"What does out of memory mean for hard disc??" It has nothing to do with the hard drive unless it's too full and there is not enough free space on it for the program you are trying to run to run. An out of memory message in Windows normally always refers to there not being enough windows "core" memory available - it has nothing to do with the amount of ram you have installed above a minimal amount (98SE runs very well with 128mb). 98SE has a fixed amount of "core" memory available to Windows - if you do some things such as have too many programs running or minimized when you try to run another program, or if you open too many pictures without closing them (they may be minimized), you may get an out of memory message. If you then close programs that are running or otherwise reduce the amount of core memory used, you can probably run the program you got the message in fine. However, sometimes you have to reboot as well. Some of the core memory is used by Startup programs - if you have a lot of those, they can use a lot of it and you may not be aware that they are running. It is also possible as DAVEINCAPS is saying you have a ram problem that is causing false messages, but I have not seen that myself. Try running Scandisk in Safe mode - far fewer things load that use core memory in that mode. "On startup for load windows 98 I am getting an error from the scan disk windows, sayings that I am out of memory." If you are trying to run Windows Setup and are getting that error, it is NOT normal for you to get that message. That probably points to himem.sys not loading if you are booting from an improperly made floppy, or there being a problem with your ram.

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My appologies it seem that i have been writting and this website has not allowed me to update my finding. i am dissapointed ih=n this web site I have logged in time and time again. I think i will find out more why i am having troubles.

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The two hard drive have errors on it. I have formated these a few times in the last few days and the message I keep getting is that the hard drive has errors on it.After 100% completing. Both hard drive must be faultly. I have now tried hard drive number three and it has sucessfully load windows 98, meaning that there was something wrong with thous two units.

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You should not get ANY errors reading files from the Windows CD in the CD drive while running Setup. If you do... - and you Skip loading files from the Windows CD, there will be essential files missing from Windows on the hard drive when Setup is finished. - try cleaning the CD, and using a laser lens cleaning CD in the CD drive before you run Setup. If that doesn't help, your CD drive is probably faulty - use another CD drive. For mboards with certain Intel 430 series chipsets, bugs in Setup result in you not being able to load files from the Windows CD in the CD drive during the last part of Setup because Setup can no longer see the CD drive, and you have to Skip loading a lot of files in order to finish Setup. Windows will have essential files missing and the Secondary IDE controller in Device Manager will have a yellow marking beside it, and any hard drive or CD drive connected to secondary IDE may not be found at all. If you have that problem, I can help you fix that situation. If you go to the trouble of re-formatting a hard drive, I recommend that before you do that you use Fdisk to delete the existing partition(s), then make the partition(s) again. Fdisk thoroughly checks the hard drive for errors (bad sectors) and if it finds any it marks them as unusable, and when you format after that, the format should proceed in a minimum amout of time because it will not see any of those bad sectors, and it will show no bad sectors at all in Windows. Don't use the Quick format feature when formattiing if you are trying to cure a problem of errors being found on the hard drive. ...... If you suspect a hard drive is defective.... Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics. See the latter part of response 1 in this: http://www.computing.net/windows95/... (thanks to Dan Penny for this link:) Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm... If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to. If the diagnostics find a few bad sectors on the drive, you could try using the diagnostic's "Zero Fill" or "Low Level Format" feature - that fills the entire drive with 0's and if there are any bad sectors found while doing that it attempts to mark them as unusable and replace them with spare sectors if it can - you may then end up with no bad sectors being visible to Fdisk and Format when you run them after that. Zero filling the drive sometimes makes bad sectors that were visible before, no matter what you tried, disappear when the normal automatic routines of the hard drive wasn't able to do that.

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I was considering a ram problem more along the lines of him possibly using a bootdisk that either wasn't loading himem.sys or was loading too much other stuff. If you were getting some kind of 'format terminated' error then the drives weren't formatted and the 'out of memory' error was likely due to there being no place to put any files on the drive. As already mentioned, a LLF may fix that.

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I think i may have located the probelm but I am not sure how to do this. I have noticed that the FAT 32 is missing on my system startup which prevents me from loading Windows 98 correctly. I have just notice it. My original 98 boot disc is not putting this file in. Does this original boot disc load FAT32?

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Refer back to response #1.

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Yes the PC can identify the hard drive, type and capacity. But when I partioned I used the 100% and went through step by step as requested. I choose the Yes option for harddisk over 2 gig. I would think that this PC can handle the capacity as i have two hard drives that are the same in capacity and I just plug it in the IDE connector and power and they are up and running with no problem at all using win98.

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So you partitioned the 2GB using ALL available space? Then you need to use the format command to format the partition. It should format as FAT32 by default.

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Have you tested the hard drives you had problems with yet? There's no point trying to install Windows on them if they're defective. " Both harddisk are 2Gig in size. Surely both units can't have the same problem." They're probably at least ten years old, and they could very well both be defective. "I have noticed that the FAT 32 is missing on my system startup which prevents me from loading Windows 98 correctly." What do you mean by that? What did you expect to see, and where did you expect to see it? E.g. I don't see anything on the screens while booting that says FAT32 or any other partitioning type the hard drives may have while booting 98 or 98SE on any of the computers I have had those on. "My original 98 boot disc is not putting this file in. Does this original boot disc load FAT32?" What do you mean by that? Which boot disk? A floppy or the Windows CD? Retail Upgrade Windows 98 or 98SE CDs are not bootable. Retail Full version or OEM 98 or 98SE CDs are bootable. ..... " I choose the Yes option for harddisk over 2 gig." Actually, it's for drives over 512 mb, and/or if you want the a partition on a drive or a single partition on an entire drive over 2.047 gb to be formatted as one piece. Answering yes to that enables Setup (or Fdisk) to see the drive as having FAT32 partitioning if it already has it, or if the hard drive is blank, when Setup partitions the drive (using Fdisk) it is automatically done with FAT32 partitioning. The first thing Setup itself does is to run the realmode version of Scandisk to check the hard drive for errors - you do not see evidence it is running unless Scandisk finds errors. If it DOES find errors, you will get one or more error messages from Scandisk - if the hard drive has no data on it, the drive is probably defective - check it with the manufacturer's diagnostics if you haven't already done so. - if the hard drive DOES have data on it, try this... If you don't want to lose the data on the hard drive, try connectiing the drive as slave on either IDE or as master on secondary IDE on a working computer with Win 98 or 98SE on it, and running Scandisk in Windows to check the problem drive - the real mode Scandisk cannot fix some of the things the Windows version can. If you're not concerned about losing the data on the drive..... Quit Setup, and at the prompt, type: fdisk , press enter. Select Display existing partitions. If any are listed as non-dos, you must delete the existing partitions on the drive with something such as a a hard drive manufactuer's drive prepartion utility, or the program that made the non-dos partition. If there are no non-dos partitions listed, select Delete a partition or logical drive, and Delete the existing partition(s) - doing so deletes the FAT table information that tells the operating system where everything is on the hard drive. Make at least one partition, a Primary one. Quit fdisk. Boot with the boot floppy or Windows CD, and try Setup again. ..... NOTE. If you don't get the "out of memory" error when the original hard drive that worked fine is connected and you try running Setup from a boot disk, there's nothing wrong with your ram. You can quit Setup after it has checked the hard drive for errors.

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Well I would have to agree with what you said all of the above. Very interesting, however I would like to point out to you a few things, that I do have the original cd disc windows 98 second edition and the original floppy disc that can with it (boot disc) of windows 98. They are not illegal copies. The Cd is genuine. It is a beautiful manufacture hologram mirror on the top side with a picture in a square box of the world to the top right hand side. It states, for distribution with a new PC only.etc, etc. The floppy is also genuine. It still has its serial number(some number, what ever it means ) of when I first purchased this many years ago (X04-80322) clearly visible on the label and in perfect condition. I can elaborate more and describe to you in more detail should you wish. I do not carry with me illegal copies. But i did have window XP that was a copies and caused me so much grief and head ache that I had to go out and buy the original disc windows professional service pack 2 as i kept on getting the error message of this is not a genuine copies of windows, on start up. I learn that the hard way from experience that no one would give me the correct product key that allowed me the necessary updates, that I needed. ( product key regenerator don’t work) Good investment for $180 way back a few years ago.

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Additional information if this help you understand what I am doing is exactly what this guy is doing in the youtube video to format the hard disc, I am do the same. My hard drive has no information on it I have viewed everything. It is blank. You can view the link below if you wish to see how this man sets up his hard disk. Mine is no different. .Please note that the start of HIS window is not the same as mine. Mine is pretty much blank. No CPU is displayed or ram. On start up of the screen. View Youtube if you wish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKIz... What I see on my PC. Partition=C:1 Status=A Type=Pri Dos Volume Lable= ( I left blank ) Mbytes=4110 (which is 4gig) System=UNKNOWN Usage=100% The System here is my concern. I should be seeing FAT32, but i do not.

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I didn't mention anything about whether your CDs or original floppy were legitimate or not. My OEM 98 and OEM 98SE CDs are the original ones, made before there were holograms on them. OEM CDs (or DVDs) are much cheaper, but you get no free support from Microsoft if you buy them yourself - if a custom system builder uses an OEM CD, they provide the support. The 98 CD I got second hand along with a generic computer that was donated to me (I give away systems to low income people) and there was no original floppy included. My 98SE CD I bought new in Dec. 99 (98SE was released in mid 99) and it did not come with a floppy (it cost me about $130? at the time). I bought OEM 98SE for my nephew some time after that ($110? or so), and by that time it came with a floppy and had a silver hologram on it. I copied the floppy for my use. It's the same as a Startup Disk except it has Run Setup or similar in the menu you see and tiny changes in config.sys and/or autoexec.bat to allow for that. A friend of mine had an illegal copy of XP Pro, no SP1 or SP2 updates, given to her she used a corporate key for, and it was fine for quite a while, until Microsoft discovered it's key was being fradulantly used, so now if you you try to use it, the key is found to be illegitimate and you can't Activate Windows, and you can't get updates from the Windows Update site. However, last time I checked you could still install most things using downloads elsewhere on the Microsoft site - suggesting they would rather you used Windows illegitamately than not at all. She has since bought the two CD OEM XP MCE 2005 legitimately (all versions of MCE have SP2 updates built in). Apparently Microsoft has a list of keys known to be fradulantly used for XP and up, and that is checked when you attempt to Activate.

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Onin I only watched about half your video. What I saw was you correctly creating a partition and making it active. Then you went and deleted it. Why did you do that? Recreate the partition using all available space. Mark it as active and then hit escape to exit fdisk. You must exit in order for fdisk to finish. After that you can boot back to the floppy disk and choose the format command. Format the drive and then restart once more. Windows should then start installing.

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'System=UNKNOWN' means the drive is not formatted. Although you may have specified large disk support when running fdisk to create the partition, it will not show as FAT32 until the drive is formatted.

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Ok I am back. It seem that I have made a slight mistake thinkng that my PC would handle large partitioning. Unfortunaly I was wrong because this machine is only capable of handling 2 gig. I never allowed partitioning. I kept on choosing the option of (y) and tried to allow the maxuim usage of my hard disk. I should have choosen the option (n) and partitioned C: 2gig and D: the rest. Or what ever they call it? extended. Looking at most of my hard drives that I have they are all over 4g, 6g, I even have a 9g unit. I even though I had a 2g and this would work. I am not the best at these thing. To make this short. Windows 98 is now installing with no problems and everything seem to be fine. Just some hardware issue but i choose to cancel this on startup. This is for another time. Regarding the out of memory problem, well it was the ram. I swapped this with some other spare one that i have and this problem has never returned. I would like to appologies to all who have replied back to me and tried to help me out. It has been a great learning experience for me. (unfortunaly I was giving out the wrong info)Oops? Anyhow I can now use these harddrives for work and know that these units are in good working order. Thank you. Onin.

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Onin You misunderstand what large harddrives means. It mean over 508MB. You SHOULD say yes. You created the partition correctly before. The problem was you then went and deleted the partition and then rebooted and tried to go further whan you had no partiton. Go back and use fdisk to create a partition on the 2GB using all available space. Reboot and then format and install Win98.

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By doing what you just asked me, will this display the full size of the harddisk on the PC when windows is fully up and running. Eg a 6gig unti will have a 2gig on c: drive and 4gig on d: drive. Partitioned. Will I be able to view this when windows 98 boots up? Total 6g Hum? I must try?

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Onin I don't understand what you are asking in #24. You stated your harddrives are 2GB each. Are you now saying you have different capacity harddrives. Even if your harddrive is larger or if you want to create two partitions on the harddrive you still need to say Y when prompted. If you want two partitions then when you go to create the first partition you create the partition using less than 100% of the available space.

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You can use the 98 fat32 converter in system tools to convert it after you install 98. You'll get more efficient use of the drive that way. It'll be FAT16 now which has a 2 gig maximum size so you are using the entire disk space. It would have been more complicated had the drive been any larger.

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I said I thought I had a hard disc that was2 gig in capacity but i did not. I have now with me a few hard drives that are all over this size. 4,6,9gig units. What i was reading on the screen was wrong. If you read N#24 in that question, i asked, would, I see the total capacity in Windows 98 of the hard disc that i have installed. My question to you is or my concern. Would this machine be able view such large units?

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When properly partitioned and formatted, 98 will see (and can function on) a drive up to about 120 gig and, under certain circumstances, one even larger than that. However, your self-described 'old PC' may not have a bios that will see one that large, in which case 98 won't see it either. Check here: http://www.buildorbuy.net/bioslimit... under 'seven major bios limitations' Unless yours is really old--486 or early P-I--it should see at least 8 gig.

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You are correct Mr Daveincaps. What I should have done is write down everything from the beginning . What mother board it is, bios, serial number and make of the machine if any? to fully understand the computer capabilities. The only thing I see on startup is.... Well.....Let me go and see...... I'm back. It is.... on the outside of the casing DIGITAL Ventris fx2 it says on the outside of the cover Intel Inside. The screen displays on statup. Micrsoft RamDrive version 3.06 Disk size: 2,048K sector 512 bytes Allocation units: 2 sectors Dirctory entries: 64 Now the bios Phoenix Bios Technologies 4.0 release 5.12 Version1.01 CPU is pentium 166 Mhz 0000640K System Ram passed 0048128K extended Ram passed UMB upper limits segment address F139. This is all i can see. What ever it mean. It was a good machine and I took it home from work as it was put aside ready for the rubbish bin. What i do know on startup it had windows 95 in it and boy wern't there a heck of a lot of programs packed in it before i wiped everything out. I only wanted the hard disc to format so I could use this latter for other old equipmnt at my work.

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Dave If memory serves me correctly my 486 x DX2 66 had a limitation of 508MB. From Onis's last post it appears the computer is a Socket 5 P1. Had to use an overlay to install a 540MB drive. In response #3 Onin states the drives are identified as 2GB drives. That would mean the BIOS can handle them. Onin, is your intention to get this computer running or simply salvage the HDrives?

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Onin: Are you confusing the RamDrive with hard drive size? Remove all discs (flopppy and CD) and restart computer. Access the BIOS (usually DEL or F1) and post back exactly the disc information.

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Why are you setting up a ramdrive? Or is this when you're booting from a bootdisk or cd? Of your 4, 6 and 9 gig drives I'd expect the bios to be able to see the 4 and 6. You indicate in #22 that you finally got 98 installed on a drive. So is all this after-the-fact analysis of any service? Or are you still trying to work with the other drives?

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I need the hard drives for work purposes ONLY. I have now (3) harddrives that have windows 98 up and running. This will do for now. I believe the remaining hard drive are operational and should be working with no problems. I will later have a play and check the remainder. I have now learn't how to scandisk an empty hard drive via the a: floppy disc. I just copy the commmand directly to the C: drive and to a formated and empty unit and scan for damaged sectors, etc, etc or errors, whatever. I have learn't something from this. Very easy and fun to do. What am I using this PC for. Well i was thinking of brushing up my DOS skills and commands lines. MAINLY FOR WORK PURPOSES Copy files fron a: to c: and vice versa. The equipment we have at my work is primarilty dos based. However to eplain furthur it is quiet involve. I know you must be thinking that wow this guy must have very very old equipment at his work. But this story is for another time as it is very involved WHY, HOW, WHAT? OH the RAM what size is this well I have 3 slots and each RAM is 64mb. All three are in. I am still confused to why I can not use all of the hard disc capacity on this machine. I am limited to only 2Gig. What ever hard disc i use. I might be still doing something wrong here. I will try again and let you know.

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Assuming the drive is larger than 2 gig then the most likely reason you're only using 2 gig is because 2 gig happens to be the maximum size of a FAT16 partition. That's the consequence of answering 'no' to fdisk's large disk support question. The partition size will stay at 2 gig even if you use the 98 fat32 conversion. Using fdisk you can create logical drives in the remaining space. They will show as separate drives in 'my computer'.

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You are correct in what you said at the above but i read what is on the screen and I only choose the option( Yes ) Then I fdisk I create logical drives d: , e, and f, as percentages. Then it asks me to activate. I can only choose the option c: to activate, one letter only and then it starts it's install of Windows 98. When this loads then as you are aware FAT16 is seen on the system. "The partition size will stay at 2 gig even if you use the 98 fat32 conversion". Correct again i tried this through Windows to convert and it did not change.

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If you have a 6GB disk and make 3 equal paritons they will be approx. 2GB each. You stated you were going to use the disks for DOS. Why do you want FAT32 then? Why are you partitioning equally. DAVINCAPS explained about FAT 16 size limits. Just make the primary partition larger. Say 50% and your problem will go away. I am still confused about how these two 2GB drives grew to 6GB.

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Yeah, whether answering 'yes' or 'no' to large disk support you have the option to not use the entire disk space as a single partition. If you specifiy less than the entire disk as a single partition then logical drives can be created in the remaining space. (Of course with a 'no' answer you have the 2 gig max.) Given that the drives you're using are small, unless you have a specific reason to create multiple logical drives, it's usually best to just choose to use the entire disk space as a single partition when running fdisk. But as long as you end up with all the disk space used, as either single or multiple logical drives, then you're doing as much as you can.

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As OtheHill says, with dos you should probably keep them at FAT16 as MS DOS (6.22 and below) and early 95 dos will only work with fat16.

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I'm back and I have tried again. I have choosen the Yes option. This time I have mad c: drive 2 gig and the d: is 4 gig units. A totl of 6 gig I formate both c: and the d: drives. I know have FAT32 on my system. I can see this. I choose the activation of c: drive to load window. Fantastic all is going well the Window are now loading up. But wait... Crash...... I have now an error saying PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR. Windows can not proceed furthur. Hum... I wonder if the machine is trying to tell me something?

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"PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR." See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... If that doesn't help.... Have you tested the hard drive(s) yet? If not see response 10!

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It says PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR exactly? That phrase doesn't lead to any google results.

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Yes window on strat up did initialize the scan disk on c: and d: and it said it found no errors. However tomorrow I am getting another PC that my younger brother has so kindly donated to me. His old PC is a Pentium 1 he never uses it. It has been sitting at my mums house for quiet some time doing nothing, and it is fully opertional with Window 98 fully installed. He has informed me that his hard drive in the machine is a 10 gig unit. So i will be using this machine to carry out further test of the remaining hard drive, that I have. With response to the RAM moduls I guess I could reseat them or try other unit as I have a few spare to play with.

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Hello there. Do you want an update? Well I picked up the PC from mum house. Got it all working at my my place. Checked out a few thing before i installed the spare hard disk to be reformated as mention to you before. I am using the 6 gig unit here. Ok you may not like this but here goes. I formated the drives and choose the option for large partition. (Y) All went very well and this machine seems more promissing than the last. It starts to install window and nearly completes it's install. However I now have another problem, because an error has appear on the screen. I think you gentlemen out there have seen this problem before and dealt with this. And the error is........ Windows protection error c:\Windows\system\vmm32.vxd: missing /unable to load. Oh no?? I been doing some reasarch on this topic and i have look at previous entries on this web site to see if other people who have had the same thing as me. Good one.... Now what>>>

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Vmm32.vxd is a file created when you do the installation. Reformat and try the installation again. You might check this thread: http://www.computing.net/answers/wi... where for some odd reason, changing the boot order seems to have fixed that problem.

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I did it, I changed the boot order and it worked like a charm . Thank you Mr Davincaps.

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You're welcome. I wish I knew why that works. There would seem to be no causal relationship between the boot order and whether or not the OS can locate vmm32.vxd.

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I have now formated and loaded 2 hard drives on this new PC that I picked up from mums place. The first hard drive is 6 gigs and on boot up I go to my computer and view that this is in deed a 6gig unit. So now i put in another hard drive which is 8 gigs in capacity and laod window up and once again I go and check to see if this is the capacity that i have choosen. (via the Y option )This machine has no problems seeing this. However what I do see is that the PC displays c: and d: inspaction when the scan disc starts up and loads up automatically wihtout me choosing this and carries on the installation.I just can not understand why I can not load up the other PC and allow the full partitioning of the hard disc that i put in. It only take a maximum 2 gigs not matter what I choose. Is there something i am doing or not see in the bios screen to not allow me the full use of the hard drive.

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If the hard drive is configured wrong in cmos/bios setup that could be the reason. If you choose a cylinders/heads/sectors manual setup instead of setting it to AUTO then it could be configured as a 2 gig instead of whatever it actually is.

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I could switch it off auto but I am not sure which setting to choose. Should I be looking for the hard drive spec's. Is there something out there that I could learn more on what I need to do. I have toggled through the bios hard drive IDE but not to sure what I should be selectiing?

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If it's on AUTO then it should be OK. The only other thing I can think of is that it's got a cylinder limiting jumper set which would force the bios to see it as 2 gig. But if you've tried it on another computer and that one has seen it OK then that wouldn't be it. If you're not sure of the jumpers post back the hard drive model number so we can look them up.

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Some older BIOSes had an option to Autodetect drives. That would be separate from the Auto setting. There is no particular harm in trying various settings if Auto doesn't work. I thought you stated the harddrives are all properly identified in the startup screens though?

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I have a hard drive that I haven't tried yet but should work fine. This one is a Seagate Model Number ST36424A Serial Number 7CN0353W Part number 9N5006-030 Firmware Number 3.10 Lot number A56324 Configuration level CQB02 CT 2206A020XII0FN CPN : 116191-001 0013 Drive parameters (CHS) 13,328 Cylinders 15 heads 63 sectors 12,594,960 Addressable sectors This is what i can see on the label.

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I forgot to write the hard drive capacity is is a 6,448 Mbytes (6 gig unit)

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In the end, if the harddrive shows in the startup screens as the full capacity then the BIOS isn't the problem. It may have something to do with your Fdisk copy.

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This PC on start up shows very little , not like the other computer that has a whole list itinerary on start up. The screen here is very blank.

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"It may have something to do with your Fdisk copy." That ain't it. The Win 98/98SE Fdisk bug is only a problem if the drive is ~64gb or larger - the original version starts over (xxgb - 64gb, or a multiple of 64gb) after 64gb. .... "CPU is pentium 166 Mhz" "I am limited to only 2Gig. What ever hard disc i use." "I just can not understand why I can not load up the other PC and allow the full partitioning of the hard disc that i put in. It only take a maximum 2 gigs not matter what I choose." You've tried or investigated everything else. The only thing left is you have an ancient bios version that has bugs in it that prevent drives larger than 2gb from being recognized as more than 2gb - this was common in really old bioses, as was the later 8.4 gb bug, and the 32gb bug, and the 64gb bug. I don't know if in your many posts you have mentioned what mboard brand and model you have or not. If you have, tell us again. EDIT - I found you have, "Phoenix Bios Technologies 4.0 release 5.12 Version1.01" but I searched with it and it's not much help. If you can find the make and model or use Bios Agent (see below) do that. If you have not... If you DO know your mboard brand, model, or mboard version or revision number, or your brand name system model number, tell us what it is. If you're not sure, Go here, download BIOS AGENT. Run BIOS AGENT to find your bios string. - here's the link that downloads Bios Agent http://download.esupport.com/biosag... The current Bios Agent calls the bios string the Bios ID. Tell us the Bios ID it finds, or everything Bios Agent finds, and include any dashes, etc. ... Bios Agent must be used in Windows. The following works even if you have no drives at all connected to your mboard but you are able to boot and get a display on your monitor. If you cannot use Bios Agent, the bios string is usually a long string of numbers/letters at the bottom of the first black screen as you boot your computer - it often begins with a date - usually you can press the Pause key to read it and copy it down. Press any key but Pause to continue booting. It could also be higher up the screen under or beside the bios version line, e.g. under or beside Award or AMI or Pheonix... Post this bios string here, and include any dashes, etc. Please make sure you copied it right. Most Award and AMI Bios strings do not have spaces. Newer Phoenix bios strings, based most often on those for Intel mboards, are often like so: xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxx .... If you provide the right information, we MAY be able to find you a bios update you can flash the bios with that will cure your problem. If not, your only solution is to buy yourself a recent PCI EIDE (PATA) drive controller card and connect your drives to that. It has it's own bios and 48 bit LBA support so will detect ANY size of hard drive. As little as $30 or less. However, you MUST be able to select SCSI as the first device in your boot order, or be able to place SCSI after floppy and/or CD drive in the boot order, if you want to be able to boot Windows from a drive connected to the PCI card.

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I couldn't find the jumper settings for that exact drive--it might be an OEM made by seagate. But if it has a cylinder limiting jumper that's set then the bios will definately see the drive as 2.1 gig. Also, looking at the rear of the drive with the drive right-side-up there are probably five pairs of jumpers between the IDE cable connection and the power connection. From left to right their designations should be: Master Slave Cable select Reserved Current limiting jumper (CLJ) So, if there is a jumper over the pair of pins on the right side, remove that jumper. With the bios at AUTO I think the drive will be seen the same as before on the posting screen--it'll probably just show the drive model number. Fdisk--option 4 should show 2 gig as partitioned with another 4 gig as unpartitioned. That is, it will IF the current limiting jumper had previously been set. (Edit) Apparently some of their drives of that genre had 4 pairs of jumpers. In that case the CLJ is still the one farthest to the right.

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Here's a pic of the 4-jumper configuration: http://support.dell.com/support/edo... The CLJ is the one marked 'alternate capacity'. I think it's likely you have the 4-jumper configuration instead of the 5-jumper. I misread the configuration for the Medalist drives. In any event, it's going to be the one on the right.

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I have cheeked the jumper at the back. It is indeed to the far left had side which is the Master select. I even tried placing this to the right had side to see what would happen. It said " no fixed disc present" So I put this back as was before. My mother board is... from what I can see and i shall write this... What ever it means 1997 Digital Corporation Equipment. L1 side 1 50-25307-01 A01 54-25308 made in Singapore. Once again i completely used the full drive to its maximum capacity and reformated it again. I get on completion of formating, it reads. Checking existing disk format. formating 6,149.85M format complete Your program caused a divide overflow error. If the problem persists, contact your program vendor. With regards to the link above running the program to check the bios info via the disket installation says that it can not run this program in the dos mode. I wonder if there is a program out that can easily load up this information through the floppy drive to view the bios version that I have.

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I loaded that program that was given to me. If you're not sure, Go here, download BIOS AGENT. Run BIOS AGENT to find your bios string. - here's the link that downloads Bios Agent http://download.esupport.com/biosag... I got a hard drive that has windows 98 already installed, I decide to place th program I downloaded to the machine. It worked good. Thank you Mr Tubesandwire. Quiet a good program to view the bios. Ok what do we have here.... We have. And what I can see, is. Bios type= Phoenix Bios 4.0 Released 5.12 Bios D= Unknown OEM Sign On= None Super i/o= SMC93XAPM rev 1 found at port 3foh Chipset Intel Trition 430TX rev 1 OS= Microsoft Windows 98 SE version 4.10.2222 CPU type=P54C Speed 168mhz Max Unknow Bios Rom Unknown Size Unknown Memory Installed 47mb Maximum= Unknow. Gentleman I ask you this. Why is my memory only 47mb. Is this because the bios is set to it's maximum of only what it can handle or see??? I have 3 slots @ 64mb each installed. I would think I would be view more than this.

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It formatted the drive to 6 gig so I guess that problem is taken care of, right? As far as your ram only reading 47 meg--likely the bios is seeing the sticks as 16 meg. You'll need double-sided stick with lower density chips. I'm surprised that motherboard even has DIMM sockets. This should be the support page for your model. Looks like the newest bios is ver 1.12, if you really feel the need to try the upgrade: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup...

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Yes it did format the drive to 100% and it is active. I do see the system as fat32 but on completion of the format the error reads. "Your program caused a divide overflow error". i do not proceeed any furthure as I am for sure that this install of Windows will fail using all the drive.

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Did you boot from a bootdisk? Or how did you load the OS that you used to format the hard drive?

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I create the boot disk from my Windows 98 SE cd. I have a hard drive fully operational and I format the start up disc through this. Then I simple use this to try and get the other hard drive up and running using it's maximum capacity. I have now 3 boot disc on my table all the same. Anyhow I don't have any problems using the other Pc to get it up and running to format the drive and I use any of the 3 boot disc to initialize my drive.

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The generic bootdisks load a lot of drivers that aren't necessary--a lot of ASPI files in case you've got a SCSI setup. Occasionally all that unneeded stuff causes problems. I'm going to send you a bootdisk that only loads himem.sys and the cdrom driver. Use it instead of what you have now. Send me your email address via a private message. The new convoluted way that computing.net handles direct emails never seems to work.

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I have sent you my email address and hopefully you should have it. Thank you.

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OK, I sent it. Let us know how it goes. The error could also be due to a hardware or RAM problem.

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I got your email. I have extracted this file and placed it on a floppy disk to be opened by the machine, during installation. I will let you know. Thank you so much.

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I placed this file on a working windows of 98. The file proceeded to open up on it's own and called for a formatted floppy to be put in. It loaded the file without problems. I now am using this on the PC that will not partition all of the drive. I am using the 6gig hard drive to try this out, and deleting all that is on the disc. I am starting a new. I am now booting from the A: drive and again fdisk this. I look and see if this unit is empty. There is nothing there. I reboot and choose option (Y) to use all of the drive. I reboot when I have gone through this setup. I now am back at the A:prompt I now format c: Again on completion i get the message saying "Your program caused a divide overflow error". Same as before. I look back into the system to see if this information is there. Again the System is unknown and does not format FAT32. Not to good. I will now try to upgrade the bios. See if this helps.

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I think there must be a RAM or some hardware problem. Nothing that loaded or ran from that bootdisk should cause that error. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try the bios update.

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Mr Davencaps. Before i upgrade this bios. Why is it, that I can only see in the system. Memory Installed 47mb When I should be seeing 64mb X 3 off Total 192mb. This machine just doesn't pick it up or have I exceeded it's limit.

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The bios upgrade didn't load up. It called for the drive letter b: which is not installed. I did however change the bios default values, which displayed a totally different screen on startup, but that was pretty much it. I even tried to disable the c: drive and the cd rom reader thinking that the machine would have to read from the A: drive and not call for the B: drive, which is displayed as none in the bios setting. I tried reloading again but not much help. So I went back and reset everything as it was because I was having boot up problems. I managed to start the machine again and OR how should I say it, I am back to the beginning. Not to sure why this bios upgrade is not working.

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I mentioned that in #61 above--the sticks are probably being seen as 16 meg instead of 64 due to their using high density chips for which the bios doesn't know how to correctly read.

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Which bios file did you download?

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I'm ging back to the ram I'm taking this out and just putting one in for now. I might even borrow another machine memory to see what happen. Hopefully just using one stick I should able to see at least 64mb. High density??? I'll try another approach.

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The bios is from the web site given to me at number #56 Version 1.12 It loads automatically to the A: diskette. Inside it is the file name is 00000OA.exe that is 6 zero's and the letters OA.exe Then it says it can not find drive B: And that's about it.

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If a 64 meg stick, for example, has 8 chips on it and another 64 meg stick has 16 chips then the chips on the one with 8 must be higher density. That is, those 8 chips must do what the 16 chips do on the other one. There are other factors but that's the main one. I'll take a look at the bios file.

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Unfotunately the info revealed by Bios Agent doesn't help much, so I looked again at your posts to see what else they revealed. "DIGITAL Ventris fx2" "My mother board is... from what I can see and i shall write this... What ever it means 1997 Digital Corporation Equipment. L1 side 1 50-25307-01 A01 54-25308 made in Singapore." ...... "DIGITAL Ventris fx2" Ventris - no such model name - must be Venturis There is no Venturis FX2 - must be FX-2 Digital Venturis FX-2 series - renamed to Digital PC 3100 series Series info: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup... Memory Configurations - but it says for PC 5100 http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup... Apparently Celebrix FX-2 was renamed PC 5100 PC 3100 and 5100 series used the same motherboards? DAVEINCAPS appears to have found the correct link for software, for the Venturis FX-2 / PC 3100. http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup... As he found - System Bios version 1.12 From the Release notes (click on the icon with what looks like text on a page) "Signon : Digital PC3100 XYYY Z Version 1.12" That's what it will say on the first screen as you boot after you flash with this version. "Support ATA over 8.4gb" So - flashing with this bios version enables at least the recognition of up to 32gb drives. "Known Limitations: Support for 64Mbit DRAM technology: A. Memory SLOT 3 (J5) can not support a 64Mbyte DIMM using 64 Mbit DRAMs. 1. If any DIMM is installed in SLOT 3 (J5) then any 64Mbyte DIMM used in SLOT 1 (J7) or SLOT 2 (J6) will be identified as 16 Mbyte. 2. If slot 3 is empty then SLOT 1 and SLOT 2 can support 64 Mbyte DIMM using 64Mbit DRAMs. B. E-Segment is not free (BIOS version 1.02 does not use E-Segment) C. NT Power Panel can not "auto power off" the system when shut down." You stated: "OH the RAM what size is this well I have 3 slots and each RAM is 64mb. All three are in." "Gentleman I ask you this. Why is my memory only 47mb. Is this because the bios is set to it's maximum of only what it can handle or see??? I have 3 slots @ 64mb each installed. I would think I would be view more than this." The above info from the bios release notes explains that - I looked at bios release notes for older versions as well where avalable - they all mention the same as line 1 and 2. Also, the link to the Memory Configuration info I pointed to above shows you can't install three 64mb modules. You reported Bios Agent said: "Chipset Intel Trition 430TX rev 1" In addition, the Triton chipsets are well known to have problems with many 64mb memory modules unless they were certain specific ones. ....... Therefore - You have a ram problem. - that ram problem is probably at the very least causing the 3 64mb modules to be recognized as 16mb each. Why 47mb? Bioses vary in how they report the total ram detected - I suspect in this case 1 mb is subtracted for conventional memory, which can't be used to store data in. - it is quite possible at least one of the 64mb modules is ALSO not compatible with the Triton chipset. Your ram problem is probably causing your Divide Overflow Error. Try this .... Remove the ram module from slot 3 - if both the other 64mb modules get along with the Triton chipset, you should then see 127mb of ram detected. If you don't see 127mb, try various pairs of 64mb modules, or one ram module which should yield you 63mb, in slots 1 and 2. If you don't get 127mb or 63mb detected, the problem is probably, as DAVEINCAPS has said, the ram is incompatible due to any one of various reasons, including you may need to use ram modules that use lower density chips, which usually results in there being more chips on the module. E.g. if the present modules have 4 chips you may need to use ones with 8 chips. OR try 128mb ram modules, BUT it is quite likely on this old mboard they need to have 16 chips - 8 on each side - 8 chip 128mb modules probably won't work. They can only be installed in slots 1 and 2. ......... As for your 2.x hard drive size problem, I think DAVEINCAPS is on the right track - you probably have a jumper on the drive that is limiting the size the bios sees to 2.x gb. Some hard drives have no jumper installed when they are master; some drives must have a jumper installed, I see no indication in all the bios update release notes that the bios had any such limitation. Version 1.12 does remove the 8.4gb bug and will support the bios recognizing up to at least 32gb (the next bios bug), but you should NEVER flash your bios unless you have no other choice, and flashing is extremely unlikely to cure your 2.x gb problem . Going by the bios release notes, you probably cannot select SCSI in your boot order settings, so if you installed a PCI EIDE controller card you would not be able to boot Windows from a drive connected to the card.

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I went back to the PC and removed all of the RAM. I tried a few others with little results. I have now only one installed in the slot. No difference here. This RAM is a SDRAM SIEMENS HYS64V8200GU-8 A219915101 PC 100-222-620 I looked back into the system and all I see, on startup and while pausing this is. Ventris FX-2 5166 Version 1.01 CPU= Pentium 166MHZ 0000640K System RAM Passed 0015360 Extended RAM Passed 0256 Cache SRAM System bios shadowed. Video UMB Upper limit segment address F139 Still not difference here.

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OK, so you run the file 000000oa.exe and it creates the bios update bootdisk. On the disk is a readme.txt file that explains what you need to do. Apparently there is a 'bios update enable' setting on a motherboard DIP switch. You also need to enable 'bios flash' in cmos/bios setup. There was no mention there about needing a B: drive. I used the disk and booted up one of my old P-I's. It started the flash process but of course couldn't finish as my bios was imcompatible. But again there was no mention of a B: drive. Try making the necessary adjustments in cmos and the motherboard switch and try it again.

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Thanks for you reply. I am a little scared here as I have heard some horrible stories about flashing the bios. Some people tell me that when they have updated these setting, all information has been lost forever and carrying out such an operation on the motherboard is a very serious matter. So far we are up to #80 and I haven't had much luck here and I am starting to have some second thoughts. Not to say I will not try this procedure but I will slowly go and do this this and email you if i think I am doing something wrong or do not understand the process fully. I will not proceed further and abort the operation.

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I had to recreate the disc as I now am getting the error. bad command or file name when I type in 000000oa.exe My dip switches are as followed. 1=down 2=up 3up 4=up 5=down 6=up 7=down 8=down. Now what?

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I have tried again and this start to preform this task but I get the error message that reads this. Insert a blank high density diskette in drive B to proceed. Press enter or Esc to quit. I do not have a b: drive.

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"0000640K System RAM Passed 0015360 Extended RAM Passed" Thay adds up to 16000K. It should normally add up to 16384K if the bios were detecting 16mb (16 x 1,024kb/mb) and were reporting all the ram. I suspect 384kb is subtracted for the onboard video. If you're not sure which slot is slot 3, use one module at at time in the middle slot. If you only get that amount of ram reported with any module in the middle slot, NONE of your ram is compatible with the mboard's Triton main chipset. ...... I DO NOT think you should be flashing the bios! Your ram detection problem will probably NOT be fixed by doing so! You need to try different ram if none of it is detected properly! ...... When you have only one physical floppy drive, drive B is a virtual - logical - phantom - floppy drive. If the blank floppy is already fully inserted in the floppy drive, try just pressing Enter. If that doesn't work, eject it, insert it again, then press Enter.

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"SIEMENS HYS64V8200GU-8" is definately a 64mb PC100 module. 100 MHz 16M x 64 2 bank SDRAM. Your mboard was designed to use PC66 SDram modules. The PC100 spec on it's own is backwards compatible with the PC66 spec, but that's not the only thing that determines ram compatibility. When you look up lists of ram that are compatible with your mboard, none will be listed that are PC100. PC100, or less likely PC133, ram MIGHT work, but there's nowhere you can look up whether it will for sure. If NONE of the ram is recognized as 64mb (or 63mb) when installed by itself in the middle ram slot, NONE of it is compatible with your Triton main chipset. Flashing the bios almost always will NOT fix that problem! If you have other SDram ram modules to try, go ahead and try them - it doesn't hurt them or the mboard, whether they are recognized properly or not. However, the mboard may not boot at all when some modules are installed. As I've already said, 128mb modules will probably work in ram slots 1 and 2 IF they have 16 chips - 8 on each side. If you don't have other SDram modules to try you're going to have to decide whether you want to spend some bucks for ram for this old mboard... Memory Giant has modules: http://www.memorygiant.com/index.cf... http://www.memorygiant.com/index.cf... http://www.memorygiant.com/index.cf... Kingston lists discontinued modules but they are of course no longer available. They do say only 16mb modules can be installed in the third ram slot. Corsair - no listings for any Digital computer model. Crucial - no ram available "Bank 0 and 1 can support single and double banked modules, bank 2 only supports single banked 16MB modules" http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...

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You're getting the 'drive B:' stuff when you're trying to create the bios update bootdisk or when you run the bios update bootdisk? If you don't have any 64 meg sticks that are seen right you might try 32's, if you have them. There's a caching problem with most of the 430 chipsets that make using more than 64 meg inefficient. The 'bad command or file name' means you're not running the file from its current directory--assuming you typed it in correctly.

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I tried all the memory I had. The above was correct that my 64 mb sticks were not compatable. No matter what slot i put this in i only got 16mb I did manage to find two 2 (two ram that are 32 Mb each. I now have 64mb installed. I see on the screen 0000640K Sytem Ram passed 0064512K Extended ram passed. I again have tried to format but the same as before. partial over flow etc, etc. I still havn't figured out how to flash the bios through the floppy disc. I did however do what the above mention when I get the b: drive. I removed the floppy disc in and out but this made no difference.

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"I now have 64mb installed. I see on the screen 0000640K Sytem Ram passed 0064512K Extended ram passed. I again have tried to format but the same as before. partial over flow etc, etc." It's good to hear you found some ram that is recognized properly. Make sure you do not use the third ram slot - the highest one whatever way it is labelled. Take a look in your bios Setup and make sure the second floppy drive - B drive - is not enabled there. ..... Again, I URGE you to NOT flash the bios - it will propably NOT solve your problems. ..... The size of the L2 sram on the mboard determines how much ram can be cached because there is no L2 on the cpu, and these older mboards often had a too small L2, or some el-cheapo models had no L2 at all, but that doesn't affect the size of the ram modules detected - it only affects whether all the ram installed is cached by the L2 or not - if it is not cached, the ram runs slower overall (as much as 25%) and less efficiently. "0256 Cache SRAM" In this case, if you install more than 64mb, none of it will be cached.

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I to think that flashing the bios will not help to resolve this problem. I have not done so yet. I have my suspicions that this will not work even if I get an upgrade bios. As far as the b: drive is concerned I have looked into the bios screen and it does not exist. So why is it calling for this I will never know. I am not sure why the PC is calling for this drive. But i will not install this until I have a better reason why I can not use all of my hard drive usage.

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"As far as the b: drive is concerned I have looked into the bios screen and it does not exist. So why is it calling for this I will never know." See the last paragraph of response 84. The B drive does not necessarily have to physically exist to do some things. E.g. you can Copy the contents of an entire floppy in a single floppy drive to a blank floppy in the same drive. The operating system won't let you copy the files to the same logical drive, so it uses a virtual B drive as a destination. You're using the same pysical drive, but whether it is seeen as A or B can alternate. However, you may need to eject a floppy then insert one for the drive to be seen as the other drive letter logically. ..... Did you make sure there is no ram in the third ram slot? Did you double check the drive does not have a size limitation jumper installed? Bear in mind the jumper info on the label on the drive can be confusing - e.g. upside down in relation to the back of the drive - if the label shows where the power ssocket is, go by that. You could also try loading bios Defaults in the bios Setup, save settings.

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There is only two ram sticks installed inside. I have 64mb of ram now. "When you have only one physical floppy drive, drive B is a virtual - logical - phantom - floppy drive. If the blank floppy is already fully inserted in the floppy drive, try just pressing Enter. If that doesn't work, eject it, insert it again, then press Enter." I tried the above. I removed the floppy and pressed enter a few times in and out, but little difference is happening. I do not believe that upgrading or flashing the bios will help me out here. Regarding the jumpers, I did moved them around to see what the results were. They are correctly setup.

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Are you getting the 'drive B:' stuff when you're trying to create the bios update bootdisk or when you run the bios update bootdisk?

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Only when I try installing the bios update.

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There is a setting in many bios Setups where you can swap the logical drive letters A and B that's disabled by default - that may be turned on. Or you could try loading bios Defaults in the bios Setup which will reset all non-standard settings. ..... "Your program caused a divide overflow error" "This issue can be caused by any of the below possibilities. Hardware / software incompatibility Error with autoexec.bat / config.sys Driver issue Software issue External Cache / 2nd level Cache Improper calculation Operating System issue Hardware issue " http://www.computerhope.com/issues/... "DIVIDE BY ZERO OR OVERFLOW The "Divide by zero or Overflow" error message The technical explanation for these errors is a command or a series of commands that result in the mathematical division by zero, which is an illegal operation. This error can also be triggered by other error conditions, such as a quotient too large to fit in the designated register. In simpler terms, this error is the result of a conflict which is occurring on the system, usually in memory." http://gi.grolier.com/gi/support/95... Another cause: "You try to over clock the speed of your computer's processor (for example, you set a 150 MhZ processor to run at 187 MhZ)." .... Obviously many of or all of the software causes are not going to be your case since you are dealing with a fresh install of the operating system, unless.... - you booted with an oddball bootable floppy that loads something non-standard and then ran Setup from the CD, rather than booting using the Windows CD (a standard Startup Disk floppy should work fine) There's a possibilty the overflow error is caused by improper bios Setup settings. Loading bios Defaults, saving settings, should get rid of that possibilty. Hardware causes... - are you CERTAIN the jumper settings are correct for the cpu you are using? You said in the above you tried changing them and then changed them back, but are they now correct? Is the cpu actually 166mhz? Do you have it's core voltage set correctly? - if you have cards in slots, you could try temporarily removing them to see if you still get the divide overflow error. - this old mboard may or may not have hardware monitoring built in. If it does, it will have current voltage readings in the bios Setup, and possibly fan rpm readings. +5 and +12 volts should be within 10% of the nominal value. ...... I downloaded your 000000OA.exe and executed it - it asks me to provide a blank floppy disk in the A drive to extract the files too. However, that may detect which floppy drive letter the bios Setup is set to. E.g. if swap A for B were enabled in Setup, it may specify B rather than A. The README file on the resulting floppy explains what you need to do to flash the bios, including which DIP switch to move. ..... Are you sure the floppy drive is correctly connected? It should work fine with other bootable floppies. There must be wires in the data cable that flip which way they are connected between the middle connector and the end connector the floppy drive is connected to. If you get that backwards and the flipped wires are between the mboard and the middle connector, the drive connected to the other end of the data cable will be detected as the B drive by the bios. Some ancient hard drive data cables for RLL or MFM drives have the same number of wires (34)as for floppy cables and have two connectors with no wires that flip which way they are connected between the connectors - if you connect a floppy drive to that type of data cable, it will be detected by the bios as the B drive. Similarly, RLL or MFM data cables with three connectors have wires that are flipped between two connectors too, but different wires are flipped, and a floppy drive connected to the connecto afer the flipped wires cannot work properly.

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Its requesting a disk in B: makes no sense. What's the exact wording it's giving when asking for B:? Is it possible you created the disk on the B: drive of a different computer? Maybe it wrote that expected drive letter when it created the disk.

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It you read Mr Tubesandwires comment above it is similar as to what I am getting and that is....... I downloaded your 000000OA.exe and executed it - it asks me to provide a blank floppy disk in the A drive to extract the files too. However, that may detect which floppy drive letter the bios Setup is set to. E.g. if swap A for B were enabled in Setup, it may specify B rather than A. The only thing here is that I get the B: drive, instead of the a:. I don't know why . This is happening what I see, on the screen, is what I report. Why is it that I can copy and delete from the a: drive to c: drive on a another hard drive formatted meaning that the a: is working correctly with regards to the bios screen. I can even do a dir of the directory and the PC see this without troubles. With regards to the dip switches position I have clearly seen what each individual position means and deos and I will later write down all that I find and see. I just may need some help a little to set this up correctly in what I need to do. I think that the switches are playing a key roll in stopping me formatting it's full partition. of the drive.

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I don't understand what you're saying in the paragraph starting with "The only thing here. . ." Are you saying this computer is always specifying your floppy drive as B: or only when you're trying to update the bios? The exact wording of the message would be helpful as that can be googled and maybe some info can be gained that way. The only other thing I can think of is the floppy drive is jumpered wrong (if it has jumpers) or is connected wrong on the cable. If it's jumpered or cabled as B: there can be some confusion in the bios and OS as they'll usually want to label a single floppy drive as A: I don't know anything about the DIP switches. I believe you can download a manual from the support page to check those.

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If your certain the bios Setup is seeing A and not B as you floppy drive......... From your previous reponse "The bios is from the web site given to me at number #56 Version 1.12 It loads automatically to the A: diskette. Inside it is the file name is 00000OA.exe that is 6 zero's and the letters OA.exe Then it says it can not find drive B: And that's about it." I think I have an explanation. It does NOT automatically load the download to the A: diskette unless that's where you downloaded it to, or copied it to! If you tried to execute 000000OA.exe from the floppy in A, it probably can't extract the files in 000000OA.exe to A:, so it asks for a blank floppy in the B drive, since the extacted files are supposed to go to a floppy in a floppy disk drive. You double click on 000000OA.exe when it's on the hard drive, not when it's on a floppy disk. If you can't do that on this computer, you do it on another computer - it doesn't matter on which computer you extract the files in 000000OA.exe to a floppy on. In any case, if you don't want to flash the bios, then don't bother making the floppy! ...... "With regards to the dip switches position I have clearly seen what each individual position means and deos and I will later write down all that I find and see. I just may need some help a little to set this up correctly in what I need to do. I think that the switches are playing a key roll in stopping me formatting it's full partition. of the drive." ..... I know of absolutely no way any of the dip switches could have anything to do with the bios only seeing a 2.x gb drive when it is actually bigger, or the overflow error. You have not said - whether you tried loading bios Setup defaults and saving settings - whether you are sure the mboard jumper settings are correct for the actual cpu you are using. - whether you have tried removing cards in slots if that applies.

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The cpu setting I am not sure of. If there is a special switch for this i have yet to see it. The only switch I have seen is the dip switches and as clearly mention to you before. What to do exactly here I don not know. The default setting i have done this, and I now get a better display on the screen on start up. It now has all that i need to look at on start up, should i wish to view this info. What I do find here is that it is easy to report back to you what I see. Not like before i had a very basic screen that show very little without going directly into the bios screen.

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DAVEINCAPS Only when I try to update the bios screen. I believe that the PC can not re copy onto itself in the current drive which is the A: drive. It clearly states It does NOT automatically load the download to the A: diskette unless that's where you downloaded it to, or copied it to! If you tried to execute 000000OA.exe from the floppy in A, it probably can't extract the files in 000000OA.exe to A:, so it asks for a blank floppy in the B drive, since the extacted files are supposed to go to a floppy in a floppy disk drive. You double click on 000000OA.exe when it's on the hard drive, not when it's on a floppy disk. If you can't do that on this computer, you do it on another computer Well I will try to extract this on another computer

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Yeah, it'd be best to have the dowloaded file on the hard drive rather than a floppy disk when trying to create the bios update bootdisk. Just now I tried it both ways. When running 000000oa.exe from the hard drive it requests the disk be put in A:. When running from A: it requests the disk be put in B:. This particular computer has 2 floppy drives anyway. I don't know what would happen when running it from A: if you only had one floppy drive.

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go here - Documentation for Venturis FX-2 http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup... - download the Service and Maintenance manual to your computer, or to another computer. (RIGHT click on the link, select Save File As) This manual mentions a 4.x gb optional hard drive, so even the original bios version recpgnizes drives of over 2.x gb! See Bios Setup Utility starting page 51 1. Do this in your bios Setup........ Select: Get Default Values to set all bios Setup settings to defaults Select: Save Changes and Exit 2. Go into the bios Setup again. Page 54, 55 in the manual Select the MAIN screen if it isn't already there. IDE 0/1 Master/Slave Try Autotype Fixed disk type - press Enter to auto fill in the parameters Look at the resulting parameters - it should include saying the hard drive is MORE THAN 2.x gb, or MORE THAN 2,048mb (it should be approx 4 gb, or approx 4,096 mb, or a bit less than that). If that is correct, press Esc, select Save Changes and Exit, or press the specified key at the bottom of the page for Save Changes and Exit. If that is NOT correct..... Type should be - Auto LBA Mode control - should be set to ENABLED press Esc, select Save Changes and Exit, or press the specified key at the bottom of the page for Save Changes and Exit. ...... Page 151 dip switch settings (SW1) Page 152 - Processor Clock Speed Switch settings If your CPU is actually 166mhz (if you're not sure, remove the cpu heatsink and take a look at the top of the cpu) SW1 - 1 is ON - 66mhz SW1 - 6 is OFF SW1 - 7 is ON SW1 - 8 is ON ........ See starting page 154 - Installing Additional Computer Memory NOTE that it is J5 that is the problem ram slot, not the highest one, J7, as I thought! Your 32mb ram modules should be in J6 and J7.

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I thought that was amazing to find such a manual out there on this PC. That is truly incredible. I never thought it existed, anymore. Thanks Mr Tubesandwires for taking this extra effort. I am eager to try this out. I am going to try all of the above that you mentioned. Looks very promising fron here. Fascinating stuff. Cheers Onin

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I have done all that was mention above and even tinkered around with the dip switches to see what would happen Switch 1 if set to off this value would read 150mhz on the screen. So i left this on to = 166 mHz My CPU was taken out and yes this is a 166 Intel processor chip. The switch that I found interesting and caught my eye was N#4. This Cleared all the CMOS default values. Similar to the Default Values seen in the bios screen. I had to return this to it's original position because the PC would not operate otherwise. I found this all to be very easy to carry out and setup. Even the Ram slots were correct,I am using J7 and J6 as Mr Tubesandwires mentioned. J5 is blank and I do not us this. The LBA Mode control - should be set to ENABLED, which it is and does this automatically. ( this does not allow change )The primary IDE can be seen as 6400 mb approx which again show correct. I then again, exit as mentioned above to save changes. (If that is correct, press Esc, select Save Changes and Exit, or press the specified key at the bottom of the page for Save Changes and Exit.) I again proceed to format the C: drive It asks me all over again that information will be lost, etc, etc. I say yes to all. When this is finished I have the error back on the screen. Your program caused a divide overflow error". Same as before, little change. So now I am back to where I started. What i do now is i try loading or flashing the new bio values. The diskette I have now loaded this via another computer. I load this inside the PC and type in autoexec.bat The program starts to load But what happens now is this. I seen this........ PhoenixPhlash Utility 4.00 Release 1.28 Coyright 1994-1995 PheonixPhlash error saying boldly in a red underline sign Can not flash when Memory Manager (eg HIMEM are present press any key to exit ) So I do and then I an back to the a: prompt

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You have to boot with the floppy disk that was created when you ran 00000OA.exe. You're booting from something else--probably the 98 bootdisk I sent. The 98 bootdisk loads himem.sys which is where your error is coming from. When you boot with the bios update disk the upgrade will proceed automatically.

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Opps you were right. i even had the floppy disc still inside the machine when I re turned this back on. Just shows you how much I know!!!! Exacly what it is doing i am not to sure but i am using your disk that you gave to me to start the system back up again and I will try and formate the c: drive again. I would think that this has upgraded. What I saw, was...... A big blue sreen with lots of ticks and a few singles beep's being displayed.

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If you booted with the bios upgrade bootdisk then the upgrade was at least attempted. You should have gotten some message indicating whether or not it was successful. Make sure the DIP switches are set correctly for the upgrade (from the disk's readme.txt file I mentioned in #80). Then return them to their normal position after the upgrade. Then, yeah, go ahead and try the format again. I think you'll probably still get the overflow message as I doubt it's a bios thing.

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It worked perfectly. It loaded and it was a great success. I formated the hard drive all 6 gig nows shows up on the screen Horay. I now can see FAT32. It has finally formated the drive. Finally at last there is light at the end of the tunnel. I can now finally try loading window 98 from this PC. But wait.... Hu????? I now can't seem to do that. Becasue Where is my CDR reader. The PC is saying. CDR101 missing Unbelievable. Where are you MrDAVEINCAPS Don't give up on me now.

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The cdrom is being seen OK. It's just that it can't read the cd. That's usually due to a dirty, scratched or bad cd or a failing cdrom. Or, there's no cd in the cdrom.

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Also, make sure the cdrom data cable is in good shape and tightly connected. I take it this is the first time you've tried a cd in that particular cdrom since this mess got started?

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The cd rom was working good. The CD is clean. Let me go and write down exaclly what I see.

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It says The diagnostic tool was successfully loaded to drive d: MSCDEX Version 2.25 Copyright, etc, etc Drive E=driver MSCD001 unit 0 A: I then type a:d: d:setup CD101= Not ready reading drive E abort,retry,fail. I then do this a:setup CD101= Not ready reading drive E abort,retry,fail. I then try e: E\:setup CD101= Not ready reading drive E abort,retry,fail. and that's about it.

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E: is your cdrom drive letter. With the 98 cd in the cdrom you'd type e:\setup and enter to get it going. I see you're not using the bootdisk I sent as yours is creating a ramdrive at D: and mine doesn't. That shouldn't matter as I don't think it's a driver issue but I suggest you use my disk just in case. If you do, the cdrom drive letter will be D: and the command to start the installation would be d:\setup and enter. If you get the same error message hit R (for 'retry') a few times as maybe the cdrom is slow in spinning up. I'll check back tomorrow.

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I am using you boot disc that you sent me but on start up I am getting this message. No driver found OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM System aborted

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Go into cmos/bios setup and make sure both IDE controllers are enabled. Make sure the cdrom data cable is tightly connected. The bios update may have reset the bios settings but as long as the controller connnected to the cdrom is enabled then it should work. Also the CDR101 error means the cdrom was being seen in #112. Both the disk you first used and my disk should be using the same driver--oakcdrom.sys--so either should work. But if you're having a problem, use whichever one works. I can send another bootdisk file with a different cdrom driver but I don't think it will make a difference. What is the model # of the cdrom?

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The CD rom is a OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM evice driver Rev D91XV352 Device name MSCD001 generic reader I would have thought that the autoexec.bat file would hav this simple drive in it on start up.

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That's just the cdrom driver loading in config.sys. I was looking for the model number that would be printed on the cover of the cdrom. I was wondering just in case a particular driver or configuration was recommended for it.

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I can see a label on the unit but thats about it. I can put another hard drive unit that has window 98 already loaded up and try to find out what driver's this unit has on. Or I can just install another CDROM unit on the machine and hope for the best.

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You'd have to open the case and actually look at the cdrom in order to find out its model number. You can't do it with software. I'd just check and make sure it was connected OK and then try the bootdisks again. If you get the cdr101 error keep hitting R for retry. If that doesn't do it then you should probably try another cdrom.

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The case has been open for the last two weeks. If I had this case closed then I would not be able to view the dip switches and remove the CPU chip as requested previously. I would think that flashing the Bios would incur this type of problem as I have view a few forums on the Internet regarding this most common problem. With reference to my CD rom reader then the model is XM-57028 ROM ver TA61212 FCC ID: CJ6AT96-023 Unit manufactured May 1997 CP P/N 591470-AO

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The XM-5702B is a 12X and the standard oak driver should have no problem in setting it up. It's kind of old but those Toshibas were pretty good. I'm still not clear on its status. The CD101 errors indicate the driver is seeing the cdrom but isn't reading a disk in it. But in your #114 post it seems the bootdisk isn't seeing the cdrom. I can only restate the things you can check on: Make sure both IDE controllers are enabled in cmos/bios setup. Make sure its data cable is in good shape and tightly connected (well and the power connector too). If you're getting the cd101 error keep hitting R for retry. If you have another cdrom, at least temporarily swap them and see if it works. Make sure the cdrom jumpers are set the same.

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I have a few IDE cable that I have changed and now this will be my third CDROM reader that I have installed. I work friend has given me a driver for one CDRom to dry and install. Before I flashed the bios I installed windows 98 on 4 hard drive using the original CDROM. You would think that there is nothing wrong with this reader, until now flashing this new bios has created a new problem for me.

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Most cdrom driver disks install the driver to the hard drive. If that's what your friend has given you, you don't want to use that. I'm sending you another bootdisk file with a different cdrom driver. Try that one. You still haven't said if both IDE controllers are enabled in cmos/bios setup or if you're still getting the cd101 errors or the 'aborting installation' error.

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OK, it should be there. So you've tried 3 different cdroms in this same computer and none have worked? Do you get the same error each time? A bios flash may have reset the bios and you should go through it and review the settings. There's probably an explanation of them in the manual. But I think all you need is to make sure the controllers are enabled.

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I got it. I have unzipped it and now I am booted from this floppy disc. All went well. It is working. i am seeing now the CDROM reader. everything is loading up and I have now fully installed the Windows 98 SE Cd without any errors, with except for some driver that it is looking for but I choose to cancel. Fantastic. All I can say here is thank you so much for all your time and persistence with me. It has truely been a good learn't adventure for me. A truly and sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have finally made this PC to format and see the full capacity of hard drive units greater than 2 gig. I am very happy here and excited to know that I have learnt something from this, procedure. Wow I am a little overwhealmed and speechless with word. To everyone who help me out. I say thank you again. I am now on my second hard drive installation on this PC, I have now two computer, that can format windows 98, my brother old PC and the unit that we have just been working on. Great. A good sense of satisfaction here. And a little know how on extra dos commands from my side.

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We're glad you got everything fixed. I'm kind of surprised a different cdrom driver seems to have worked. If anyone's interested the driver was vide-cdd.sys.

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We're glad to hear you have resolved your problems. I wasn't able to respond the last few days because I was on vacation at my brother's place and his Win ME was frequently freezing on me. "The CD rom is a OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM evice " That's an Oak Technology IDE drive model, made about 1995 - it should work fine with oakcdrom.sys. However, the drive may be defective, or the data cable may have been damaged. It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more fragile. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant. Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap. 80 wire data cables are also easily damaged at either edge if the cable is sharply creased at a fold in the cable. Try another data cable if in doubt. ..... "With reference to my CD rom reader then the model is XM-57028 ROM ver TA61212 FCC ID: CJ6AT96-023 Unit manufactured May 1997 " (DAVEINCAPS said:) "The XM-5702B is a 12X and the standard oak driver should have no problem in setting it up. It's kind of old but those Toshibas were pretty good." "I'm kind of surprised a different cdrom driver seems to have worked. If anyone's interested the driver was vide-cdd.sys." Toshiba certainly used proprietary drivers for their laptop IDE optical drives even after that time (1997). I wouldn't be surpriseed if Toshiba was still using proprietary drivers for their desktop optical drives at that time - most other IDE optical drives made after about 1995 work fine with oakcdrom.sys. .... "I got it. I have unzipped it...." Unzipped what? If you mean the CD driver, yes, of course, if you got the driver as a *.zip file or a self extracting *.exe file, you must extract it to make the proper *.sys optical drive driver file. ..... DAVEINCAPS "A bios flash may have reset the bios and you should go through it and review the settings." I see no indication in Onin's posts that he actually flashed the bios - I think he just followed my directions in response 102, in which case he loaded bios defaults. "You still haven't said if both IDE controllers are enabled in cmos/bios setup ..." Most of the default bios settings in the bios Setup are marked with an asterisk in the manual - both IDE controllers are enabled by default as I recall. There was absolutely no reason to flash the bios to version 1.12, unless Onin wants to support the recognition of hard drives larger than 8.4 gb. ...... Onin. Next time... PLEASE..... - answer all the questions we ask, or try the things we suggest and tell us the result - explain things in as much detail as you can - you left out much of that in many of your posts, or didn't say what you had checked or tried. - read your posts before you post them (Submit follow up) to make sure what you are saying is clear - you can also always edit the posts you made after they are accepted. ....... What do I think was wrong? - obviously the ram initially installed was not compatible with the main Triton chipset, and the ram slot J5 can only recognize certain ram modlues properly. - the bios Setup was still set to specific parameters for the 2.x drive that was on it before, rather that Auto detect. When specific parameters are set, the bios will not change them when another drive is connected the same way (e.g. as master on primary IDE). If Onin tried setting that to Auto he may have forgotten to save the settings and reboot to make that actually come into effect. That's why the bios and Setup only saw a 2.x gb drive, even after enabling large hard drive support. - the OTI 9X drive was either defective, or it's IDE cable was damaged or had a poor connection otherwise. Setup was finding the drive, so the oakcdrom.sys driver was okay - something else was wrong. - the Toshiba drive needed a proprietary driver. ...... I don't know what DAVEINCAPS bootable floppy has on it, but for the standard Startup Disk floppy for Win 98 or 98SE, once it has loaded the proper driver for the CD drive and other support for it, you don't need to change drives to that letter specified at the end of loading files to run Setup from the CD - you just type: setup - it automatically adds the drive letter for the drive the CD is in to the PATH environmental variable. You can easily add the proprietary Toshiba driver to the standard Startup Disk and slightly modify Autoexec.bat and/or Config.sys to suit.

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I took it from #108 that he had done the bios upgrade, although he never specifically confirmed that. I think, in spite of denials, he was extracting the bios download from a floppy disk in which case it was asking for a disk in B: to create the bootable disk. All the atapi cdroms came with dos driver disks. They were often different drivers but they weren't proprietary. I don't think I've ever come across an IDE cdrom that wasn't atapi compatible. Most of the Gateway P-I's and P-II's came with XM series Toshiba drives. I don't recall ever having a problem using the oak driver with them. So it seemed odd it wasn't working. But I have had some problems with my floppy image program so maybe it was corrupted. The "OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM device driver" (he didn't post the complete line) isn't a cdrom. It's what shows on the dos screen when oakcdrom.sys loads. I think there are various versions of OTI (Oak Technology Inc.) drivers. The one used by win 9X dos is OTI-91x and for whatever reason is named oakcdrom.sys.

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"I took it from #108 that he had done the bios upgrade, ...." I think he just followed the procedure in response 102. He had said several times before he didn't want to flash the bios. If the bios was using specific parameters up until that point, that would have undid them, and any other wrong bios settings. I have seen many reports that the older Toshiba laptop cd drives don't work with the Startup Disks, so they don't work with oakcdrom.sys. Or was it older Fujitsu laptop cd drives? I tried booting with a 98SE startup disk and it as you say - "OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM device driver"... or similar is what you see when oakcdrom.sys loads. If Onin made a Startup Disk during Setup, he could try that to see if oakcdrom.sys works with the Toshiba drive.

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Yeah, laptop drives usually seem to need proprietary drivers--more so with older models. Toshiba's are no exception. When he listed the model # as XM-57028 I figured the 8 was a B as I was familiar with those toshiba drives. But I went back and googled XM-57028 just in case I'd made a mistake and it was a laptop cdrom model number. There were a couple dozen returns mostly about drivers but no description of a toshiba drive with that model number. There was a gateway link to a pdf file but I'm pretty sure that was a mistake on their part. I think all the links to an XM-57028 cdrom can probably be similarly accounted for. I know he was using a different bootdisk than what I had sent since he was describing screen lines associated with a ramdrive and the ones I sent didn't do that. I figured his disk was probably using oakcdrom.sys as was the first one I sent. So when he was describing the errors I didn't know which disk he was using and whether or not he had tried different cdroms. I'm just glad the second disk seems to have worked.

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Well I should say that I am no rocket scientist here but the disc that you gave me seemed to do the trick. However said that i have now installed another CD rom reader. Because...... I do not know what it is but it seem as if it operate at a faster speed ( the newer unit )and to me I think this is more reliable. That is another CDROM reader. Why I say this is because the other CDROM that I was using just hung up on me for no reason. I am even having second thoughts in keeping this CDROM unit. I don't really think that this unit is in any good working condition and possibly may contain a problem. Why I am saying this. Well it did have to retry and install a few times my software. It may have a slight problem, I think. As far as the auto IDE for the hard drive unit is concerned well it was already set to this position. All the bios setup were correct. I thought that there was not much to this, or to look at. I am confident that the setting were right. Flashing the bios played a important roll here even though I had my dought's, that i really needed to do this process.

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"...the other CDROM that I was using just hung up on me for no reason." Optical drives (CD and DVD drives) do not last forever, especialy ones capable of more than 4X speed. Usually the first thing that makes them unreliable is the drive's inferior sleeve motor bearings (I've never seen one that has better bearings such as ball bearings)wear to the point there is too much friction in them and the drive can no longer spin at it's fastest speeds, and eventually the drive fails to spin at even 1X speed, or it won't start spinning at all. It is primarily for this reason no new optical drive is warrantied for more than a year, and they haven't been warrantied for longer for a long time. If the drive cannot spin fast enough to achieve 1X speed, Windows can't deal with that and produces error messages, and you may also get long delays while booting if there is a CD in the drive while booting. Dirty laser lenses can certainly cause problems, so it is a good idea to always try using a laser lens cleaning CD when you are having problems, but if using one doesn't help, it is very likely worn motor bearings producing too much friction is the source of the problems. No spin is easy to test for - only the power connector needs to be connected to the drive when the computer is running.... Eject the drive tray, insert a CD, note it's relative position. Insert the drive tray, let the CD try to spin. The led on the drive should come on briefly. When the led goes out, eject the tray - if the CD is in the same relative position the CD did not spin at all. Spinning too slow is harder to test for - the only way you can confirm that is to take the cover off the drive and watch what it does - sometimes helping it spin a little faster with a finger will cause it to spin fast enough for the CD to be recognized. You can sometimes oil the bearings with a tiny bit of oil and get the drive to work properly for a while, but that only helps for a short time. ..... Something in your bios settings was screwed up or you wouldn't have had the problem of the bios not recognizing a hard drive larger than 2.x gb properly. The manual mentions a 4 gb hard drive option, so going by that, and the release notes for bios update version 1.12, and previous versions that had release notes, the original bios version and your bios version was perfectly capable of recognizing hard drives up to 8.4 gb. It is certainly not clear from your posts (e.g. response 108) that you had flashed your bios with version 1.12 - it was probably completely un-necessary to do so. You are taking a big risk when you flash your bios - if the flash fails, and/or the flash chip physically fails while flashing (this is COMMON - these cheap flash chips can only be flashed an unpredictable small number of times), you will have a mboard that will not boot. Loading bios Setup defaults would probably have fixed your problem all by itself, and there is no risk to doing that.

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I would have to disagree with you in this lens cleaner. Please Mr Tubesandwires these lens clear are useless because you know for a fact and I do as well as everyone else out there it is much cheaper throwing the cdrom reader away than even attempting a clean. For example a dvd rom burner NEW( pioneer is state of the art and just cost $35 dollars and this comes with a full one year warranty and software. ) A second hand CDROM reader, fully tested out can be purchased at the markets for 2 to 3 dollars. A plain CD rom reader NEW and in the box with a one full years warranty is only $8 (Liton 52X reader CD-ROM ) Check it out. Why would you even attempt to buy a CDROM lens clean that is worth $20 and $25 dollars. It is crazy. Even if someone attempts to clean this they are just wasting there time. In this world of disposable items attempting to repair a CDROM reader is nuts. Regarding the flashing of the bios. I tried everything I could. I used every possible resource that I knew. Using the defaults setting boot disc etc, etc. Flashing was my last resort. I am fully aware the consequence involved and that by doing this the PC may be rendered USELESS. But since this was a calculated risk and the value of this PC was UNDER the $5 dollar mark then i said to my self what the HECK. Let me just take the risk. I understand what is happening here and I should think that you by now should at least understand the full value of these computers. FYI these PC were thrown out because they had some sort of a problem and became a headache to other. Why go through all this hassle if you can update for a few dollars more? The disc sent to me worked, I am not sure how it worked but it did. Either the boot disc or the Bios update help out in reformatting my hard drive.

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You don't need to spend much money at all to buy a laser lens cleaner CD - e.g. they can be purchased in many "dollar stores" for a dollar, or certainly less than $3, or can be purchased cheaply at smaller places that custom build or repair computers have lots of computer pieces and cheaper prices. They can be used as many times as you like, and any drive can develop a dirty lens if the drive has been used a lot, so it's not wasted money, and using one is the first thing you should try when you're having problems with an optical drive, aside from cleaning the CD.

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