Windows 98 Help! 2

[Hamster38]

Trying to fix a friends pc in device manager there are yellow exclamation marks against both primary and secondary IDE controllers as well as one against the floppy drive, the cd-rom is missing completely, can anyone suggest a fix for this would be very much appreciated.

Regards
Hamster 38

 

[KevinADC]

Check in the properties of the devices and see if you can tell what the conflict is that is causing the yellow warnings. Also check in the BIOS settings and make sure everything is kosher there.

 

[Hamster38]

Thanks KevinADC

This is gona fry your brain!when windows boots up a window opens with MAD beside the windows logo saying this program has preformed an illegal operation will be shutdown i close the window and everything seems ok.Into settings and control panel next instead of the usual list only three add new hardware, mail,and system.when i try adding new hardware windows searches and finds primary and secondary IDE controllers and the floppy controller and yes would you believe it the yellow exclamation marks!. Next its system device manager all three controllers with the yellow marks then its into the device properties it says in all three that the device is either not present not working or does not have a driver installed (code 10).Click on the drivers tab and look at driver file details says file is not installed. So you can see the problem how to install drivers when neither drives are working not even when i set the BIOS to boot from all concievable combination of bootable devices! Phew any further help on this problem would be much appreciated.
all the best
Hamster38

PS have tried discs from bootdisk .com but floppy remains inactive.

 

[KevinADC]

try booting into safe mode and see if you can try and determine the problem that way. Your W98 sounds like it's terribly hosed up or the motherboard is doing strange things. While in safe mode run a virus scan if possible.

 

[electronicsfreak]

Might try resetting your bios.

 

[kermit01de]

While in safe mode delete all mentioned stuff from the devicemanager and then reboot to normal mode - Win will find and install the hardware usually.

Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another 'unrelated' part is modified

 

[KevinADC]

kermit,

I might also be tempted to do that, but the IO is so basic to the system if there is a problem with the redetection of the IDE controllers the computer may not work at all. But I would do that as a last chance attempt after trying everything else first.

 

[kermit01de]

The computer will work and also W98 will work - as I exeperienced more than once. The deletion of the stuff out of the control panel does not affect the BIOS or other stuff. But sometimes it happens (for whatever reason) that you have to or three entries for the same hardware, and you only see one in normal mode. You will see them all in safe mode - and it will not be enough to delete all but one - you have to delete all of them and reboot - and then only one will be recognized and installed correctly. Id had a fight with the network card some years ago - three times in CPanel safe mode, once in normal mode, but network did not work. deleted them all in safe mode, rebooted, W98 found new hardware ... worked finally.

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>>>>>> Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another 'unrelated' part is modified <<<<<