"Disk Write Error" installing Win 98SE

Welcome to EmachineUpgraders. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

"Disk Write Error" installing Win 98SE; On a Dell Dimension E310
Topic Started: Sep 30 2007, 06:16 PM (582 Views)
seskanda	Sep 30 2007, 06:16 PM Post #1
Senior Member Posts: 59 Group: Members Member #97 Joined: November 24, 2003	Chipset: Intel Grantsdale-G i915GV Processor: Pentium 4 Prescott @ 2.8 GHz w/ HT (HT is Disabled in BIOS) Memory: 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 256 MB 240-pin DIMM sticks) Display: Intel 82915G/GV/GL Express Fanily Chipset (GMA 900) SATA Drive: Seagate 160 GB 7200 RPM PATA Drive: Seagate 300 GB 7200 RPM (tried a Samsung 4.3 GB drive, too!) Optical Drive: HP DVD Writer 840i Hard Disk Controllers:Intel 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2652, Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 266F I want to install 98SE on the PATA drive.I tried nearly everything i can think of. I wiped the drive completely clean and Fdisk'd + formatted it to 5 GB. I copied the entire 98SE setup folder (/WIN98) to the hard drive, and installed from there, but i still get "Disk Write Error." I also tried ALL WIN / switches and MSCONFIG advanced settings, but NO luck in booting at all. I even disconnected the SATA drive, and installed again, but the "Disk Write Error" prevails. Mind you, there's NOTHING wrong with the Seagate drive itself. I've installed many Linux distro's on there before, and it's a pretty fast drive, overall. On thing i should mention: This Dell Dimension E310 PC has just ONE IDE channel/connector for a max of two devices. In my case, that would be for the Seagate drive and DVD burner. I tried making the Seagate drive slave to the DVD burner, but that won't work. Actually, AFAIK, you can't have a Hard drive as a slave to a optical drive, right? I've never installed 98SE on a system where the ODD/HD were on the same IDE connector, is this anything to be worried about? Now, if there's one thing Dell is noted for, it's there NON-standard, proprietary systems. According to this page, the E310 can have up to 160 GB hard drives. 160 GB? Which ATA interface supports that? NOT Ultra ATA/66, 100 or any i know of. Yet, since i still get the dreaded "Disk Write Error" with a 4.3 GB IDE drive, then the size of the drive, nor the drive itself is the problem. I think the problem lies with the IDE connector. Does anyone know what kind of interface it is? Obviously, it's NOT an Ultra ATA/100 like an Intel i915 chipset should be because it only supports a max HD size of 160 GB. Nonetheless, i managed to finish the install, and boot into 98SE. The problem now, is NO optical drive is detected this way. What i did was go into Safe Mode, and change the settings for BOTH 'Standard Dual PCI Controller.' For the first one listed, i set it to "Only Primary IDE Channel Enabled'



TD25x	Sep 30 2007, 07:32 PM Post #2
Collector of Rocket Widgets Posts: 3,579 Group: Global Moderators Member #3 Joined: November 22, 2003	My guess would be that Win98 has no support for the 915 chipset
	T5224 ‡ Intel DG33TLM ‡ Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 ‡ 2 x 1GB Crucial PC6400 DDR2 ‡ EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB ‡ 1- WD 80GB SATA2 10,000RPM Raptor ‡ 1- WD 1.0TB SATA3 7200RPM ‡ Samsung 22x DVD-RW SH-S222L ‡ Corsair AX750W PSU ‡ Win7 Ult x64 ‡ Logitech wireless keyboard & mouse ‡ DELL - UltraSharp 2408WFP 24-inch Flat Panel ‡ Bose Companion 3 speakers


seskanda	Sep 30 2007, 08:02 PM Post #3
Senior Member Posts: 59 Group: Members Member #97 Joined: November 24, 2003	Good guess. So i would need drivers, then? What about these? It's all i could find. Actually, they only support "Primarily for the Intel...800 Series Chipsets." As far as drivers, it look like i'm SOL. Is there ANY chance i can get my DVD Burner to work? That's really all i need. Update: I just installed 98SE to an external USB drive, and my DVD Burner works! Why is this possible?



roachrlsjr	Sep 30 2007, 08:43 PM Post #4
RoachApproach Posts: 513 Group: Members Member #9,957 Joined: January 24, 2006	I'll throw my 2 cents in since I used to run 98SE on my eMon 500 but I finally broke down and installed XP SP2 for software compatibility and also to be able to use all of my 160gb drive not just 137gb. I got confused in your description but it seems you are expecting too much of your 300gb PATA drive, ie you'll be wasting 163gb of drive since win98 won't address it unless you have a newer ATA interface that will recognize all of the drive. I tried installing a different ATA controller card without success (probably my fault for not installing the card/software properly) to continue using 98SE without paying slick Billie for XP. My recommendation is to try using that 4.3gb drive as the boot drive but if you truly only have on IDE channel I think you already have a seriously compromised system. Forgive me if I'm dense and not understanding your situation. Good luck! I also find it amazing that you are member number 97, are still plugged into this forum but yet only have 31 posts in that time, that's less than once a month. I must be yacko whacko, blah blah blah
	Jan2011 ASUS-M4A785-MPhenomII x3 715 28002x2GbAdataPC2-6400WD320G7200SATA3GIGABYTE PCIe16 GV-R567OC 1Gb128BitDDR5Thermaltake430WWin7HomePrem64AcerV223weMach15LCD (Retired) T6520 MS7145A64-754-3400+2.4GhzNewcastle1600FSB2x1GbPC3200DDR400200GbDiamondX1650PCIe512mbAcerWS22LCDAntec500w*XPHomeMCE/PCLinuxOS2009 (R-I-P) eMon500a <http://www.nerdtests.com "My computer geek score is greater than 70% of all people in the world! How do you compare?">


Ladym_cate	Sep 30 2007, 08:52 PM Post #5
Angel from the underworld or Devil from paradise Posts: 1,394 Group: Global Moderators Member #4 Joined: November 22, 2003	roachrlsjr Sep 30 2007, 09:43 PM I also find it amazing that you are member number 97, are still plugged into this forum but yet only have 31 posts in that time, that's less than once a month. I imagine seskanda might not have needed us since that time. We frequently have members who drop back in from time to time, when they have a problem. Glad to have you back seskanda. We're kind of like the bar in the show "Cheers" that way, you know - where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.
	Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burnt out dreams formerly an eMachines T6420 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Toledo 2.2GHz Processor BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 939 Micro ATX AMD MOBO 2GB DDR PC3200 400MHz EVGA nVidia e-GeForce 7600 GT KO Antec Basiq 500W Power Supply 200GB HDD


seskanda	Mar 16 2008, 03:43 AM Post #6
Senior Member Posts: 59 Group: Members Member #97 Joined: November 24, 2003	I'd like to follow-up on this...i know it's quite belated. I was able to install 98 SE on an external USB drive (NOT a flash drive, but an actual USB hard disk). Much to my amazement, the optical drive is detected and works perfectly! However, one problem remains, Compatibility paging and MS-DOS compatibility mode. In Systems Properties--> Advanced, it says: Some drives are using MS-DOS compatibility Compatibility-mode paging reduces overall performance Drive C is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system What kind of a performance hit does this cause? How do i resolve this, especially since i do NOT see anything flagged in Device Manager, besides 'Unknown devices.'



roachrlsjr	Nov 29 2009, 10:52 PM Post #7
RoachApproach Posts: 513 Group: Members Member #9,957 Joined: January 24, 2006	Seskanda, just in case you still visit this site, I thought I'd attempt to answer your 21 month old question, just in case another "adventurous" person decides to install 98SE on a USB hard disk to accomplish a similar end result as yours. It's obvious why C drive is running in MS-DOS compatibility mode since you're running 98SE from a 300gb USB drive that the OS can't fully recognize nor utilize. IMHO, you're fortunate the USB drive is recognized to begin with and that enough code exists to allow 98SE to fully boot and control the rest of the system (it's mind boggling and sounds too much like an Escher painting taking control of a Timothy Leary style "experiment" ) or like running a remote system with no OS from "go to my PC" or driving a car from the trunk with a periscope and a series of articulated crutches to push the pedals and extended claws to steer with. But it's pretty near impossible to answer the "performance hit" caused by this setup but shouldn't be too much less efficient than what you might expect using a periscope, crutches, and claws... Can you spell S--L--O--W ? As far as resolving it, again, IMHO, if it's working and you're happy with the results, why fix it if it ain't broken ? You could throw more effort or money at it, like a stimulus package, but why bother? The only thing that shouldn't cost you any money is installing a different OS like any of a number of flavors of Linux or running a Live CD of one of them to utilize more of any of the large drives. Hope that helps, good luck, ciao!
	Jan2011 ASUS-M4A785-MPhenomII x3 715 28002x2GbAdataPC2-6400WD320G7200SATA3GIGABYTE PCIe16 GV-R567OC 1Gb128BitDDR5Thermaltake430WWin7HomePrem64AcerV223weMach15LCD (Retired) T6520 MS7145A64-754-3400+2.4GhzNewcastle1600FSB2x1GbPC3200DDR400200GbDiamondX1650PCIe512mbAcerWS22LCDAntec500w*XPHomeMCE/PCLinuxOS2009 (R-I-P) eMon500a <http://www.nerdtests.com "My computer geek score is greater than 70% of all people in the world! How do you compare?">


1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)


« Previous Topic · COMPAQ,HP,DELL & GATEWAY FORUM · Next Topic »