Ok recently I have built a new computer and everything seemed to be working fine. here is the setup: CPU: AMD sempron64 2500+ Mobo: ABIT NV8 Mem: Mushkin 1024MB (512 2X) Redline XP3500 (timings 2-2-2-5) Vid card: PCI-express 16X powercolor X800GT 256mb PSU: Antec TRUEBLUE480 HD(s)All hardrives are using a EIDE to SATA converter: C: Maxtor 120GB 8mb buffer 7.2K rpm EIDE (1 partion: FAT32) D: Maxtor 120GB 8mb buffer 7.2K rpm EIDE (1 partion: FAT32) E: Maxtor 200GB 8mb buffer 7.2K rpm EIDE (1 partion: FAT32) Soundcard: Soundblaster LIVE 5.1 disk drives: A: 1.44mb 3.5 inch floppy B: 1.2mb 5.25 inch floppy F: IDE DVD+-RW 8X4X16X G: IDE 250MBZIP So, I popped in my win98 disk and it booted no real problems, it took about a minute to first install the CD-rom driver(which aint really right...). Also once I got into setup it took a while to examine my harddrive(s) (to see if there was enough space), like a 3 minutes(it took less than 30 seconds on my old harddrive. Other than that it copied all the files in record time(4 minutes! w007). However when I had to restart my computer and it brought up the "windows 98" loading screen the bar at the bottom was moving smoothly for about 3 seconds and then it started moving like a centimeter every other second. It loaded once after 8 minutes and was working... well it was running really jerky, but other than that it was running flawless. After I restarted it it did the same thing only it didnt load, even after 40 minutes. The bar at the bottom of the loading screen was still jerking little by little every so often. At first I thought it was faulty memory or a faulty memory controller, but since Windows 2K, XP, and server 2003 installed flawless(and in record time) that idea went down the drain rather fast. Yes I did install windows while my harddrives were on the SATA channels. HOWEVER too cancel out the idea that it was the SATA's fault, i unpluged all SATA devices and popped in an old 10GB IDE Drive. There was no problems or lagging during setup like with my larger EIDE drives(That I had setup as Slow SATA devices) but it did install slower. Once again as I restarted my computer, the win98 loading screen came up, this time it the bar ran smooth for about 5 seconds and gradually became choppy as it tryed to load... I got in the first time after roughly 15 minutes, however once I restarted(no I didnt install ANYTHING{before anyone suggestes that!}) it did the same thing at the loading screen and didnt completely load after 45 minutes. ANY help is appreciated! Thank you in advanced. NOTE: I am multi booting 3 versions of windows, and I want 98 for compatibility(Since XP has a backward compatibility success rate of less than 20% in my experiances{And dont even get me started on the backwards compatibility of server 2003! :swear: :swear: }) EDIT: I have tryed several different windows 98 disks so dont mention that is was a bad CD.
UPDATE: Someone suggested (through email) that I take 1/2 the ram out and all drives besides a harddrive and the dvd-rw. I took 1/2 the memory out and still recieved the same results. I also tryed removing all drives but 1 harddrive and 1 DVD-RW. This also didnt change anything. However I have tryed putting in a harddrive from another computer that had win98 on it. I got into the GUI everytime! However, in the beginning its trying to install new hardware it keeps looping when it gets to something called ACPI IRQ steering. If I remember correctly, IRQ steering is something intel and microsoft created way when they were having trouble with conflicts between the PCI and ISA buses... any ideas anyone?
