Fresh install win 98se

DieselDiesel
edited October 2003 in Science & Tech
I've just got a new PC and am trying to install win98se on it. The first time I installed it, it went OK but the screen resolution was poor and could not be changed. I put in the drivers CD which came with the motherboard and installed the drivers on it including the onboard graphics driver. When I restarted the PC the screen went black after the first few secs (it showed the BIOS functions etc). Pressing F2 brought the screen back with higher resolution but with the cursor frozen. Only a hard reset had any effect which was to restart back to a black screen again.

I rebooted from the win98 CD, formatted the hard disk and began to re-install win98.

Halfway thru the installation it keeps asking for certain files after detecting various bits of hardware, saying they are not on the win98 CD. I put in the drivers CD which came with the motherboard, but it did not find the files it was asking for.

What's going on here?

ASrock K7VM2 motherboard with VIA KM266 chipset
AMD Athlon 2200
256MB DDR
40GB HD

Comments

  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited October 2003
    Windows 9x is no longer supported by Microsoft. Its better if you install WindowsXP or Windows 2000.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited October 2003
    Because your system is far newer then your OS I'd recommend starting over with your install in this order.

    Remove all non-essential hardware leaving only video and cdrom and hdd.

    Fdisk hdd.
    reboot with 98se CD and boot from the cd.
    Install 98se and leave it at whatever resolution it's sticking it in.
    Reboot
    Pop in the mobo disk and install the mobo drivers
    Reboot
    Install any AGP or other chipset video drivers from the mobo cd
    Reboot
    Install the video card drivers
    Reboot
    Notice still don't mess with the resolution yet
    Install whatever you need to get on the net
    Reboot
    Go to the windows site and get all the patches
    Reboot (probably a dozen times for different patches)
    Go the the video card site and get the newest drivers
    Reboot
    Now check to see if you can change the resolution.
    If at this point you still can't you'll probably need to upgrade your OS.
    OR
    Your video card and your Monitor don't jive
    OR
    You've got some setting wrong in your bios for that is not compatible with your video card.
  • DieselDiesel
    edited October 2003
    Thanks Kryyst for your detailed help. I'll give it a try.

    diesel.

    PS What's FDISK?
  • CoasterCoaster
    edited October 2003
    FDISK is a dos command

    I would invest in 2000 or XP

    When I went back to 98 because my xp cd was corrupt it was a horrible experience.

    Spend the $ and get a new OS, you will not look back. Unless there is a reason why you have to have 98
  • DieselDiesel
    edited October 2003
    Problem turned out to be monitor. I changed it for a 17" one, reinstalled windows and everything seems to be fine now. My old monitor was a 15". The dealer who sold the PC to me said he'd had another guy who'd reported incompatibility with a small monitor.

    Can anyone explain why the small monitor worked fine with my old PC but not with the new one?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited October 2003
    Probably couldn't handle the frequencies at the resolutions that your new video card was pumping out. Monitors that are run out of their range tend to break...worse case it could actually blow the tube. So they've got safety features built in to stop that from happening.
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