win98 reinstall gone horribly wrong!!!

[My_Oozing_Eye|PuF]

Ok, for starters I hate Bill!

Anyway... I needed to reinstall win98 due to numerous problems I was having. I backed up everything and made a win98 boot disk. Then, following an article I found in the june 00 issue of maximum PC magazine, I went about reformatting my HD and reinstalling win98.

Steps:
- booted off of the boot disk
- in dos created a primary and ext drives (c: and d
- copied the win98 folder off of the win98 CD onto my d drive
- ran d:\win98\setup.exe
- win98 setup program copied files to c:
- win98 setup asks me to reboot
- win98 setup initializes driver database
- win98 setup "setting up hardware and plug and play"
- win98 setup asks me to reboot

Now I start running into problems! I've gotten the following sequences of errors

1. after reboot I get the dreaded blue screen of death! I reboot again into "safe mode" - before going into safe mode I get the windows display settings telling me that they will be set to 640 x 480 and if I want to change them I must reboot. after words I only get the blue screen of death of safe mode... I never get back to the setup program!

2. After rebooting I get the following message: "Error loading gdi.exe you must reinstall windows" Then the computer shuts down

3. Somehow win98 loads enough and I am back in win98 setup and win98 setup starts searching fro plug and play again. After a long delay I get the following message "setup has detected a corrupt (.cab) file. Setup will attempt to recover" after about 90 seconds I get the message again. Repeat ad infinitum until I reboot then jump to scequence 1.

My gut feeling is it has something to do with my video card (3dfx voodoo 3000 TV AGP)

I am totally at a loss for what to do! Someone please help!

Thanks
MOE

 

[GaNgStA]

Just a suggestion why dont u just take the computer in and have it done professionally before the computer gets even more F**ked? thats about all i can suggest!

 

[Morety]

Reformat, and instead of installing windows to d: you should install it into c:, and leave d: for d/l's etc.

If you let it install into it's default drive (c) you should be okay.

 

[Morety]

Actually, if you haven't installed anything into c yet, you don't have to reformat...well...just the d drive maybe.

 

[My_Oozing_Eye|PuF]

well....

The article told me to copy the files off of the win98 cd onto the d: drive then run setup from the d: drive and install on c: so I have been installing it on the c drive...

As to why I don't get it done "professionally"... well two reasons:

1.) money
2.) if I do it that way I want learn anything...

Thanks for the help though.

MOE

 

[8-4-7-2]

WHY does the mag say to copy it from the CD to drive d: ?

I just did a reformat with Win98 and installed directly from CD.

2.) if I do it that way I want learn anything...

Right
I also know a lot more than before now

 

[kamikaze9]

My only guess is that something went wrong when you partitioned your drive, and the Win98 setup got corrupted on you D: drive, screwing the whole installation. I'd recombine your partitions (don't really need them anyway) and do a clean format/install from the Win98 CD.

 

[TwoHardCore]

well I make it a habit to format every several months and I can say that I'm a bit confused by what you are doing. This is the most simple way to format/reinstall windows:

with your Win98 cd in your cdrom, place the bootdisk in your floppy drive and reboot. Start with cdrom support, when you get your dos prompt, type in 'format c: /s' which puts some system files on your c: drive for copying windoze. once it's formatted you look for your cdrom drive (if it was e: it's now gonna be f, or g or whatever) and type in setup.exe and then get your house chores done

then it's just a matter of going through the windoze install stuff. I recommend a 'custom' install and do not choose any of the extras that come with it. Most of the stuff on the cd you will get with the windoze update anyway. Well unless you need/want modem/accessibility stuff. I'm on a cable modem, so none of their networking bs is on my pc, as I can easily d/l all that I need.

hth

 

[kamikaze9]

Yea, now that I look at it I'm pretty much positive that your Win98 folder got corrupted somehow while you were copying it to your D: partition. It says corrupt .cab file, which Win98 uses to install (look at your CD\Win98 directory). Try installing from the CD.

 

[My_Oozing_Eye|PuF]

Grrrr....

First off... thanks for the continued help... I really appreciate it! Reading everyone's advice I tried the following:

- I repartioned my HD drive to c: (2.5 gigs for my OS and MS Office) and d: 7.5 gigs for games mp3s etc

- I formatted each HD (i used the format c: /s command for the c: drive)

- I tried to install win98se from the disk (rather than copying the folder to my d: drive first

- Everything went VERY well until after checking for plug and play setup asks you to reboot. When I reboot I get the infamous "MSGRV32 executed an invalid instruction in module MSGRV32.exe at 0001:00002100...blah blah blah)

Any other thoughts?

MOE

 

[Mrukk]

MOE - everyone is right in saying you should load Win98 from the disk. There is no need to do anything more fancy. I guess if I was you I would format your drive, take all your cards out (video, network, sound etc) and then load windows. Hopefully this should work, and then you can try installing each card back one at a time I know it's annoying, but things often get meesed up for no reason and you just have to start all over again!

 

[My_Oozing_Eye|PuF]

thanks mrukk

I'll try pulling out the extra cards... my nic and my dsl modem and my sound card... but can I actually pull my video card? Where would I plug my monitor?

MOE

P.S. I've been told via email to go by a copy of Windoze ME (instead of SE) any thoughts on that idea? I hate to send Microsoft my of my $$$ because thier products suck...

 

[8-4-7-2]

Try leaving away the "/s" in the format process. Just do a normal reformat. That worked for me.

If you still get it: Maybe your CD is somehow b0rked
I conclude that from this "corrupted cabinet" message

 

[HuFlungzeDung]

M.O.E, I had a similar experience with a friend's computer a while ago. I was certain that the CDrom was borked, because it was old and had it's own controller card. So I borrowed a new cdrom that hooked right into the m/b's ide channel and tried reinstalling again. Same error as before. The only suggestion I heard was that disabling the caches in the m/b bios settings might help. Doing this might make the install very slow, and you really would have to replace the cpu/mb if this "solved" the problem. If the cpu overheated in the past, it can damage the cache.

 

[Mrukk]

Well I have had a couple of motherboards that have some inbuilt video... what did you use before you got the voodoo card? If there is no other slot in the back of the comp for you to connect your monitor then just leave the voodoo card in.

And like 8-4-7-2 said, don't botehr with the /s. Just Format C: and you'll be find.

Hope it works!

 

[Sir Robin]

Take your computer in to a professional with a SIMM/DIMM tester. I've seen plenty of problems getting Windows installed. Usually when it's blue screening during the install it's due to bad memory, although I have seen other bad pieces of hardware cause the same symptoms.

 

[Mrukk]

Oh and WinME, try getting this going as much as possible before you get it. If you don't want to spend money then it is not worth getting ME I guess. However, I am very, very happy with ME, and there is no question it is much more stable than 98. Other than that though there is no significant advantage to having it. But if this still doesn't work it might pay to try something new

 

[Mrukk]

Hmm, how much mem have you got MOE? If you have more than one memory card you could try using only one of them at a time to see if one is bad like Sir Robin suggested?

 

[Mrukk]

Try downloading this proggy to see if it comes up with anything

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-100-1534814.html?tag=st.dl.10014-103-1.lst-7-10.1534814

 

[My_Oozing_Eye|PuF]

memory

Thanks for all of the help guys! I've got three memory cards installed...2 64 mb and 1 128 mb for a total of 256! w00t!!!

I'll try pulling out two of the cards... but when best buy opens at 10:00 I'll be there to get e copy of win98ME...

I'm also gonna put an old SIS video card in to see if that helps the process...

I think Bill purposely writes his software to self destruct so we have to update!

MOE