Memory Issue Triggering on Boot

[kbriggs]

Hello everyone,
I have an old IBM ThinkCentre M52 8215 with a Pentium 4 and 2GB RAM (2x1GB), which I am trying to install windows 98 on, but am having tremdous trouble due to the infamous memory bug, where Windows cannot use more than 512MB without throwing a fit.

After applying the patches found here:
https://www.ibm.com/support/home/docdisplay?lndocid=jbar-3uepeu
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/236755-48-windows-insufficient-memory-startup-error

In which I was instructed to place:

MaxPhysPage=3B000 under [386Enh]
MaxFileCache=524288 under [vcache]

This allowed me to complete the setup, but now I am unable to boot into windows, either under Safe Mode or Normal.

I get either one of these errors:

"Insifficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecutilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer."

"While initializing device NDIS:
Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer."

I am unsure as to what triggers either of these as there is little information on people running Windows 98 FE under Pentium 4 processors with this problem, so there isn't much information I can find in the way of fixes.

I am hoping someone here will be able to help me with this issue and get this computer booting correctly.

I have many programs which only run on windows 95-98 and no higher, and I need these programs to an extent for work.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, or what I am missing?

 

[Deleted member 1898488]

I Believe that 98FE has timing issues above 2.1ghz without patches.
Either try installing again with windows 98 second edition, still using:
MaxPhysPage=3B000 under [386Enh]
MaxFileCache=524288 under [vcache]

There apparently was a patch for 98 gold but i can't find it. 🙁

 

[kbriggs]

I Believe that 98FE has timing issues above 2.1ghz without patches.
Either try installing again with windows 98 second edition, still using:
MaxPhysPage=3B000 under [386Enh]
MaxFileCache=524288 under [vcache]

There apparently was a patch for 98 gold but i can't find it. 🙁

Can SE be installed from MS-DOS?
I have tried booting from my SE disc several times to no avail, and being unable to boot into 98, I can't install it through Windows itself.

 

[Deleted member 1898488]

Yeah, your SE disc may not be bootable, boot off of the W98FE disc and choose "Start the computer with CD-ROM support".
Then at the msdos prompt navigate to the CD/DVD drive (usually D and then insert the 98SE disc. type SETUP and hit enter.

 

[kbriggs]

Yeah, your SE disc may not be bootable, boot off of the W98FE disc and choose "Start the computer with CD-ROM support".
Then at the msdos prompt navigate to the CD/DVD drive (usually D and then insert the 98SE disc. type SETUP and hit enter.

I get a disk read error when trying to swap to D:\ after inserting the SE disc in DOS.


"Error
Press ENTER to try again, ESC to abort,
or enter a different drive letter here"

In MSCDEX I get "CDR101: Not ready reading drive D"

 

[BFG-9000]

You have the i945G chipset, while the last officially supported chipsets for 9x that had all drivers were i875/i865.

You are also running too much memory. At least remove one stick, or there is the $20 Rudolph Loew patch that allows running 2GB+. Apparently some Germans also modified VMM32.VXD and VMM.VXD to allow 4GB, but those are modified from the RTM version of 98 and not the later ones incorporating security patches.

You can always try booting from a floppy, if the CD won't boot. The usual DOS drivers for ATAPI devices are oakcdrom.sys for IDE, gcdrom.sys for SATA and even Iomega's aspiehci.sys + guest.exe for USB 2.0. Or you could in another system format the HDD FAT32, SYS the system (or just copy over io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com first in Windows Explorer), then make a folder and copy all of the CD files into it.

 

[kbriggs]

Yeah, your SE disc may not be bootable, boot off of the W98FE disc and choose "Start the computer with CD-ROM support".
Then at the msdos prompt navigate to the CD/DVD drive (usually D and then insert the 98SE disc. type SETUP and hit enter.

I have managed to install SE (not upgrade, but from a formatted hard-drive over MS-DOS 7.1), but when I try to boot, I am still getting the error:

Insifficient memory to initialize Windows

From what I have read, Windows 98 SE was designed primarily to fix the bug in FE that causes this memory issue, is there something extra I have to do to get this working?

 

[ragnar-gd]

You'll need time reading this, but...
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/118097-day-to-day-running-win-9xme-with-more-than-1-gib-ram/

especially:
Ushers Method (elegant for w98se):
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/142953-more-than-1-gib-in-win9x-safe-mode/

xRayers Method (i use this on five machines):
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/109574-help-i-need-to-get-2gb-installed-ram-working-in-win98se/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-750475
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/109574-help-i-need-to-get-2gb-installed-ram-working-in-win98se/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-750909