Problem with win98se install

[Midhurst]

I have a problem I have not encountered before....PANIC!

I have installed Win98SE on to a new hdd on a Soltek mobo with a Athlon 650mhz. 384MB RAM. 40gb hdd.

Installed from directory on hdd. Copied the Win98 folder off the Windows CD to the folder on the hdd and installed from there, as I have done a thousand times before.

At the end of the install, when it reboots after setting up the Control Panel, etc. it gives an error message:

"Windows encountered an error accessing the system registery. Windows will restart and fix the registery"

Which it does and all seems okay, untill I try to install something else and it happens again and the app I have just installed is not installed because windows has taken it back to a registery before the install.

I have reformated the hdd a couple of times and the same thing always happens.

Any ideas...please :confused:

[Sylvander]

Hello Midhurst

I believe:
1. Windows takes a copy of the registry and key system files after every successful boot.
2. If a boot is not successful Windows will [re?]boot using a backup copy taken at the last successful boot. Hence it "jumps back" to a previous configuration.

I can only think that something in [the updated copy of] the registry [or system files] makes it impossible for the system to boot and it must keep jumping back to the first copy to succeed.

A look in the system files [using "sysedit"] is worth considering.

I wonder if you used "Step by Step Confirmation" to study the steps in the boot process if it would display any failed steps.

Using a Registry spying utility [Regspy (or is it APISpy)] to record all the registry accesses during the boot process is too complicated in my opinion but could be considered.

I notice your RAM exceeds the Windows addressing limit of 256 MB!!!
Or am I wrong there. It's not something I usually have to think about.

[Midhurst]

Thanks Sylvander, did the step by step and nothing BUT,

I think I have found the problem...I think....I hope..

There were three memory modules in there: 2 x 126mb 133mhz and one rogue 64mb module with no discernable markings.....

I've whipped out the rogue module and all seems okay.... I hope...

I love these folk who tinker... ask them what they have done before it all went wrong and the answers always the same.... "Nothing!"

[Sylvander]

I wonder if you missed the extra comment I added on the end when I edited.
The one about 256 MB Maximum addressing limit.

You say you now have two times 126 MB but I think that should read two times 128 MB, which is 256 MB. May-hap I am correct and 256 MB is your allowed limit with Windows.

[david eaton]

Sylvander, I think the limit for Win98SE is not 256meg, but 512 meg from other threads here. Certainly, my machine is perfectly happy with 384 and 512 meg (just upped memory again!).

David

[Vic 970]

someone isn't good at sums !!!!!

mine originally had 64Mb & I added 128Mb, now another Mb = 320Mb

but the original 64 was pc 100 the latter 2 x 128 is pc 133 so I am runing at pc 100 and all is well.

I wonder if the set up is similar, but running at pc 133 ?

[mjc]

OK, once again....from the top....:D

Windows9x can see and "use" (in theory, at least) the full amount able to be used by 32-bit processors...that is 4 GB (yes that is a G as in giga....), but do to the way it handles things like addressing virtual memeory (swapfile), assinging other memory related functions the actual, theoretical limit is somewhere between 1 and 1.5GB.

M$ actually acknowledged this for several years, until RAM prices dropped and people actually started tryin it. It seems that the memmory manager is actually sloppier than M$ thought and starts to have problems at half a gig (512 MB), but with some tweaking many systems can run up to a GB, (not many and everything has to PERFECT). So for all practical purposes, the most that 9x can run without messing around is 512MB (and on some systems it MUST be under that amount).


Any number for a limit lower than 512MB comes from the days when RAM was running $1/MB or more...it is a cost/benefits limit, because once you pass 128MB the gain in performance levels out and the cost of that gain increased dramatically, and going from 128MB to 256 was seen as very extravigant without much benefit to most people, and above 256MB was practically unheard of unless you were doing graphics, audio or video, professionally....