Hey folks. I decided it was time to add another hard drive to my system, should be no problem, right?
I already had four devices, though the oldest CD rom sees hardly any use, so I got a PCI IDE controller (Highpoint Rocket133), in the interests of support more devices and improving performance.
It appeared to install fine, but after driver installation, I found that the system wouldn't load Windows. Just after the Win98 splash screen and right before the desktop, I get the following error:
While initializing device VCOMM: Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer.
It DOES start in safe mode. I went through a whole list of disabling everything in the startup sequence, but it still gives me the same error unless I'm in safe mode.
Well, I thought what the heck, maybe my computer just doesn't like add-on IDE controllers. A promise Ultra100TX2 also had a weird problem, though different, last year. So, I decided to ditch my old CD rom and hook my new hard drive as a slave to the other hard drive. Guess what? Same error!
Seems my system doesn't like this new hard drive for some reason. However, when I tried hooking my old hard drive up to the Rocket133 (new hard drive unconnected), once again I get the exact same error.
The new drive seems to work - I was able to Fdisk and format it without trouble, and I can copy files to and from it using a Win98 bootup disk. It also shows fine in safe mode, although multiple copies seem to fail from Windows Explorer under safe mode.
Another thing I don't get is why the system assigns drive letters the way it does. My old hard drive has two partitions, thus, C and D. However, when I connect the new hard drive, the D partition becomes E, and the new hard drive becomes D. What the ??
Do I just need to dump this POS Win98 or am I just missing some really simple step when trying to add a new hard drive?
Sorry for the long post, I've spent about 10 hours on this already and it's really ticking me off.. System specs at the link below, happy to provide any other information.
Aaron Gilbert
I already had four devices, though the oldest CD rom sees hardly any use, so I got a PCI IDE controller (Highpoint Rocket133), in the interests of support more devices and improving performance.
It appeared to install fine, but after driver installation, I found that the system wouldn't load Windows. Just after the Win98 splash screen and right before the desktop, I get the following error:
While initializing device VCOMM: Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer.
It DOES start in safe mode. I went through a whole list of disabling everything in the startup sequence, but it still gives me the same error unless I'm in safe mode.
Well, I thought what the heck, maybe my computer just doesn't like add-on IDE controllers. A promise Ultra100TX2 also had a weird problem, though different, last year. So, I decided to ditch my old CD rom and hook my new hard drive as a slave to the other hard drive. Guess what? Same error!
Seems my system doesn't like this new hard drive for some reason. However, when I tried hooking my old hard drive up to the Rocket133 (new hard drive unconnected), once again I get the exact same error.
The new drive seems to work - I was able to Fdisk and format it without trouble, and I can copy files to and from it using a Win98 bootup disk. It also shows fine in safe mode, although multiple copies seem to fail from Windows Explorer under safe mode.
Another thing I don't get is why the system assigns drive letters the way it does. My old hard drive has two partitions, thus, C and D. However, when I connect the new hard drive, the D partition becomes E, and the new hard drive becomes D. What the ??
Do I just need to dump this POS Win98 or am I just missing some really simple step when trying to add a new hard drive?
Sorry for the long post, I've spent about 10 hours on this already and it's really ticking me off.. System specs at the link below, happy to provide any other information.
Aaron Gilbert
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