Trouble installing Win98se

King6 · 03-07-2005, 04:52 PM

I am trying to install 98se to a 200 mhz Pentium MMX mother board. It is equipped with a 40Gbyte hard drive and a 48X CDrom drive. I have 64Mbyte of RAM and it boots in DOS from a win98 recovery/startup disk OK. However, every time I try to run setup from the 98se CD, I get the message that setup requires windows to run. I have tried to use the work around of a blank file in the Drive C root named NTLDR without success. I have tried to reload Win98 but my 98 CD has what appears to be a bad spot and will not load and decode the Cab files. So, I can't use my win98 to load win98se. Does anybody have any ideas for some work arounds?

03-07-2005, 05:33 PM

Hi,

Welcome to the forum King6. Hope I can help you, but need to know if the Win98se is a self booting disk, retail copy, or the upgrade copy. I assume you intended to do a clean boot and install after formatting, but you need to tell me if that is what you want to do. If you have a self booting and not an upgrade copy of win98se, then you don't need the win98 disk. Just give us a little more info and maybe someone can help you.

King6 · 03-08-2005, 07:34 AM

I Have what is supposed to be a self booting copy of Win98se on CD which I picked up at an electronics flea market. It includes the access code and I actually had it installed over win98 until I started to run into problems and had to reformat the hard drive. As Murphy's law would have it, my win98 upgrade CD developed a bad spot and I now get a Decoding cab error which the setup program says it will try to fix. Repeated attempts to allow setup to fix itself results in a closed loop back to the same error.

With the Win98se CD, my bios reports no operating system found when set to boot from CD. Trying to run win98se setup from the CD root or the Wndows folder on the CD gives me "I need windows to run" error. By the way, the hard drive is formatted fat32.

I would have been well passed this problem if I hadn't had my win98 upgrade CD go south.

03-08-2005, 11:52 AM

HI,

I hate to say this, but I would start over. (this will eliminate all data on your hard drive)

First of all, go to Bootdisk.com and download a win98se or WinME bootup disk. Put it on a floppy.

Insert the disk in drive A: and boot up.

When it comes up and if it asks you to enable large disk support say YES.

When it stops...select FDisk and hit enter

Then delete all partitions

Then create a partition (I use one large partitons)

Make the partition active

shut down and reboot

When it comes up this time type Format (enter) or Format C: (enter)

When it is done formatting, then shut down again (some don't, I do)

Reboot with the Operating Disk in the CDRom

If it asks, select start with CDRom support

When it is up again, type Setup (enter)

This should get you off and running.

Let me know if I can help further.

sochy · 03-09-2005, 08:43 PM

mark3567,
completed all the steps but when i hit setup i get "CDR103: CDROM not High Sierra or ISO 9660 format reading drive E: Abort, Retry, Fail?"

please help me!

thanks,

03-10-2005, 03:51 AM

Hi,

This is a problem I have not seen before. Did you download a boot disk from win98SE or just win98? This error (and I could be wrong) seems to indicate that the CD is not being seen. It could be a Operating System error, but is most likely a CDRom drive error. When you booted up the last time, did it ask you if you wanted to boot with CDRom support? I will keep searching and maybe someone who has dealt with this error could take a look. I will see if someone on the forum has dealt with this before.

King6 · 03-10-2005, 08:31 AM

Last night, I finally managed to get my 200 mhz Pentium MMX system to install win98. I started everything from ground zero. Clean repartitioned, reformatted 40gb harddrive. I have a Motherboard using an Award Bios version 4.51 with copyright thru year 2K. This bios has a setting to allow fast boot or slow boot. It did what the old Turbo switch used to do. I set it to slow which slowed down the system. I also use a 48X cdrom drive and it seems that this drive was too quick for reading the win98 upgrade disk I have. The slower reading allowed me to get thru the closed loop of trying to load and decode cab files from the CD. I suspect that when win98 came out, CDrom drives were in the 16X or slower region and the recording technique didn't allow higher read rates.

For those getting CDR101 or similiar errors: It happened to me while trying to read win98 CD using a CD/RW drive. I would get that error because the DOS drivers on the win98 recovery floppy are mainly generic drivers and would not handle the CD/RW drives. I have 4 CD drives that I swapped in and out trying to get win98 to install. The one that worked the best was the slowest one I had that was not a burner.

I did some searching through the Microsoft support site and came accross the exact description of the error I was getting from trying to copy win98 cab files from the CD. It said to clean the CD, slow the system down, check and see if the RAM was ok, suspect bad Cache ram, overclocking, etc: This pointed me in the direction of finding ways to slow the system down.

My next step is to install my win98se over the top of win98. My win98se setup program required a windows environment to run and will not run from DOS. Now, that the catch 22 loop is broken, it is time to get on with the next step.

More later.

03-07-2005, 04:52 PM	#1 (permalink)
King6 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Southern Cal Posts: 4 OS: Win2000/98/98se/XP Pro	Trouble installing Win98se I am trying to install 98se to a 200 mhz Pentium MMX mother board. It is equipped with a 40Gbyte hard drive and a 48X CDrom drive. I have 64Mbyte of RAM and it boots in DOS from a win98 recovery/startup disk OK. However, every time I try to run setup from the 98se CD, I get the message that setup requires windows to run. I have tried to use the work around of a blank file in the Drive C root named NTLDR without success. I have tried to reload Win98 but my 98 CD has what appears to be a bad spot and will not load and decode the Cab files. So, I can't use my win98 to load win98se. Does anybody have any ideas for some work arounds?

03-07-2005, 05:33 PM	#2 (permalink)
mark3567 Guest Posts: n/a OS:	Hi, Welcome to the forum King6. Hope I can help you, but need to know if the Win98se is a self booting disk, retail copy, or the upgrade copy. I assume you intended to do a clean boot and install after formatting, but you need to tell me if that is what you want to do. If you have a self booting and not an upgrade copy of win98se, then you don't need the win98 disk. Just give us a little more info and maybe someone can help you.

03-08-2005, 07:34 AM	#3 (permalink)
King6 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Southern Cal Posts: 4 OS: Win2000/98/98se/XP Pro	I Have what is supposed to be a self booting copy of Win98se on CD which I picked up at an electronics flea market. It includes the access code and I actually had it installed over win98 until I started to run into problems and had to reformat the hard drive. As Murphy's law would have it, my win98 upgrade CD developed a bad spot and I now get a Decoding cab error which the setup program says it will try to fix. Repeated attempts to allow setup to fix itself results in a closed loop back to the same error. With the Win98se CD, my bios reports no operating system found when set to boot from CD. Trying to run win98se setup from the CD root or the Wndows folder on the CD gives me "I need windows to run" error. By the way, the hard drive is formatted fat32. I would have been well passed this problem if I hadn't had my win98 upgrade CD go south.

03-08-2005, 11:52 AM	#4 (permalink)
mark3567 Guest Posts: n/a OS:	HI, I hate to say this, but I would start over. (this will eliminate all data on your hard drive) First of all, go to Bootdisk.com and download a win98se or WinME bootup disk. Put it on a floppy. Insert the disk in drive A: and boot up. When it comes up and if it asks you to enable large disk support say YES. When it stops...select FDisk and hit enter Then delete all partitions Then create a partition (I use one large partitons) Make the partition active shut down and reboot When it comes up this time type Format (enter) or Format C: (enter) When it is done formatting, then shut down again (some don't, I do) Reboot with the Operating Disk in the CDRom If it asks, select start with CDRom support When it is up again, type Setup (enter) This should get you off and running. Let me know if I can help further.

03-09-2005, 08:43 PM	#5 (permalink)
sochy Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 18 OS: XP	mark3567, completed all the steps but when i hit setup i get "CDR103: CDROM not High Sierra or ISO 9660 format reading drive E: Abort, Retry, Fail?" please help me! thanks,

03-10-2005, 03:51 AM	#6 (permalink)
mark3567 Guest Posts: n/a OS:	Hi, This is a problem I have not seen before. Did you download a boot disk from win98SE or just win98? This error (and I could be wrong) seems to indicate that the CD is not being seen. It could be a Operating System error, but is most likely a CDRom drive error. When you booted up the last time, did it ask you if you wanted to boot with CDRom support? I will keep searching and maybe someone who has dealt with this error could take a look. I will see if someone on the forum has dealt with this before.

03-10-2005, 08:31 AM	#7 (permalink)
King6 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Southern Cal Posts: 4 OS: Win2000/98/98se/XP Pro	Last night, I finally managed to get my 200 mhz Pentium MMX system to install win98. I started everything from ground zero. Clean repartitioned, reformatted 40gb harddrive. I have a Motherboard using an Award Bios version 4.51 with copyright thru year 2K. This bios has a setting to allow fast boot or slow boot. It did what the old Turbo switch used to do. I set it to slow which slowed down the system. I also use a 48X cdrom drive and it seems that this drive was too quick for reading the win98 upgrade disk I have. The slower reading allowed me to get thru the closed loop of trying to load and decode cab files from the CD. I suspect that when win98 came out, CDrom drives were in the 16X or slower region and the recording technique didn't allow higher read rates. For those getting CDR101 or similiar errors: It happened to me while trying to read win98 CD using a CD/RW drive. I would get that error because the DOS drivers on the win98 recovery floppy are mainly generic drivers and would not handle the CD/RW drives. I have 4 CD drives that I swapped in and out trying to get win98 to install. The one that worked the best was the slowest one I had that was not a burner. I did some searching through the Microsoft support site and came accross the exact description of the error I was getting from trying to copy win98 cab files from the CD. It said to clean the CD, slow the system down, check and see if the RAM was ok, suspect bad Cache ram, overclocking, etc: This pointed me in the direction of finding ways to slow the system down. My next step is to install my win98se over the top of win98. My win98se setup program required a windows environment to run and will not run from DOS. Now, that the catch 22 loop is broken, it is time to get on with the next step. More later.