Page 2 of 3

Posted: April 15, 2006 • 7:42 pm
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
OK. First of all, have you any experience installing and formatting hard disks? If not, I will explain that procedure first.

EDIT: P.S. You are correct about it being easier from a separate 9x installation, but only if you have a legacy sound compatible audio chip.

What I'm trying to say first of all is: What make/model is the sound card/chip in your computer?

Posted: April 16, 2006 • 10:58 am
by Cindy H
i'm_melting_i'm_melting wrote:OK. First of all, have you any experience installing and formatting hard disks? If not, I will explain that procedure first.

EDIT: P.S. You are correct about it being easier from a separate 9x installation, but only if you have a legacy sound compatible audio chip.

What I'm trying to say first of all is: What make/model is the sound card/chip in your computer?
Happy Easter!

Thank you for replying - I really appreciate any help you can offer.

No, I really don't have the experience! And where would I find the information about the sound card chip?

Thanks again,
Cindy H

Re

Posted: April 16, 2006 • 7:20 pm
by RyanPatton
Welcome aboard, Cindy H!!:)

Happy Easter to everyone else..

Posted: April 17, 2006 • 5:58 am
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
Happy Easter! Look in Device Manager under 'Sound and Video Game Controllers' for the sound ID. It will also be listed somewhere in your PC's manual if you bought it pre-built (specs page).

Posted: April 17, 2006 • 2:09 pm
by Cindy H
i'm_melting_i'm_melting wrote:Happy Easter! Look in Device Manager under 'Sound and Video Game Controllers' for the sound ID. It will also be listed somewhere in your PC's manual if you bought it pre-built (specs page).
under Sound and Video Game Controllers it has the following listed: Cobra AW850Deluxe. And in the spec sheet it says the following:

CMI8738-MX audio processor
Supports distributed DMA for legacy DMAC (8237) emulation

Bus Type - PC

Wave Table Synthesizer - Software

PCI Bus Master for Audio - 32bit PCI Bus Master, PCI 2.1/PCI 2.2 compliant

I hope the above info is what you were referring to.

Thanks!!!!!
Cindy H

Posted: April 17, 2006 • 4:21 pm
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
Oh... in that case GOOD NEWS: http://store.linkbyte.com/store/product ... ts_id=4466

Notice this bit:
DOS Legacy Mode Support:
Support DOS compatible modes: DDMA under Windows 95/98
OPL3, MP3, Sound Blaster Pro & Windows Sound System compatible (Sound Blaster: Copyright and trademark are owned by Creative Inc.)

This means you can use the available true DOS portion of Windows 98SE (the latest complete version of the traditional DOS architecture) for running the Tex games natively - which, needless to say is always the easiest and most compatible.

This site: http://global.aopen.com.tw/products/sou ... Deluxe.htm
seems to indicate that the card provides MPU-401 MIDI emulation for high quality music which would be a big bonus, but at the very least you will have FM synth capabilities in hardware (the OPL chip).


Post back and tell me what's on the driver disc(s) you got with you're PC (if any - some manufacturers only supply a minimal 'restore' disc).

One other thing: when you post back, say how much RAM is in your system. Windows 98 needs some memory fixes for it to run with a lot of memory in the system.

Posted: April 18, 2006 • 1:33 pm
by Cindy H
Hi, i'm_melting_i'm_melting

I hope this is the correct info you are looking for.

I have eight discs, three have restoreCD printed on them, one of which contains Device drivers, utilities and documentation. The other has diagnostics and misc. And one has Reinstallation CD - Windows XP Media Edition Including Service Pack 2

And there is 1GB RAM

Is this enough information, or do you need more?

Thanks again for your help - it is truly appreciated.

Posted: April 18, 2006 • 2:32 pm
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
Cindy H wrote:I have eight discs, three have restoreCD printed on them, one of which contains Device drivers, utilities and documentation.
This is the disc I was after. Can you browse the CD and tell me what (if any) Windows 9x drivers are on it for the CMI8738-MX?

Posted: April 18, 2006 • 10:40 pm
by Cindy H
I checked all of the discs, but I couldn't locate any 9x or xp drivers for the CMI8738-MX. :( Here are some of the drivers I did find:

Audio Drivers:

Cobra AW850Deluxe
Version R6.44
Driver = WindowsMe/98SE

Cobra AW850Deluxe
Version R6.44
Driver = WindowsXP


Video Drivers:
Geforce 6800GT 256MB
Version: 81.98
Driver = WindowsMe/98SE

Geforce 6800GT 256MB
Version: 84.21
Driver = WindowsXP


Network (NIC) Drivers:
Broadcom 570x

Where else might I look for the CMI8738-MX driver?

Thanks much!

Posted: April 19, 2006 • 10:21 am
by Cyndi V
hi cindy h! this is cyndi v. glad to have you on board!

Posted: April 19, 2006 • 4:41 pm
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
Cindy H wrote:--> Cobra AW850Deluxe <--
--> Version R6.44 <--
--> Driver = WindowsMe/98SE <--
This is the set you need, Cindy. CMI8738-MX is the name of the chip used on the board - the Aopen Cobra AW850Deluxe - which is how you would see boards like it marketed in stores (the card, not neccesarily the chipset - well except for Nvidia, but... never mind).

The way I have in mind of doing this requires the make and model of your hard drives first. Also, have you had any experience changing BIOS settings?

Posted: April 19, 2006 • 5:59 pm
by Cindy H
Both hard drives are Western Digital.

1) SATA WDC W1600JD-75HBB0 - 7200 RPM - (Has Windows XP operating system)

2) SATA WDC W1200JB-RA0 - 7200 RPM - (No operating system)


I am familiar with the BIOS.


Thanks!!!!

Posted: April 19, 2006 • 6:05 pm
by Jen
Yes....welcome Cindy! It's always nice to have a little estrogen floating around the board!!! :wink:

Stay and post often!!!!


Jen

Posted: April 21, 2006 • 6:51 am
by Jim the old guy
I agree Jen. A few more chicks on the board would add substanially to our family.

Posted: April 23, 2006 • 10:15 am
by i'm_melting_i'm_melting
Well, I'm back after visiting my gran in Cardiff (she was 90 on Friday) and I've come home to a nice hard drive failure on my primary comp :evil:

I've not personally had any experience dealing with SATA setups, but I reckon the principle is the same (minus the master/slave issue).

Be aware that you need to make CERTAIN that the XP drive is disconnected when installing 98 and all should be fine. The method below is designed so that you will have two separate installations on two different hard drives (XP on the W1600JD, and 98SE on the W1200JB. Then we can make a boot floppy so you can use it to boot into the 98 drive and then just take it out to run XP.

Here's how I would do this as you've already got XP installed first:

DISCLAIMER: *sigh* This stuff is all from memory and after a long days driving from Cardiff to Southampton down the tedious A34 and even more tedious M4 and I regretfully accept NO responsibility for spelling/grammar errors or actions taken by you using my rough guide. Please don't flame me if this doesn't work somehow, just post back with queries and I'll answer as best I can. If in doubt, check this through first with a professional (someone who does this for a salary). Thank you.

1. Switch the PC off, unplug the mains cable and open the case. Unplug the SATA cable from the hard drive with XP on it (make SURE it is disconnected and the blank drive is the only one hooked up to the mainboard. If it is successfully unplugged, XP will not load). Just to make sure, I would also disconnect the power lead from the drive as well for now.

2. Make sure the blank drive is hooked up on bootup. During the BIOS POST routine after you turn the PC on, the W1200JB will be at the top of the list of 'Drives Detected' (the other hard drive should not be listed) when it is booting up, then any other CD/DVD drives connected. Once booting finishes, it should say something like 'Invalid system disk. Replace the disk, and then press any key' - this shows that the drive is installed OK (see above) although there is no OS on it yet.

3. Now for Windows 98SE. The reason I was so insistent about the XP HD being disconnected FIRST is that any 9x installation will habitually install to the primary (first) disk and make a fresh boot sector on it. So, if you installed 98SE without unplugging the XP drive first, you might accidently overwrite the XP boot sector instead, and would be unable to boot the XP OS up again. Now we've taken care of that, insert the 98SE setup CD into the CD-ROM drive and select 'CD-ROM' first in the boot sequence section of the BIOS setup menu and restart the PC.

4. Once the PC boots from the CD, the 98 setup procedure begins. Feel free to use all the available room on your blank drive. Make sure you have your driver disk handy for step 5, although we are a while from there yet. Go through the motions (Product Key, system boot disk* etc) - I assume you've been here before. HOWEVER once you reboot to continue setup "Insufficient memory to initialize Windows".... :shock: Eh? 1GB of RAM not enough for Windows 98?! For reasons I won't go into here for boredom, the short story is you will need a workaround to get away with running 98 on such a scandalous amount of memory. *Put in the 'system disk' floppy that you were prompted to make earlier, and change the boot priority to 'Floppy', 'FDD' or 'A' whichever it's called in your BIOS. Once it is boots up, type:

c:
cd\windows\command
edit

Press ALT, down, then go down to 'Open'
Press ALT-D, then go down to the two dots above A, B, C... press enter, the contents of C:\WINDOWS should now be listen in the left portion of the screen.
Press ALT-F, then hold the down arrow until SYSTEM.INI is highlighted. Press enter.

SYSTEM.INI will now open. Press the down arrow until you come to the [vcache] section. Add (or edit if they are already there) the lines:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=4096
MaxFileCache=4096

Then, press ALT-F, and go down to 'Save' and press Enter.
Again, press ALT-F and this time go down to 'Exit'.

Take the Floppy out and restart. Windows 98 should now boot up fine. If it doesn't, then tell me and I will help you. (It should though).

5. Install the 98 drivers, and now I've been typing so long I have deja vu... ahem, er, check all components are installed correctly by right clicking 'My Computer', select 'properties' and click the 'Device Manager' tab. Make sure there are no red or yellow symbols next to any things listed here. If all is well, excellent. Tedious part over.

6. You now have a brand spanking new Win98 install on one hard drive, and your good ol' trusty-ish WinXP on another. Next up is hooking both drives up, as we're done system installing 'n stuff. Open the case again (after powering off obviously) and connect both drives. Make sure the boot drive is the 'W1600JD' in the BIOS HDD order.

If all is well, the XP OS should now boot up and you will see the new drive allocated in the drives list in 'My Computer'.

Once you've done the above, post back and I'll go through the boot floppy procedure for booting into Windows 98 with you.