LOADING WIN98SE KEEP GETTING "CAB ERRORS"

[Guest_imported]

WHEN LOADING WIN98SE ABOUT HALF WAY ERROR MESSAGE APPEARS<br>SAYING CAB ERROR, WINDOWS SAYS THAT CAB ERRORS ARE MORE THAN LIKELY A HARDWARE PROBLEM, BUT I HAVE CHANGED EVERYTHING OTHER THAN THE MOTHER BOARD. SOMETIMES IT WILL <br>LOAD COMPLETELY, BUT IF YOU GO TO THE FILE CHECKER HALF THE<br>FILES ARE MISSING. IS IT A MOTHER BOARD PROBLEM LIKE<br>CONTROLLERS OR PERHAPS A BIOS PROBLEM, ANY HELP, OR IDEAS<br>WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

 

[fenris]

On the internet, writing in all caps equates to SHOUTING.<br><br>I encountered a problem like this awhile ago except that windows was not as informative for me. What was happening was that win98se was hanging at a particular cab file. So I reinstalled, and it would get a little farther along with each reinstall. It took almost 20 tries till it finally went in. Now it seems to work well, but I don't plan on reinstalling it again as I will move to win ME or 2000. <br><br>In your case it may be hanging at the same place each time with no progress. You could try entering the bios and setting it to the defaults setting. What kind of hardware do you have? I think the problem with my system was the motherboard (a DFI) because I installed my particular version of win98se on a couple of other computers and it went in with no problems.<br><br><br>Good luck.... <p>Troy Williams B.Eng.<br><a href=mailto:fenris@hotmail.com>fenris@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[RachelD]

Is it possible this is an error reading the drive where your cabs are?&nbsp;&nbsp;Are you loading win98 from a cd?<br><br>If you have the boot disk from win98, try it this way:<br><br>First, you might want to reformat your hard drive - get rid of all the old win98 setup stuff from your failed attempts.<br><br>Boot from the win98 disk.&nbsp;&nbsp;Choose the option to load cdrom drivers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Make a directory for cabs on your hard drive in dos, then copy the win98 directory from the cd to your hard drive.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>Reboot, using the boot disk.&nbsp;&nbsp;This time, don't bother loading cd drivers - choose the option that lets you just boot into dos.<br><br>Switch to the directory on your hd where you copied the cabs & try running setup from there (eg c:\win98cabs\setup)<br><br>see if you can run it this way...

 

[edfair]

You have a read error. Probable bad disk. But if you make a directory on your hard drive and copy setup over then copy the \winxx stuff over to the same relative position you might be able to load from the hard drive. Copy will try multiple times when it encounters a glitch where decode upchucks on the first.<br>There is also the possibility that you have disk/drive incompatibilities. But I would suspect not. <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[Guest_imported]

fenris-i wont shout this time, anyway, up to date new hard drive fitted formatted but still get cab errors, stops at different points like 15% or 74% loaded. my version of 98se loads on to every other machine. I have rebuilt machine<br>with new mother board, everything appears to run okay win98se loaded first time. also re-formatted and loaded<br>win 2000 me, loaded no problem. looks very much like it was<br>the mother board.<br>thankyou to all that replied, that is, fenris, racheID,<br>AND efair.<br>I did try all advice given, but had to give up for the sake<br>of my sanity.<br>ed bear

 

[clivo]

You most likely have bad RAM in the upper blocks. Every time that I have encountered this problem it has been due to bad RAM (sometimes brand new but bad, RAM). &quot;Borrow&quot; from one of the other machines.<br> <p>Clive<br><a href=mailto:clive@digitalsky.co.za>clive@digitalsky.co.za</a><br><a href= > </a><br>I assemble and sell these things.

 

[edfair]

Agree on the bad memory. But would transfer to hard drive then try to load there. If still cab errors from hard drive, then memory definitely suspect.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also try loading himem on floppy boot, test will show flakey memory. <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[fenris]

That is an interesting point that it could be bad ram. I have run into the problem where win98SE hangs on loading because of cab errors. Say, for instance, that you had two bars of 32Mb of ram and you tried installing win98se but got the cab error. Should you be able to remove one of those bars and try for the install again? If that worked then should the ram be replaced or is it still usable?<br><br>Just a couple of questions that will add to my knowledge base....<br><br> <p>Troy Williams B.Eng.<br><a href=mailto:fenris@hotmail.com>fenris@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[clivo]

Dunno Troy. As this has always been on machines for resale, I have never wanted to take the chance and have always replaced it. My feeling is that if I don't, and the customer somewhere down the line contacts me about a blue screen; in the back of my mind I will always suspect the RAM. <p>Clive<br><a href=mailto:clive@digitalsky.co.za>clive@digitalsky.co.za</a><br><a href= > </a><br>I assemble and sell these things.

 

[edfair]

I have experimented with this.&nbsp;&nbsp;I have burned cds with 95/98 and ended up with cab errors. Have taken two with cab errors at different places and made install by swapping cds when error showed. So read problems are definite possibility. But read errors have always been repeatable. And loading the install to the hard drive also gives the cab error at the same place, assuming that they copy without erroring.<br>Memory errors appear to happen all across the place. They hardly ever happen exactly the same. And they appear to happen more frequently when the load is from the hard disk. Seems to be speed related. And I've wished that I could get a ramdrive big enough to try it from memory. Bet it would be a humdinger.<br>Memory that will fail with cab errors also will fail with the memory test built into himem.sys.&nbsp;&nbsp;So I have put himem into my 95/98 floppy boot disk to test memory.&nbsp;&nbsp;But I don't know if that test catches all the flakey stuff.<br>And as a matter of policy, I replace any memory that errors out.&nbsp;&nbsp;Nobody needs the grief of troubleshooting bad memory. Sometimes the memory works perfectly with slower machines or different motherboards and I can use it. Sometimes not. <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[Guest_imported]

cab error problem - i built a new machine using everything<br>including memory onto a new motherboard amd duron chip with<br>socket a motherboard - everything works okay windows loaded<br>no problem. however, re-built other machine using mother board that caused cab errors, type jetway with ali chip set<br>socket super 7, with an amd k6-3 450. i have only put in a<br>64 meg pc100 memory,new, rebuilt, loaded windows 98se,<br>and we have cab errors again. i swapped out the memory, but<br>it still does it even tried win 2000 me, still does it. i<br>tried all of the advice listed, like loading windows to hard drive and running setup from there, no luck. now heres perhaps a clue, i dont know but maybe someone out there will come up with an answer, i changed the hard drive from<br>an 8.5gb to a 1.2 gb and windows loads no problem, yet the<br>8.5 used in any other machine works okay. one last point, but on amd k6-3 chips, does anyone know why amd stopped<br>producing them ? was there a problem? i ask this because they still produce the k6-2, but the k6-3 was supposed to be the better, or upgrade chip. ed bear.&nbsp;&nbsp;

 

[edfair]

May very well be an incompatibility between IDE and on board controller. I have run across the problem before but never with cab errors on 95 load. There have been times that I've had to low-level the drive to get the controller to talk to the drive. And I have run across combinations that plain wouldn't talk no matter what I did.<br>Seems that there are some timing considerations. And if I recall, the problems show up more often at the higher processor speeds.<br>Would be interested in what would happen with a slower processor (1) or an expansion IDE controller (2).&nbsp;&nbsp;Glad you are the one having the problems, I've had my share. And let us know what you find. <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[RachelD]

seems odd, though - if there were a problem with the 8.5gb drive (or the controller), wouldn't that show up during drive detection, or format?<br><br>I'd also be interested to see what would happen with a change in processor.&nbsp;&nbsp;Seems like there's been a lot of discussion of errors that revolve around various AMD processors - I haven't kept up too well with processors, but is the AMD K6-3 450 one of those that has been problematic?

 

[edfair]

Can only report what I've experienced.&nbsp;&nbsp;With 95, did total install, format, scandisk , the whole works. Wouldn't boot. Could see it , could read it, could write it, just wouldn't boot. No matter what I did short of low level , wouldn't boot.&nbsp;&nbsp;Low level fixed it. Have repeated same type of problems with other drives , other operating systems. And nothing was reported during any stage of the load.<br>Also have run across this type of problem with SCSI under Unix.&nbsp;&nbsp;Seems like Unix builds in some timing loops for disk access and at high enough processor speeds it finishes the loop and accesses the drive before the drive is ready. In this case it is combo processor, controller, and drive.&nbsp;&nbsp;And pull another drive off the shelf. <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[Guest_imported]

cab error problem--Edfair-RacheID-- re-formatted 8.5 drive but this time i tried your advice namely, plugged in an ide card and connected up hard drive and loaded win98se, went on no problem-just incase that was a fluke i reformatted again and loaded win 2000 me went on no problem not and error nothing. now to prove a point, i unplugged the ide
card, reformatted and while loading win 98se i got cab errors, so guys have we solved it or what. the point about the slower processor, i had meant to say i had already tried this previously, sorry i hadn&quot;t mentioned it, but it does look like the on-board ide controller has parted this earth, and good ridence to it. the question i asked about the amd k6-3 450 , why they stopped making it, i e-mailed
amd some time ago and asked them the same question, but i never got an answer, wonder why. thankyou all for your help and assistance, and ofcourse all the advice, its amazing
just how much one can learn by asking one question, and ofcourse it is good to know there are folks out there who are prepared to help others.

 

[bytemaster]

I have had this problem a couple of times. In one case, I had bad ram. In another, it was the mother board (I suspected a bad chipsed). In a third it was the L1 Cache on my K6-2 Chip! That one was the most interesting. Could't figure it out, finally one of the diagnostic programs (Nuts and Bolts believe it or not) told me of a cache error. I disabled L1 cache. It worked fine, but took over 6 hours to install. If you have replaced everything but the motherboard, try that.

In any instance it is basically a memory problem or a problem with the chipset allocating memory properly. If this is a Socket 7 system, it could be that your Level 2 cache has failed. Try disableing it in bios. It will run slower, but if it makes it through the install, you have found your problem.

Jeremy Hannon
Brainbench &quot;Most Valuable Professional&quot; for Computer Technicans

 

[tomw]

This post is well covered already, but my 2 cents worth is that in my experience with DFI boards, which I have sold a lot of, they can be finicky about the brand of RAM chip you install. Always shows up as flakey errors like this, almost random it seems, but in every case, changing the RAM fixed the problem. I have had a couple of bad AMD CPU's too, although I have no idea what the specific problems were. In all my cases, the RAM was still good, and I either used it in another machine with a different brand of mother-board, or swapped it with my dealer.