Windows 98SE running on Intel 9th gen platform feat. ATI X700 PCI-E and Aureal 8810

[Omores]

I'm currently running Windows 98SE on a Ryzen 9 3900X platform - on bare metal. Also Windows 95. From what I saw online - on the Intel side - Windows 98 installation process usually ends into a "Windows protection error"/ "VCACHE error". (on very modern hardware) There are a couple of videos on YouTube with failed installations on 9th gen platform. I got recently a H310 motherboard/i3-9100F @ 3.6Ghz and it looks like you can install Windows 98 on 9th gen hardware... 

Here are a few tips:

• do not use himemx or R. Loew memory patch (you can use R. Loew's patch when you're done with the installation  )
• use himem.sys with /M:1 (try other machine types, like /M:14 for HP). Use /v to get a nice comforting message from himem.sys
• make a fresh primary bootable partition using fdisk from Windows 98 boot disk. Try do disconnect other drives when installing, you can reconnect them later...
• use a PCI to SATA/IDE controller
• use PCI-E to PCI adapters, they are cheap and reliable
• there is a new patch in town regarding new CPUs(patcher9x)

*Obviously I can't recommend using very modern hardware with Windows 9X for a dedicated machine, but if you can set up a dual boot machine (with some PCI hardware dedicated to 9x), I think it's a very nice option to have.

**Nice option from BIOS to report USB storage as FDD or HDD. Below a 256MB floppy...

Edited March 14, 2023 by Omores

[NullEntity]

Good stuff!

[pangoomis]

What UEFI version you are using on this motherboard? Does updating it causes the VCACHE error to appear like in your Ryzen motherboard?

Why do you need the SATA/IDE controller? Motherboard's SATA ports should work fine with RLoew's AHCI driver/SweetLow's fixed version from here: http://sweetlow.orgfree.com/download/

patcher9x is not useful outside of Virtual Machines, the error in those is caused by the ESDI_506.PDR built-in 32-bit IDE driver, which of course is not used on modern motherboards since Win9x automatically reverts back to the 16-bit DOS based disk access (and warns you of that in System Control Panel Applet's Performance Tab.)

 

[Omores]

53 minutes ago, MrMateczko said:

What UEFI version you are using on this motherboard? Does updating it causes the VCACHE error to appear like in your Ryzen motherboard?

Why do you need the SATA/IDE controller? Motherboard's SATA ports should work fine with RLoew's AHCI driver/SweetLow's fixed version from here: http://sweetlow.orgfree.com/download/

 

PRIME H310M-E R2.0 BIOS 1007 Version 1007 9.07 MB 2019/10/14 - I will update to the latest BIOS and report. I just got this board yesterday...  There was a "Windows protection error" that was causing a dead end initially. This error occurred right after the first restart - this is the usual business when installing on newer Intel platforms. No mention about "VCACHE" which also is a "Windows protection error". I did disabled many CPU options in BIOS but in the same time I started a fresh installation using another drive and a dedicated controller, most likely the new hardware made the difference.

I never used an AHCI driver to install Windows 98. I did install R. Loew's patches afterwards. For compatibility it's the best to have a dedicated old school SATA controller, because there are no patches for Windows 3.11/95 etc.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Omores

[pangoomis]

The AHCI driver also works on 95, I don't care personally about Win3x.

Your UEFI version looks old enough, back when I had an ASUS ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING motherboard, it had a 2021 UEFI version and it ran 98SE well with Ryzen 5 3600.

My current motherboard MSI PRO H610M-B DDR4 with Intel i3-12100F and the latest UEFI version, sadly throws the VCACHE error. (Don't really want to test older versions as XMP doesn't work on those and the motherboard doesn't have any failsafes in case of a power outage during UEFI flashing)

[ABCDEFG]

@Omores

Does your Aureal 8810 work properly? If so which driver?

My Aureal 8820 causes BSODs in 9x but it is working properly in xp, unfortunately i have no time to try all possible drivers and combinations.

[Omores]

On 3/16/2023 at 4:30 PM, MrMateczko said:

Your UEFI version looks old enough, back when I had an ASUS ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING motherboard, it had a 2021 UEFI version and it ran 98SE well with Ryzen 5 3600.

Good news! It works with the latest Windows 11 ready BIOS from 06/2022. Stable and no problems.

Before I upgraded I made a video: 

Still no luck without a separate PCI to SATA controller. I even used a PCI-E SATA controller SIL3132 and installation went into a dead end loop.

On 3/16/2023 at 5:11 PM, ABCDEFG said:

@Omores

Does your Aureal 8810 work properly? If so which driver?

* I used this driver:  https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=458&menustate=0

Edited March 23, 2023 by Omores

[pangoomis]

Not sure why you encounter issues with onboard SATA ports, what are the issues?

Windows should automatically after first phase of setup switch to the legacy DOS based 16-bit disk access (with the warning in the Performance tab). Perhaps it tries to use ESDI_506.PDR, how does BOOTLOG.TXT looks like?