more-than-1-gib-ram/