Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
Good day to everyone. I Had this old computer given to me, the original owners could not figure out the problem, so, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I thought I would give it a go, and in the process might learn something. Specs are: Micron Millenium Xku, 192mgb ram 300mhz P2, running 98Se. Computer boots up to a Microsoft splash screen, then goes into the black screen with this error msg: While initializing device IOS: Windows protection error, restart comp, upon restart, same error msg comes up. I can get the computer to start up Windows in safemode, and I have access to the bios. Not being familiar with this problem, any thoughts on how to troubleshoot this problem would be appreciated(I have googled this error msg, and since I have never delt with this before, am still somewhat in a state of confusion. Thanks for your time, and any hints/tips/suggestions.
Regards
IKE
This is an old one...; had asorted causes for it too; depended in part on the '9x OS involved and the cpu speed... (paricularly amd350MgHz chips).
If you google using:
windows 98 initializing device IOS: Windows protection error, restart comp
as the string, you'll get assorted hits dealing with it. All worth a browse/read...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263466
is one of them.
0 
Thanks for the reply trvir, I had googled that earlier, and really didn`t get anything from it that I could get as a fix, I appreciate your time.
Regards
IKE
0
Jam, thanks for taking a look at my problem. Tried the scanreg /restore, took it back a couple of restore pts, good registry restored, rebooted, same problem, Initializing devise IOS error:. This thing is a piece of work, I would have thought that would have worked. I appreciate your time.
Regards
IKE
0
If you are getting POST screens what hardware is identified during the POST?
I am guessing there may be an IRQ conflict. That computer may have one or more NON plug and play devices in it. Pulling non essential cards out temporarily may allow you to boot. Also there may be settings in the BIOS to assign IRQs to the hardware.
Had a friend with a Micron with the same specs that had a dead IDE channel.
0
OtheHill, thanks for the reply. Yes, I am getting a post screen, and after looking the computer over, it looks as if all the hardware is being recognized at post. I pulled all cards, except video(needed, no onboard), same error msg. I changed the IDE channel from #1 to #2, and put just the hd on it, made no difference, same error msg. As for the IRQ`s, in bios with everything removed except the hd, I have available IRQ 3,4,5,7,10,and 11. Here`s the kicker, I took a known good formated hd, put it in the machine, took my 98se cd, and it let me install 98se on it, then when it went to automatically reboot after the install, it went right to black screen/initializing IOS error. This is a strange one. I don`t know what happened to this machine, but it sure would be interesting to know. I am guessing hardware problem, may be even motherboard. Any way, I believe I am going to put this one away for a cold day in February when we have 2 feet of snow, and I have plenty of time to take a closer look. I thought it might be something relatively easy to figure out, but it doesn`t look to be the case, and besides, there are people out there that need your help for more important issues. Lets not waste anymore time on this one right now. OtheHill, I appreciate your taking time.
Regards
IKE
0
There was an issue with '95 and cpu that were a litle too fast for it; the amd350MgHz chip being the one that was most common here.
Usually one was advised to ugrade to '98 to resolve it all; and "usually" that did resolve it; but I think there still a few MoBo/cpu that produced the problem even then
Possibly you have a similar issue here (even with '98) with your cpu? Perhaps reduce the speed of the chip a little and see what happens?
More on the amd issue via couple of links at:
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sh...
It might shed a little more light on the problem?
At the back of my grey cells is a vague memory that an overheat of the cpu can produce this problem too; even long after the overheat event. Has this one ever been a little over warm?
0
Possibly a BIOS corruption of some sort. Clearing the CMOS is something to try. Could be the RAM in the machine is incompatible.
I had a MBoard with onboard sound that wouldn't boot to Windows 98se if the sound was enabled. Played with that for quite awile before finally installing an add in card.
Can't recall any BIOS options from that far back but there may be something about Win98se being a plug and play aware OS and the BIOS also configuring the resources. There was a period of time when I had to disable the PnP aware OS option. If there are any options about that you might experiment a bit. Is the graphics card PCI?
There was VESA local bus around that time period. Might abe some special settings in the BIOS for graphics.
0
This pest/issue was one that really did cause more than a few headaches as I recall...
Henri LeBoeuf had an excellent spread of how/what/why etc. on it. It can be found at:
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf...
and maybe a couple of other similar (useful?) hits here; but Henri had generally the most complete overall...
0
This error in 95/98 can be a real headache. For some reason adding this line to the system ini file under "Vcache" always seemed to fix it for me
MaxFileCache=6144
Try it and see if it fixes the issue, it will have no negative effects, but it might not fix the issue.
Core2 Duo 1.86
2GB DDR2 667
Nvidia 6800GS
Asus P5L-MX
0  |
 Win 98 Startup
|
Connecting computers usin...
|
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
