[RESOLVED] Win 98 install, then Win 95, now hosed.

[Melissa]

It all started with a new motherboard. I upgraded to a new motherboard about two months ago and saw some "kinks" I knew I should rebuild the Win95 OS, but I decided to wait and do the Win98 instead.
While I was away on a business trip, the kids loaded a new game and the system started having exception errors on VMM when they would exit the program, run from cdrom. Then whenever I would send email from Netscape, and try to load a url at the same time, I would get the error... that kind of stuff.
I attempted to upgrade to Win98 a few days ago and I've been in repair-heck (watching my language here) ever since.
The upgrade failed and wouldn't run from cdrom. Copying it to my harddrive wouldn't copy all of the files.
It somehow hosed the Win95 so I tried to reinstall it.... a few times... from command prompt, copied to my hard drive.
Where I'm at now?? Either installing to a new folder, or the current one, I get the same result. When Win95 loads for the first time, it does the plug and play and appears to see the video driver that I give it, but won't accept the soundcard driver. It continues past the plug and play install and Explorer crashes. Then after that, Explorer always crashes, safe mode or not. I don't get a chance to get to the control panels. I don't know how to edit the system.ini or anything from here.
Machine specifics I don't know. I haven't taken it apart to see what I have for cdrom or anything.... I guess my first plea for help is "How do I find out what I have for hardware" the easiest way?
Sorry to sound so dumb! I just don't know Win95 (or Win98 for that matter). I'm a Unix person.

[danners]

If I understand correctly, the problems really started after you installed a new motherboard. I suspect that the real problem lies there. If you can't even copy the Win95 or Win98 directories onto your hard drive from DOS sucessfully, then you definately have a low level problem.

I have a couple of suggestions on some things to try, but if it were me and I still had my old motherboard laying around, I'd put it back in and see if you have the same problem copying the installation directories onto the hard disk. If it works, then I wouldn't even bother trying to install Windows with the new motherboard until you can isolate that problem.

Did you add any new memory along with the motherboard? If so, are you mixing it with your old memory? If so, try using either just the old or just the new modules. Mixing old and new memory can cause all kinds of problems. Also, what type of IO cards do you have in the slots? I'd remove everything except the video card. Yank the sound card, modem, any SCSI adapters etc. Also, how is the CDROM connected to the system? Does is have a propriatary adapter, connect to the sound card or to an IDE port on the motherboard. If it connects to an IDE port, make sure that you're not daisey chaining it off of your hard disk. Try setting it up as a single unit off of the secondary IDE port. If it's setup as a slave currently, you'll probably have to reconfigure the jumpers on the back of the unit.

Regarding the OS, if you really want a clean install into a clean directory (which is what I'd suggest anyway), you'll want to make sure and rename (or delete) setuplog.txt and system.1st in the root of the C drive. They're hidden files, so you'll need to type:
attrib -r -s -h system.1st or setuplog.txt
before you'll be able to see the files. Also, you really should rename system.dat, system.da0 (that's a zero), user.dat and user.da0 in your current windows directory. Sometimes if windows detects a previous install of 95 or 98, it'll carry old corrupt registry settings over even to a clean directory. Also, rename the Program Files directory (that's progra~1 at a DOS prompt). Not renaming the Program Files directory won't usually cause any problems, but you'll have orphan files laying around otherwise. I always rename files and directories first, then if everything installs okay, I'll delete them a week or so later.

As far as the drivers not installing properly at the end of setup, if you're installing into a clean directory and it asks for the disk provided by the mfg, try browsing to either the old Windows\Inf directory or the old Windows\System directory rather than inserting the mfg's disk. The drivers that you had installed in your old directory may be more current than what is on the mfg's disk. If you're crashing in safe mode though, once again, I suspect hardware.

I hope that I've been some help. I did tech support for Windows 95 for Microsoft for almost 4 years, and the problems that you're experiencing are hardware 99% of the time. Also, if you're using an AMD K6 200 or 300, the problem may be that those processors are too fast for retail Win95. If you have OSR2 (OEM version of 95 - 4.00.950B), then there is a patch that can be downloaded from AMD. The patch won't work with retail 95 though and you shouldn't have problems at all with 98.

If I can be of any more help, feel free to email me at [email protected].
Good luck.

[Mustang]

in order to get it working again you may have to do a full install on the windows 95

to do this you need a bootable floppy or dos installed and the drivers for the cd rom
after you get the cd rom to function you can install win 95 from a cd and have the machine up and running in about 30 -45 mins

just remember that in order to do this you will need to format the hard drive to eliminate all existing information on it
if there is anything you may need i will send it if i have it
just ask and i'll email everything i have to you so you can boot the machine

[format c:]

Hi Melissa If you dont have a boot disk , May I offer you my unidisk, this disk will start 99 % of cd roms out there
All I have to do is email you the file , whick is in zip format, extract the folders to a clean floppy and boot up the machine on it and it should find and get you cd rom going
then you can install win 95 and I recomend a clean install and checking those mother board settings

------------------
Format c:

[Melissa]

Here's my Update! It's fixed and running perfect. It hasn't crashed once yet!!

The problem definately did start with the motherboard and was hardware related, to a certain point. Danners -- I did add a new memory module at the same time as the motherboard also!

Problem Number 1, the hardware, solved.
I removed the soundcard and started the Win95 install again.

Install seemed alright, for the time being, but when a login was attempted, Explorer always errored with an OE and I couldn't get anywhere. During the install, when given the choice of keeping the newest file (as recommended) rather than copying over an older one.... I kept the new. Big mistake. The biggest, I think, was that my Explorer was now dated because of the Win98 install that began and didn't finish because of the hardware problem. Win95 couldn't launch with the Explorer from Win98.

Problem Number 2, the software install, solved.
I installed the Win95, replacing all newest files with old files from the Win95 install.

From here, I was set with a new Win95 OS up and running, I used my diskettes to load drivers for my soundcard (now placed back onto the motherboard).

I upgraded to Win98 without incident.

Moral of story... geesh, I'm not sure, other than to pay attention to hardware installed and software installs. Not always best to keep the new!!

Thanks for all the help, everyone.