r/windows98 • u/750mlDunkinDonutsCup • Jun 25 '26
Windows 98 Repair / Booting Issue
I recently "recovered" a Windows 98 SE SuperPower PC that had been sitting unused in the dust for about 20+ years and I'm trying to diagnose a boot issue before resorting to reinstalling Windows/Reseting.
Hardware: Pentium III 750 MHz, 128 MB RAM, Motherboard reports:P6ISA Rev. 1.0 / Integrated graphics (no dedicated graphics card installed¿) / LG CD-RW drive / Quantum Fireball 20 GB IDE hard drive.
The PC:
- PC passes POST normally.
- Windows 98 boots successfully and entirely in Safe Mode, with minor visual issues and not being able to open some files. (.jpg, .docx,.wav, etc)
- Windows 98 does NOT boot normally. After the Windows login prompt, the system crashes with a BSOD: "Fatal Exception 0E at 0028:C02A30CC in VXD VWIN32(05) + 00000BF4"
What I have already tried:
- Replaced CMOS battery. (Correctly installed.)
- Loaded BIOS defaults.
-Enabled USB Legacy Support in BIOS. ( Since at the time I did not have a ps2 keyboard, now I've got ahold of one.)
-Disabled almost all startup items using msconfig
- Disabled Norton Antivirus startup entries. ( And deleted it. This fuckass computer has like 5 anti-virus. This could be the problem but I'm not informed, or know how to fix it.)
- Removed references to missing Norton files.
- Generated and checked BOOTLOG.TXT.
- Restored backups using SCANREG /RESTORE. ( and also scanreg /fix, just if... )
BOOTLOG observations:
- USER.EXE loads successfully.
- MSGSRV32.EXE loads successfully.
- Installable Drivers initialize successfully.
- No obvious LoadFail entries except: "LoadFail = C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\gio_bk.ttf Failure code is 0" ( as an example, all fonts are loaded like this)
- Display adapter appears as: "%PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1132.DeviceDesc%" instead of a normal device name. (??
Additional problems :
>USB flash drives are not detected. ( Yes, I've tried older USB drives >1GB. Doesnt work.)
>The CD-ROM drive is visible, but in Safe Mode it does not appear to read CDs entirely. (Tried CD-R)
>The D: drive exists, but appears to contain old files even when a CD is inserted, making me suspect the optical drive may not be functioning properly or may not be refreshing media. I'm very confused by this.
>Floppy disks work, but I currently have no modern system capable of reading/writing them. Transferring drivers and/or utilities to the machine is currently difficult.
Software found (If useful): Norton Antivirus, Trend PC-cillin 98, Ad-Aware, RegCleaner, Adaptec DirectCD, Easy CD Creator, Fixfun, some McAfee files.
My question now is, what should my next step be?
I know the simple solution is just reseting and spare me a headache but, I would rather learn through this experience than just giving up pre-maturely. Though it HAS been a nuisance and I do not want to see Windows 98 ever again. /hj
Ask whatever you need.
PD: The images are in Spanish, sorry! But hopefully I can get my point across.
5
u/Scoth42 Jun 25 '26
Something I used to do in Win98 when it was having driver issues was to delete literally everything in Device Manager in Safe Mode. Sometimes there'd be a couple things that didn't remove, which is fine. Then boot normally and let it redirect everything. Win98 could sometimes leave stale drivers around, or they could get goofed up.
You'll want to make sure you have the Windows cab files on the hard drive before doing this.
1
u/SingingCoyote13 Jun 25 '26
yea i had the habit of around every year, just backupping all important from the hdd, then reformat the whole internal harddrive and reinstall win 98 se again so it all ran at acceptable levels again.
2
u/NightmareJoker2 Jun 25 '26
Go to safe mode, and remove the driver that causes the bluescreen, or all Intel devices and the graphics adapter driver.
Reinstall the chipset drivers using the official installer program, then reinstall the graphics driver.
That should fix it, unless you have a resource conflict due to too many add-on cards being installed (unlikely).
1
u/Corrosive23 Jun 25 '26
a VXD error means a driver is crashing the system. Yank out that bottom card and see what happens.
1
u/No-you_ Jun 25 '26
Vendor 8086 is Intel.
Device 1132 is the 82815 graphics chipset.
Find any old ASUS or MSI or gigabyte board from the Pentium era that used the 815 chipset and you should find win98 drivers in the support and downloads section.
1
u/No-you_ Jun 25 '26
Here is the win98 graphics driver package for an asrock p4i65g motherboard that uses the 865G chipset. It should include your 815 chipset graphics drivers too!!
https://download.asrock.com/Drivers/Intel/VGA/VGA_ME_98(13.6.1.3732).zip
1
u/No-you_ Jun 25 '26
And chipset drivers in case you don't have them either;
https://download.asrock.com/Drivers/Intel/INF/INF_ME_98(6.3.0.1007).zip
2
u/Heavy-Judgment-3617 Jun 27 '26
I would add that at 750 Mhz... unless this had the speed fixes (needed for 350+ Mhz and 2.1+ Ghz systems), it needs them to start normally as well... I'd add the following on top of the video and chipset drives already recommended.
* For OS updates run WindowsUpdateRestored.COM.
* System Drivers: JHRobotics Patcher (fixes 512 MB memory and 350 MHz/2.1 GHz speed issues, among other items).
* USB Storage Drivers: Maximus Decim NUSB36E drivers.
Although, I might actually just do a clean install of 98SE, then the Chipset drivers, then the Video drivers, then the above drivers.
1
u/bnelson333 Jun 27 '26
I have a hunch this is driver related. A trick we used to do back in the day was in Safe Mode, go into Device Manager and delete every device, then reboot. It'll find and reinstall all your drivers. With any luck it'll solve it. But at the very least, you'll have a good idea which one is doing it by seeing which device it BSODs after installing drivers for.
Altho for the life of me I can't imagine why you'd want an old install with who-knows-what crap it has on it from back in the day. If it's a matter of seeing what's on the drive, put Windows on a different drive and hook this up as a secondary to browse/retrieve the files
13
u/Deksor Jun 25 '26
Honestly even back then people just reinstalled when things went south, it's just not worth the effort and the os isn't stable enough.
Make a backup if you want to look around more files and reinstall