Warning: the high memory area (HMA) is not available.

[TeconMoon]

First off, hi there! Glad to see so much activity around such an old OS. I knew there would be challenges, but I was looking into getting Windows 98 installed on a machine of mine and reading up on the RAM issues I'll have to deal with as all that's in the machine is an 8gb stick, but before I can even run the installer I'm getting issues.

When I boot my Windows 98 SE disk, I am able to choose BOOT FROM CD-ROM, but after that no matter what boot option I choose, I get stuck at an error with the message:

Warning: the high memory area (HMA) is not available.
Additional low memory (below 640K) will be used instead.

Here are the machine's specs:

OS: Currently none
Memory: Crucial 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 2133
MB: ASUS H110M-E/m.2
CPU: Intel Core i3-6100
GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 770
HDD: WD 1TB Sata Internal Drive

I realize this isn't much to go on and that this is just my first attempt with a stock Windows 98 SE disk with no modifications, but any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated!

[jaclaz]

You'll have to read (and digest) the info here (lots of info ) :
 

But, what do you mean you are "stuck" at that error?

Seemingly that is a warning, not an error, when does it show (in the dos part, white on black), right after that? (if anything)

Or do a "step by step boot" and find out what causes it, likely it is a "DOS=HIGH" command in config.sys and HIMEM.SYS failing to access high memory or not found.

Both the 8Gb and the 1 Tb hard disk (provided you want to install 98 on the latter) are however - loosely - what I call "looking for troubles".

I cannot remember if it is actually possible to install Windows 98 "normally" with so much memory  , surely the hard disk drive may work if - and only if - you can make a very small partition on it at the beginning (I personally would try with a 1 GB FAT 16 partition, but a FAT32 partition 3 or 4 GB should be OK, and up to 32 Gb should work as well, accessing the rest of the disk - at least as much as possible - will be a "later" problem).

 

jaclaz
 

[rloew]

If you are using an unmodified Windows 98SE Installation CD, this would suggest a problem with HIMEM.SYS. HIMEM.SYS or an equivalent is required for Windows 9x.

I see several issues with this Motherboard that you will have to address.

1. RAM larger than 768MB.
2. Hard Disk larger than 137GB.
3. Legacy Mode SATA not available.
4. No Drivers for Video, Audio or LAN.
5. No PCI slots, limiting you to PCI-E addons.
6. ACPI probably incompatable.

I have Patches for the first three. These can be applied between the first and second passes during Install.
You may want to consider a different Video Card.
You can use an USB Audio Adapter for sound.
There is a buggy Driver that might work for the LAN.
My experiments suggest that there might be a problem using USB LAN Adapters.
ACPI can be disabled by manually starting Setup.

[dencorso]

Try:
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF /M:1 /V /NUMHANDLES=64

[TeconMoon]

Thanks for the responses, though I'm probably going to just use this computer build for another project. Even trying to install Windows XP is throwing out ACPI compliance errors, and on Windows 98 I can't even get to a workable command-line before the computer crashes.

Much appreciated!