Computer won't boot off a Windows 98 startup disk

I won't go off on one about why I need this but I have a new computer which I need to start up off a Windows 98 startup disk but right now all it does is say something about the NIC boot agent which quickly disappears and then "Starting Windows 98..." with a blinking cursor below it. It then just sits on that until I restart it.

It's got a Foxconn G41MXE motherboard and the rest of the specs are here:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pc/range/ebizz.html
but I assume the motherboard is the only relevant component here. I'm not really able to make changes to the startup disk other than to put new drivers but I can make BIOS changes as well.

Cheers in advance.

 

Just what media are you booting from, that doesn't look like it has a floppy. If your booting the Win98 CD it doesn't have sata drivers so it will not load.
Maybe if you tell what your trying to do we can help a little more.

 

Agreed with foogoo - there are some good .isos at Bootdisk.com - you might also consider disabling everything network-related in BIOS.

 

Well I'm an IT technician at a school where we use this network management system called RM CC3 (you probably won't have heard of it) which is a basically a front-end for Active Directory and a bunch of other tied in elements. When we want to build a machine onto our network we use these USB sticks which have a switch on them that makes them identify to the computer as a USB floppy drive. The build disks are quite complicated and it's all handled automatically by the software, all we usually have to do is make sure it's got the correct drivers to at least get it onto the network (both DOS and Windows) and the software handles the rest. It's handy because there's been times when we have to rebuild entire rooms of 30 machines and we have them rebuilding automatically from fresh within 15 minutes, then we come back in the morning and all the machines have a fresh XP install and all the software.

The problem is that the disks are pretty old fashioned and based on Windows 98 startup disk. We intend to replace a whole room of ageing machines and we have a nice trial machine like the one I linked to above. We really like them cos they look good, they're quiet, and we got a good deal on them. We need to buy them before our budget review goes through in about a week because once it does we probably won't get a whole room, and if we don't get this one running soon we're probably going to have to go with a backup option which is more expensive and not as good.

Now we know this machine has all the Windows drivers (though not necessarily the DOS ones) because we managed to build it onto our network manually through a process which involves nursing an XP install on manually, partitioning it and directing it towards some software but compared to two minutes per machine doing it the proper way we can't really imagine ourselves rebuilding 30 machines in 15 minutes this way.

RM, the company who make CC3, won't provide support for our machine as they only do that for machines they sold us; they want us to buy this new room from them and unless I can bend this machine around a Win98 startup disk it looks like that's what we'll be doing.

Thanks.

 

Does the computer have a floppy or are you looking for a boot CD?

The fact that it complains about the NIC when it starts up, leads me to think it is trying to boot from a network rather than the hardware on the computer.

Go into the BIOS and list the boot devices available and the boot order.

 

It was trying to boot off the network first but we have no image on the network for it to boot off or anything but here's the boot list anyway:

USB:Netac (That's a USB drive that identifies as a USB floppy)
SATAM-Hitachi HD
Disabled
Disabled
Try other boot devices is set to 'yes'.

That's the exact boot order. There's no floppy drive and the DVD drive is empty. But like I said I'm pretty sure it's the actual boot disk as it wouldn't boot off a regular Windows 98 startup disk either and I'm hopeful it's either a case of making a slight change in the BIOS or tweaking the drivers on the disk.

 

Are the old PCs IDEs.. then you'll need sata drivers for the new hardware.
If the system boots to 'loading win 98" and stops it is most likely the system doesn't see the HDD to install to. Your obviously booting from the right device BIOS doesnt display "Starting Windows 98" only your boot disk would do that.

 

Sorry to hijack this thread but there is a good open source project for imaging computers over a network called FOG.

 

Some of the old PCs are IDE but we've also boot plenty of SATAs off these build disks. But I don't think that should matter as these disks start off by creating a ram-drive at X:. Don't know if this is unique to these build disks (probably is) but I'm pretty sure that should put any HD problems out of the equation until later on and that's why I thought it'd be a lower level driver problem such as a BUS somewhere or whatnot. I was on the phone to one of the company's engineers earlier and they told us that other RM schools had gotten these disks building without issue so in the morning when I get back to the office I'm going to try resetting the CMOS just in case somebody else has has this trial machine and mussed up the settings.

 

if your usb stick is set up like a floppy maybe set your first boot device to floppy drive and see what happens...

 

NIC drivers have not been installed could that be the error?
which means the boot software is in an endless loop looking for the files it needs on a non exsistant Arive and can not find them because its not looking at the usb drive.
windows can not create a ram drive because the files can't be found on the a:drive
your not waiting long enough for a memory check to finish ini.
the usb access from the bias is insufiecnt to boot the operating system from the usb port and you need another specilied usb driver to install which would mean editing the boot disk.

could you install fulldos from the dvd drive? or is there not one?

 

Ok, but not all sata drivers are created equal, just because you've used this disk with one chipset doesn't mean they work with all. But is seems like a driver issue, some drive if not the sata.