Problem installing windows :(

[Nutster]

I just got a P233 system in the mail and I have been trying to install either Win95 OSR2 or Win98. It makes it past scandisk and then throws up a kernal (heap) error. Never have seen anything like this, could someone "in the know" give me some helpful advice? Thanks in advance,



Nut

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

boot into dos mode. run scandisk from there? that should keep you from getting kernel errors.

 

[Nutster]

Bruno,
It came with no OS installed. I fdisk'd then formatted and now it won't let me install any Win OS. Maybe that will help some and thanks,





Nut

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

<< It makes it past scandisk >>



<----bone head :frown:

i should have re-read. thought it was getting the error when running scandisk in the os. can't think of anything sorry.

 

[AndyHui]

This is a Pentium 233MMX?

If both Win95 and Win98 give errors after scandisk on a cleanly formatted drive, it might be possible that the RAM is dead.

EDO or SDRAM in that system?

 

[Nutster]

Andy,
It is SDRAM.....I pulled all three sticks out and reseated them, no help. Here is the error message it gives with Win98............


KERNAL: Unable to initialize heap
Please remove any floppy disks from your drives
and press any key to restart your system.


Maybe that will help a little bit more.



Nut

 

[AndyHui]

Can you install with just one stick of SDRAM?

 

[Pederv]

Try one stick. If it still fails, pull that stick and try the next.

 

[AndyHui]

If the problem turns out not to be RAM, then the other thing I can think of is a bad L2 cache COAST module.

 

[Nutster]

ok guys, gonna try that now. Will post back when I am done




Nut

 

[Nutster]

Tried pulling one stick and now it is installing windows. The stick I pulled has a -8e on it and the other two sticks in it have a 10 on them. I know that is the nanosecond rating, could that be the problem? Thanks for the help guys,



Nut

 

[AndyHui]

The ratings are OK....10ns is PC66 or very early PC100. Seems like at least one of those sticks of RAM you have pulled out is no good.