Driver Update Wants Win98 Install CD

[pop pop]

I'm recovering an old PC that I dragged out of storage. The box is about 9 years old (Celeron 300 w/96MB RAM and 2GB HD). It has Win98 and I've cleaned it up and it boots and runs nice. Now I want to hook it up to my router (I know 98 won't support wireless, it will support wired). I scavenged a Netgear Ethernet adapter and downloaded the drivers. I installed the card, booted, and the adapter was detected. I inserted the floppy I created with the drivers on it and the installation/update began. Then I get a popup that says, "Please insert the disk labled "Windows 98 CD-ROM", the click OK." It's looking to install this C:\WINDOWS\INF\CATALOG\NETTRANS.CAT.

I can't find any of the Win98 CDs, if I ever even had them. What can I do here?

Thanks.

[Paul Komski]

You could try the attached.

[classicsoftware]

You could also look in the windows/options/cabs folder which is where the cab fiiles are routinely stored.

Windows 98 does wireless just fine. You just need a wireless PCI card. Not built into the OS, but you can make it work just fine.....

[pop pop]

I'd like to see this work wired before I try wireless. I got the card and drivers installed and updated. The only thing I couldn't find or get was two files called "protman.dos" and protman.exe". Presumably these are "protected mode" DOS related. In any case, device manager shows there are no problems with the fast Ethernet adapter driver. HOWEVER, I can't see the network or even the 98 PC as a node on that machine. Of course, that means I can't connect to the net. The router does not see the connection either. I have the CAT-5 cable connected at the LAN3 connection on the router and there are no lights blinking on the router or on the adapter.

The Win98 displays for setting up the network are different and since I've never used them maybe I'm doing something wrong, or the install is bad even though it detected and the drivers installed.

The 98 computer has its own name. My network is WORKGROUP and the only place I can fined to put that on the 98 machine is TCP/IP Properties/DNS Configuration/Host/Domain. Is that right? The IP address is not being automatically assigned for whatever reason so I manually assigned it 192.168.0.104 (I have three other nodes). I manually set the Gateway to 192.168.0.1 (as it is on my other nodes). The rest of the Network Settings are:

Bindings: Client for Microsoft Networks
WINS Configuration: Disable WINS Resolution
NetBIOS over TCP/IP: Enable (this can not be changed)
Advance: None
IP Address: Specify -- 192.168.0.104; Subnet Mask -- 255.255.255.0



I used winipcfg /all. It comes up defaulted to something other than the NETGEAR card. It's "PPP Adapter" . Selecting the NETGEAR card shows the settings I manually entered.

Bottom line is it doesn't work. Any suggestions?

BTW: The router is an AT&T four port w/wireless-G. Main PC is W2K (wired), laptop is XP home (wireless), and the other box is XP Pro (wireless). All those boxes work.

One final thing. When I connected the CAT-5 from the 98 box to the router the other machines would not connect to the net (the network was OK, ping on all boxes worked). I removed the CAT-5 cable and the same thing. I had to power all boxes and the router down to restore ICS.

I hope you have some ideas. I'd really like to get this thing online.

Thanks


UPDATE:

I can ping the 98 box IP from itself but not from any other node (firewalls off).

[PrntRhd]

pop pop,
Lets try something simple first, go to Control Panel>Internet Connections>Connections tab>check "never dial" and then click LAN setttings button below to the right>click "automatically detect". Reboot and let us know how it goes.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Make sure your cat-5 cables are 8 conductor. Some are 4 and won't work.

[classicsoftware]

You have a problem with the card or cable.

When you plug it in, what kind of lights/activity is there on the router

[pop pop]

OK.....

Did what PrntRhd siaid (it was that way to begin with). No change.

Activity on the ethernet card itself (has several LEDs-- Full Duplex, Link, Activity, Collision, etc)... All are out.

Activity on the router.... Power, Wireless LAN, WAN, and LAN4 (my W2K tower-wired) all brightly lit. LAN 1 (where I have the CAT-5 hooked) not lit.

I've used the CAT-5 cable before. It's in very good shape. I suspect two things: my network settings (due to Win98 ignorance) and a possible bad NETGEAR card. No lights at all would seem to indicate something ... errr, nothing going on. Funny that 98 detected it just fine and identified exactly what it was.

Anyway... I've changed the network settings to everything I can think of and tried to match them to the other nodes as much as I could. It's just not there. It can ping the other nodes and the others can't ping it. Automatic IP addressing comes up with some BS IP (one was 169.254.197.27 -- Microsoft.com -- go figure).

I would spring for the 35-45 bucks for a wireless adapter but Saphalline said pigs would probably fly before it would work due to the PC config (Win98 original, Celeron P2 300, and only 98MB RAM). All the wireless boxes say min requirements for the OS are 98SE. Saphalline said I might get away with 98 original but the P2 300 and the RAM would kill it.

The board should work but it was in a box in the closet for months after I ripped an olld PC to pieces for parts.

So ...

[classicsoftware]

The card is not working.
Please right click on my computer.
Select properties
Choose Device Manager
Click on the plus sign under network adapters
Highlight the Netgear adapter
Click on the resources tab
Please report the IRQ being used.

Also report the number of external serial ports and if you are using them for anything.

[pop pop]

I thought of that too. IRQ 09. I checked every other device/IRQ and found no conflict (meaning I didn't see anything else using IRQ 09). It's a really basic PC.

[Paleo Pete]

That means the card is probably bad. When no LEDs work, it's bad card, bad cable, drivers not properly installed or device conflict. Have another cable? That's about all I know of that's left to troubleshoot, once you rule out the cable it has to be the card.

[pop pop]

As far as ports, looks like one parallel (LPT1) on one card, and then on the back of the box I see two on one other card; a 15 pin D-connector (serial?) with the mouse on it and a 25 pin D-connector with nothing on it.

I can hook the cable into my laptop and see what happens. I need to check that anyway, never used it, always used wireless.

This is a long shot but could the PCI slot be an issue? Possibly bad in some way or ... the Installation Guide I downloaded says the card has to go into a PCI slot with "Bus Mastering Capability". Based on the BIOS the box is 9 years old, was "Bus Mastering" around back then?

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll stop beating this horse soon. I'm just stubborn.

UPDATE

The cable is good. Plugged into the laptop and router and hooked up immediately. That leaves only three things: the card, the network settings, or a conflict. Too bad.

[classicsoftware]

You can get a decent PCI card for less than $10.00. I would suggest it.

Keep plugging. Alternately, you could try a different slot.

[pop pop]

I found diagnostics for the card online. The card passes the ROM test but fial the "Controller Internal Loopback" and "Twister Internal Loopback" (whatever a twister internal loopback is). And, naturally it fails the network connection test.

Given that it fails internal loopbacks, I would guess that either the card is bad or the driver install was (but Device Manager says it's fine). I might pull it and try the slot next door ... or just say the heck with it. Too many hours wasted.

$10 for an ethernet PCI card? I scanned the shelves at CompUSA a while back. Almost EVERYTHING was wireless. I could be nuts but the only PCI card I saw was much more expensive than that. I'll look again.

Thanks everybody.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Pricewatch has nics cards starting at $3.00 with 99 cent shipping! Wow! I've got to check and see if I could use a couple! Actually, use resselleratings to verify dealer before buying. Even if you go up in price or shipping charges, there's several more for under $10

[pop pop]

Want to know how stubborn I am? I'll tell ya anyway. I refused to give up and worked for hours more. Buried in the Readme.txt was a note not to run the diagnostics under Windoze, even in a DOS window. It must be run after booting into DOS. The card then passed the internal loopback tests and its light flashed. It failed the connection test and the router lights stayed off throughout. The diags said that meant the cable. I know the cable is good. I looked at the (actually inside) RJ-45 connector on the board. It looked a bit rusted and one lead looked slightly bent. I cleaned the leads and fiddled with the bent one.

Hooked everything up, booted and crossed my fingers. Nothing. Wiggled the connector and the card lights came on and the router LAN light lit brightly. Still no network connection. Dropped back to DOS ran the diags and it passed all tests including connection. Rebooted and nothing, the card doesn't get initialized. Wiggled the connector and the lights all come on. No network connection. Here's the end of story:

Bad RJ-45 connector

Card does not initialize on boot

winipcfg /all shows no DHCP Server setting (how do you set that in 98 or should that be automatically set???)

Automatic IP Address is wrong (M$ again)

No lease

Everything I manually set is at what I set it.

Naturally, no ping (NOTE: Even when I set the IP manually)

No node connection to my network

Now I'm going NIC card hunting ... something very cheap and simple--but I still think I'm missing something with 98 network setup. Man, I'm hardheaded. My wife hates that about me. She asks why engineers like me can't just leave something that works OK alone. My answer: a horse and buggy worked just fine, would you wanna be riding around in one?

[classicsoftware]

Like we said the card was bad. We don't care what part.

You should not run winipcfg from a command window like xp & 2k.

Run it as a program from windows.

Once you get the card.

Post back before you try to hook up to the network & we'll get the settings right first

[Paul Komski]

Under Win98
winipcfg can be initiated using the run box or a dos prompt; in both instances it loads the gui.

winipcfg /all (opens the same gui but "expanded")

winipcfg /batch (saves the output to a winipcfg.out text file with no gui)
winipcfg /batch C:\ipdata.txt (saves the output to the specified file with no gui)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Poppop,
If your nics card and the modem are lit up but no connection, try one more thing.

Internet Options> Connections> Lan Settings button> put a check mark in 'Use a Proxy server,,'> Then put another in 'Bypass proxy server for local addresses'

This is what worked for my son's pc when we couldn't get internet access through my Lynksys router on second port. Mine is not checked in those boxes however but still has internet connection.

[pop pop]

Tried it FTT and still no go. Went and bought a basic Belkin NIC, installed and the lights lit up everywhere but Device Manager shows this one has a problem (NDIS.VXD unable to load device driver). I went through all the BS (remove, uninstall, reinstall) but that problem won't go away. Googled it and came up with a M$ page that describes it in detail "NDIS.VDX Conflicts with Win 98/SE and ME whenusing certain NICs). Blah, blah, blah.

I'll take it back and try the wireless thing ... can't be any worse ... :mad: