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98SE install prep for Dell Latitude D830


beansmuggler

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I decided to write a thread here after installing XP and 98SE on this laptop countless times to avoid wasting any more time than I have (though it's been fun).

Right now I've formatted C: as a ~2GB FAT32 partition and left the rest of the ~160GB drive unpartitioned for now because trying to install 98 while an NTFS partition exists makes the setup cd want to wipe the whole drive. I copied the WIN98 folder to C: and now I am copying another folder called CABS over, which contains the extracted contents of every .CAB file in WIN98 because of some problem I had a million installs ago. After that's done, I plan to copy the following folders into that CABS folder:

  • VID: This has the bearwindows universal video driver with the INF edited to include my driver (which is either a Quadro NVS of some kind or an Intel onboard thing, I don't know anymore)
  • SATA: The BIOS doesn't seem to have anything about IDE support in it, so I'm using this, which seemed to get recognized last install
  • HDAFILES: Stuff for High Definition Audio Codec as instructed here (will copy the renamed HDAICOUT.HDA.100 file into Windows directory as needed)
  • CHIPSET: This has chipset drivers I got from somewhere on here. I've noticed on my last install that there is one extra bit of the chipset that seems to want to use a generic Windows driver rather than the one provided.

I'm also using HIMEMX.EXE with /MAX=512000 as I found here a good few installs ago, and messing with SYSTEM.CB as described here to use Safe Mode. I've only recently learned that HIMEMX apparently uses a different form of measurement than the regular HIMEM in Windows, because I was using /MAX=65536 this whole time (the linked site and other sites used 131072 for 1GB, so I just halved it to keep to 512MB and avoid breaking things), but I suddenly noticed that only gave me ~64mb of RAM despite the same number giving me 512mb in Safe Mode. 512000 still only gets me to about 501mb though, so if anyone can provide the number I'm supposed to use, I very much welcome it.

While my previous installation attempts have all been a little different, here's the planned order for this one:

  1. Finish copying the above
  2. Run Setup
  3. On reboot, go directly into Command prompt only and apply the changes to CONFIG.SYS and SYSTEM.CB
  4. Reboot into Safe Mode
  5. In regedit, delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum (I don't remember if I do this here or after the next reboot, but at some point I get stuck at a blank screen and need to do this to clear every driver away)
  6. By third reboot I should be able to go into a fresh install and witness a small handful of resource conflicts
  7. Install the USB fixer tool linked somewhere on here
  8. Install 98SESP3

Forgot to mention: I've also disabled the 1394/Card option in BIOS, disabled Multi-Core and other fancy stuff, chosen Onboard Video rather than Dock Video, disabled WIFi, Bluetooth, and Cellular, and set LAN to just LAN instead of LAN w/ PXE Boot (idunno, it seemed to fancy for 98 to understand).

I still haven't solved the mystery of the CD-DVD-RW-???? driver (98 won't read CD's at all after going through installation) and the cause of the resource conflicts. I found that extracting the .EXE for one of the CD driver updates on the Dell support site shows both a windows and a DOS folder, but trying to install them via the in-folder EXE once just gave me a glitchy screen (98 wasn't loading the DOS stuff in its own window I guess) and then the attempt of the same thru command prompt just messed up all my other drivers when I rebooted. Don't know what to do now.

That's all I got. I'm guessing WiFi and Bluetooth are impossible for now but I have hope because the huge research time on this forum revealed a ton of ingenuity. There is also this 022Micro thing (cant remember exact name) that I think I have to install by its own EXE even in XP, I forgot what it does so I just ignore it. Anyone know what else I can do to fix my remaining problems (or prevent me from ruining things by bad plans) ?

 

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if you don't have driver success with the Quadro NVS you can swap it out for a Dell 7800GTX 256mb. 

Bluetooth? absolutely- Dell 355 bluetooth module and D00748-001-002.exe  (license will be an issue)

Wireless? yes, if you can find Gigabyte GN-WS30N 802.11n mini WLAN Card,  a 9x driver does exist

if your dock device is flagged in system devices, Intel ICH2 has the driver

I went through all this when I had my Precision M90

 

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On 12/15/2020 at 3:34 AM, farfigs11 said:

if you don't have driver success with the Quadro NVS you can swap it out for a Dell 7800GTX 256mb. 

On D830 the GPU is soldered to the mobo, not a separate card.

Or, did you mean to use just the driver for 7800GTX?

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On 12/15/2020 at 10:11 PM, RainyShadow said:

On D830 the GPU is soldered to the mobo, not a separate card.

Or, did you mean to use just the driver for 7800GTX?

my bad, I didn't realize the latitude was that way.

 

I assume you are using the modified ICH7-9 inf files found here & ACPI is installed/enabled.  ICH2CorM.inf has the following lines

%*PNP0C15.DeviceDesc%   = GLB_DOCK_DRV, *PNP0C15        ; ACPI Global Dock

*pnp0c15.DeviceDesc="ACPI Dock Device"

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Two updates: I got a new CD drive to replace the faltering one I had before. With the old one, I'd sometimes have to wait for hours on the BOIS F12 screen until the CD drive decided to work, and then keep using the computer until the drive stopped responding again. This new drive stops a few times before reaching a stable state, but it works consistently.

I also got 98SE to a stable state last night (never booting to a black screen), but I've stopped everything there so I can be sure of what to do next. I'll describe the process as best as I can remember before describing the problem for the sake of clarity.

1. I set up DOS on a 2GB partition under C: using the steps described here, replacing the HIMEM.SYS line with

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEMX.EXE /MAX=523264

I'm using 523264 instead of 524288 because 98 apparently interprets the latter as 513.0 MB. It still allowed everything to run, but I'm just playing safe. I also added the /L:D flag to SHSUCDX /D:?IDE-CD because it wouldn't choose a drive letter otherwise.

2. With DOS set up, I copied the WIN98 folder onto C: along with a folder containing LoneCrusader's Intel chipset drivers, the bearwindows video display driver (which I've messed with as instructed on the site to refer to both display devices that were found by PCI.EXE), the "Watlers World" 16-bit High Definition Audio Driver provided by deomsh, the RLoew PATCHPCI patch (with everything in the 1.1a folder for PTCHSATA too), and some Latitude D600 drivers provided by notsofossil on VOGONS just in case.

3. I ran SETUP from the hard drive with the "/p j" flag.

4. After the first reboot, I hit F12 and chose to boot from CD. I ran the RLoew PTCHSATA patch and copied SATA.INF to the INF directory. I also replaced the standard WIndows MACHINE.INF, MACHINE2.INF, and MSHDC.INF with the ones provided by LoneCrusader (I later learned that having both SATA.INF and the LoneCrusader drivers may be redundant). I think I tried to run PATCHPCI from here, but failed because PCI.VXD wasn't made yet. I know that I ran it at some point and it succeeded then. I also moved HDAICOUT.HDA into the Windows directory.

5. I rebooted and continued with installation. Everything went smoothly, but if I recall correctly, I booted into the black screen.

6. I rebooted into Command prompt only and made the changes mentioned here to system.cb.

7. I did a lot of fiddling with things at this point and can't remember the exact order of events, but I did all of these things:

a) I rebooted into Safe Mode and set Read-ahead optimization and Hardware acceleration for graphics both to zero. The resolution was also set to 16 colors and restarted.

b) I set Device enumeration in PCI bus to Use BIOS instead of Use Hardware

c) I deleted HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum in regedit and restarted, installing some drivers.

8. When 98 was done automatically recognizing new drivers on reboots, I ran Main Updates in 98SESP3. This has to be done in 16 colors mode or else screws up the screen and you can't do anything. I ran the DirectX install through this tool afterwards, too.

9. I ran PATCHPCI and PTCHSATA twice to uninstall and re-install the RLoew patches that SP3 tends to remove, then copied SATA.INF to the INF directory again, replacing the existing copy there.

10. I think I may have deleted Enum again after this and reinstalled the drivers. Everything installed automatically up to the hard disk controllers with no conflicts whatsoever, However, the PCI Card, PCI Ethernet controller, PCI Network controller, PCI System management bus, and 5 PCI Universal Serial Buses were listed as Unknown Device (that last part was fine with me because the thing only has 4 USB ports anyways, and they were already installed. Maybe these are left by the BIOS USB emulation?).

 

The one remaining problem is that one "Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)" is always giving a yellow exclamation point with a device status of Code 10. The "update driver" option doesn't change this, and switching between RLoew's SATA.INF and LoneCrusader's chipset drivers doesn't change it (I've also decided to use the LoneCrusader drivers rather than SATA.INF since it seems to match what I get when I install the Intel drivers to this computer on Windows XP). Commenting out the lines to install the CD drivers in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT didn't change it, either.

Other than installing Performance tweak and one other tweak from SP3, making a backup of the stable computer state, turning the color settings to True Color (32 bit), and installing XP on a ~40GB NTFS partition on this same hard drive, I have done nothing. An attempt to use one of the D600 driver management installers was also unfruitful. What should I do now?

 

Attached is the current driver listing in Device Manager.

photo_2021-01-04_13-44-13.jpg

photo_2021-01-04_13-44-15.jpg

photo_2021-01-04_13-44-18.jpg

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2 hours ago, beansmuggler said:

The one remaining problem is that one "Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)" is always giving a yellow exclamation point with a device status of Code 10.

I had the same problem. Not fully sure about it, but it seems that the SATA patch needs a decent Microsoft version of ESDI_506.PDR. 

Most easy is to extract the original version from the CD-cab, replace the new version in IOSUBSYS, delete the backups. Then run in Real mode MS-DOS first RLOEW's High Capacity Disk Patch, and second the SATA Patch.

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3 hours ago, deomsh said:

I had the same problem. Not fully sure about it, but it seems that the SATA patch needs a decent Microsoft version of ESDI_506.PDR. 

Most easy is to extract the original version from the CD-cab, replace the new version in IOSUBSYS, delete the backups. Then run in Real mode MS-DOS first RLOEW's High Capacity Disk Patch, and second the SATA Patch.

I'm in the middle of downloading the High Capacity Disk Patch right now and I think I just realized I made a grave miscommunication at some point -- I've never used the high capacity patch, so I don't think I've ever changed ESDI_506.PDR. Should I still follow these steps anyways?

EDIT: The copy of ESDI_506.PDR provided by the high capacity patch, the copy in my IOSUBSYS, the copy on my CD, and the copy under WIN98 on my hard drive all seem to be the same size. What changes?

Edited by beansmuggler
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  • 3 weeks later...

In addition to reinstalling Windows 98 SE with the /p i switch (there must be space between p and i), set the SATA mode to AHCI in BIOS.

Then, after the installation is finished, install the AHCI driver from here using Device Manager (Update Driver): https://archive.org/details/ahci_win9x
The device you'll be installing the driver for will be one of the "PCI Card" devices with yellow question mark. Just try each one (there might be many of these), until it is detected by the driver as an AHCI Controller.

After the driver is installed and system has rebooted, hopefully you'll have full 32-bit disk access in the Performance tab in the System Control Panel. 

With the AHCI driver, you are bypassing ESDI_506.PDR entirely, saving a lot of headaches.

 

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