Hi I am new to this board but I would really like some help. I have a 486. I have just reset the BIOS because by friend tried to put I BIOS password on it. I have ran FDISK on the hard drive and then formated it. I then put the system files on to it and installed win 98. Everything works ok on the computer which I did everything which is a 128 mb ram 400mhz that sort of thing. I try to put it into my 486. It does the checks then says I/O error and something like put in new disk try again. I think it might be beacuse I have forgot to plug something back in but I am not sure. What could be the problem. I would really apprecatie it. Thanks.

Sowler

If I read that right, you're saying you installed Win98 on the hard drive on a different machine, then installed the hard drive in a 486. I don't think it will work. 486 is bare bones minimum for win98, and even if it has 32MB memory, it will run really slow.

The main problem though, is swapping the hard drive. When you install windows, it installs a bunch of motherboard specific drivers. When you swap it to a different machine, it doesn't know how to handle the different motherboard, since it doesn't have the correct set of drivers and dll files for the board. The physical routing of data along the circuitry is also vastly different between a 486 and a 400MHz anything. Therefore, when you swap the drive to the 486 it can't find the IO path. Even the electronics differences between the CPU's might be enough to make Windows choke.

You can check all the cables, it might actually try to boot, but I think you're spinning your wheels. I wouldn't try to run anything above Win95 on a 486. Win 98 is very sluggish if you try to run it with less than 32MB RAM also. It will run on 16MB, I've done it, but it's really slow.

I think the main thing you'll have to do is format again and install Windows on the system you plan to run it on. Swapping a hard drive after installing is only going to cause problems.

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

I beg to differ. My friend runs windows98 SE on a 486DX2/66mhz with 44mb ram and a 14.4k/s modem. His computer runs great! 400mb hard drive... hehe. I set it up for him, he used to be running DOS 5 and win 3.1

I didn't say it wouldn't run, I just said I wouldn't try it. Then again, I've never been able to get my hands on a 486 with more than 16MB RAM to try it with. With 44MB, that would make a big difference.

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

It has something like 32mb of ram so it might be ok. Because what I am planning on doing is to put lots of new hardware and stuff on it but need it to have 98 on it first.

Sowler

PS how do you get the liitle icons on the side like the monitor and stuff.

Take a look at the number of posts under the names. The more posts, the more icons. Not necessarily an indication of more smarts...mine would be empty!! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

I have heard of this type of process be done a while back and if I remember correctly one thing that must be done before you can plug your hard drive in the older 486 is you must remove ALL of your motherboard PCI ISA< and and any other driver specific to the 400MHz machine (especially the ones for the mother board). Basically you will probably need to remove all of the drivers listed in the device manager except those that will carry over to the older computer. With this in mind do not install any drivers (Video card, sound card, modem or NIC on the 400MHz computer since to get everything working you will have to remove them. Another area to check for problems might be the autoexec.bat, system.ini and any other files that I have not mentioned that might cause the older computer to load incorrect drivers. If you are unable to remove the drivers on the 400MHz computer you might be able to boot into safe mode (pressing the F8 key at boot-up) and remove them at that time. If it is not the OS you may want to make sure your drive is configured proberly (master or slave)and that you BIOS is set correctly and that it supports the hard drive size and/or type. If all else fails just wait through the installation on the 486, it can't be any slower than installing NT on a 486. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif