Need Help with windows 98.!!

**shawners** · May 12th, 2004, 06:50 PM

I have a compaq 500 mhz, that im fixing up for a friend. She knows very little about file sharing and only needs a pc to get online. no gaming and file sharing really. So i start it up, wont launch to windows 98.. I have a compaq that has a restore disk. And i tried it, but it fails, it gets stuck at 37 percent and never completes. Im not sure if the disk is still spinning or if its hardware failure or just my disk drive which is a seagate 30 gigs. Now if i aquire a windows 98 disk to install.. would that fix it, or would i need something immenante to see if its hardware ?? Please help if possible =)

**begoodbebad** · May 12th, 2004, 09:48 PM

Is the HDD empty? Or at least have enough space? Is the restore disk for a different spec machine? If so it probably won't work.

It's easy to swap out a CD drive for a newer one temporarily, I've found some of the older ones are not just very slow, they are very bad at reading CDs....and installing 98 is somehow hit & miss at the best of times. Try a new one.

Your HDD: Is it new...or well used? If it's old I would run IBM Drive Fitness Test on it (free download from IBM). It works reasonably fast and should pick out any problems.

A 500Mhz Compaq is fairly old.... maybe your HDD is bigger than the BIOS can handle. Compaq have excellent online support, make sure you have the model number and you will be able to find out the exact specification of this PC. I've upgraded 3 Compaqs lately and I really appreciate the fact they carry all the info you need for their old PCs. I'd still like to share some unhappy thoughts with the case designers though....

Ultimately you'd be much better off installing Win2000. A 500Mhz CPU is plenty, you might even run it with 64MB RAM but more is better. If there is 256MB RAM then XP will go on there nicely. It's as easy to get a Win2000 CD as 98...and XP...well they're giving it away...aren't they?

**fireforce555** · May 12th, 2004, 10:53 PM

Could be a few things, I have used restore cds MANY times.

1. The restore cd is damaged. This happened to my dell restore disc, it had a tiny tiny little bit of the top of the disc flaked off and right in the middle of the restore it failed.

2. If the restore cd is for another machine it may not work right on a different model.

3. The drive may be damaged. What brand is her HDD? Because most HD companies have utilities you can run on their drives off of a diskette and it can tell you if that drive is dead or damaged in any way. I know Maxtor gives you one with all their HDDs so I know they make these tools available.

I wanted to ask a win 2000 question since it was brought up. Will 2000 run well on 64MB ram? Because I am running 98se now and it runs great on my 500Mhz celeron with 64MB ram but I have a 2000 install disc I want to use but dont want to have it running in slowmo all the time. I have plenty of HD space. I run a 40gig drive and dedicate 150MB right now to swap file so I never crash because of lack of memory.

**begoodbebad** · May 13th, 2004, 04:47 AM

Originally Posted by fireforce555

I wanted to ask a win 2000 question since it was brought up. Will 2000 run well on 64MB ram? Because I am running 98se now and it runs great on my 500Mhz celeron with 64MB ram but I have a 2000 install disc I want to use but dont want to have it running in slowmo all the time. I have plenty of HD space. I run a 40gig drive and dedicate 150MB right now to swap file so I never crash because of lack of memory.

MS state the minumum RAM for 2000 Pro is 128MB, but they recommend 256MB. But if you just surf the web and write a few emails and word docs you can probably run it on two matchsticks and a rubber band, just manage the services. If you're using the PC for p2p and all your other tasks too then more is better, 256MB minimum or it will definitely hang.

**shawners** · May 13th, 2004, 04:59 AM

my hard drive came with with the compaq pc, and the restore disk is what compaq shipped with it. the hard drive is 10 gigs. ram is like 256. So i download from IBM a software, put it on a small disk and use that?

**begoodbebad** · May 13th, 2004, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by shawners

my hard drive came with with the compaq pc, and the restore disk is what compaq shipped with it. the hard drive is 10 gigs. ram is like 256. So i download from IBM a software, put it on a small disk and use that?

yes, it will just run some tests on the HDD and identify any errors. It can't do much else on a non IBM drive, but it's very useful to find out for sure if your HDD is good before you make an install. It's an old drive, could be very very used.
Fireforce555 is probably right: a bad restore CD....or at least one that won't read properly in that particular drive, though I have had a 98 install freeze repeatedly because of bad sectors on an old HDD and I guess that a restore CD doesn't include checkdisk?

**fireforce555** · May 13th, 2004, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by begoodbebad

MS state the minumum RAM for 2000 Pro is 128MB, but they recommend 256MB. But if you just surf the web and write a few emails and word docs you can probably run it on two matchsticks and a rubber band, just manage the services. If you're using the PC for p2p and all your other tasks too then more is better, 256MB minimum or it will definitely hang.

Well, I mainly run things like Mozilla, powergrab(newsgroup), zonealarm and visual basic. I dont game and dont do much AV editing. I do watch alot of movies though but MPClassic takes up very little power. Maybe one day when I feel like an adventure I will use my partition magic and slice off 5 gigs to give 2000 a try.

I think I could manage the services pretty well. I have 98se running REALLY trim. I know for a fact that configuration affects performance alot. My aunts machine is a 1GHz athlon with 128RAM and windows ME and my machine literally runs circles on their machine. To pull up msconfig on their machine takes 2 mins, I kid you not.

**shawners** · May 13th, 2004, 02:13 PM

i used this restore cd quite a while when i was using the pc, at least 4-7 times. I was looking at the downloads.com for the software that you listed thats from IBM. two users gave feedback that they couldnt make a boot disk in windows xp for it. This drive came with the pc, i just think maybe its drive bad, but hate it if its other thing like motherboard. I could tell for sure if it was the disk drive since it stops at the same point everytime. Ill see if i cant get it up today. ALso if i buy a USB HARD DRIVE kit, that converts internal hard drives to external.. and start the pc, will everything show up in the folders of whats on there and reformat it or restore into that drive using my new pc?

**begoodbebad** · May 13th, 2004, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by shawners

i used this restore cd quite a while when i was using the pc, at least 4-7 times. I was looking at the downloads.com for the software that you listed thats from IBM. two users gave feedback that they couldnt make a boot disk in windows xp for it. This drive came with the pc, i just think maybe its drive bad, but hate it if its other thing like motherboard. I could tell for sure if it was the disk drive since it stops at the same point everytime. Ill see if i cant get it up today. ALso if i buy a USB HARD DRIVE kit, that converts internal hard drives to external.. and start the pc, will everything show up in the folders of whats on there and reformat it or restore into that drive using my new pc?

I made the floppy without a problem. If you're on ed2k I can give you a hash and release it. It's free software so no one here need worry. It's a 2.09MB executable, so I can even email it to you. You just need to have a blank formatted floppy in drive A and double click the installer, it does the rest. . Or use the tools on a Windows 98 start up floppy. Again I can release one on ed2k if you like or send an email. pm me if you want either.

**muffenme** · May 13th, 2004, 05:40 PM

:fire

Originally Posted by begoodbebad

MS state the minumum RAM for 2000 Pro is 128MB, but they recommend 256MB. But if you just surf the web and write a few emails and word docs you can probably run it on two matchsticks and a rubber band, just manage the services. If you're using the PC for p2p and all your other tasks too then more is better, 256MB minimum or it will definitely hang.

I got Windows 2000 pro running well with 96 MB on a pentium 200 Mhz computer and I seen it as low as 64 MB and work, slow but works.

:hole

**shawners** · May 13th, 2004, 06:15 PM

thanks for your help begoodbebad.. Ill download it now from downloads.com and get it running when i hook my old pc up. I only have one monitor/keyboard/mouse so its hassle to unplug everything and plug it up again. I have to wait til i get all this together. Im going to also get a win98 operating cd just incase it is the restore disk messed up.

**begoodbebad** · May 13th, 2004, 07:39 PM

hope it works!

**Siskabush** · May 13th, 2004, 07:58 PM

Just get a copy of Win98 off someone, or bit torrent.

Those restore disks have spyware programs pre-installed anyway.

**CompuGeek** · May 13th, 2004, 08:34 PM

For any readers who want to know how to do this "manage services in Windows 2000" black magic, check out Black Viper.

**shawners** · May 14th, 2004, 02:16 PM

New Problem! =( I have windows 98se.. So i burned the image and it works, yet it wont let me do anything til i do a scan disk, and when i do.. IT fixes numerous of problems then stops at 6percent... doesnt go any higher or change. I cant install windows 98 til it performs it and i try the Utility from IBM. But it doesnt do any good on my drive since my disk drive isnt listed on the ones its used for. So do i need to put a quick format on a small disk that when it boots up, it will run and format everything on the Hard drive so i can install windows properly? If so, list the program thats good to use that i can run and make a start up disk for it .
Thank you in advance!