OT: need help installing Win98SE on new HD

[SpaceBadger]

Whee, at least the modem is working now!

I switched back to the new HD and went through a few more iterations of: open device manager, remove the problem device, reboot, try to find drivers for "new device found" - no luck. Then while digging through CDs looking for something that might have the needed drivers, I found one that had some goodies to go with the SoundBLaster card. Since one of the possibles for the mystery device was the game port device for SBLive, I figured it might help, so put it in and ran it. Sure enough, on next reboot the mystery device was identified as the game port for SBLive and it said it was loading the appropriate drivers. No big thrill as I have never used that game port or even had a joystick ever connected to this machine. What I really needed right now was something to make the modem work.

Big surprise - I went back to fiddling with the modem properties in device manager and control panel, and when I ran a diagnostic thingy that had previously reported "modem not found" it now reported back info on my modem. I went to dial-up networking and sure enough, this time it let me create a connection file, and when I tried it out it worked fine. Yippee!

Dunno why that made any difference, unless there was some kind of conflict as I think Katchoo was suggesting.

Anyway, I now have working the stuff that I need - will eventually need to figure out why the adapter for the IEEE 1394 ports isn't showing up, but I've never used those yet and don't expect to need them until whenever I get around to trying to edit some videos.

Now to get on with moving everything else from the old HD to the new one - didn't want to spend too much time on that until I got stuff working right, just in case the fix required a reformat and reinstall.

Thank you very much for your advice and suggestions! I have been working on this almost constantly since yesterday morning and was getting very frustrated!

SpaceBadger

[JayBdey]

You should install XP, unless your system is older and can't run it. There really isn't any reason to still be using any of MS's older OS'es.

[Roanon]

I strongly advise against XP. There are a *lot* of reasons *never* to install the latest Versions of M$ software. If Win98SE works, fine, no reason to change it. For better performance on high-end systems and more stability under certain configurations, use Win2k.

[Suicide Junkie]

Now to get on with moving everything else from the old HD to the new one - didn't want to spend too much time on that until I got stuff working right, just in case the fix required a reformat and reinstall.

Backing up your important documents (like SE4 savegames) should have been the very FIRST thing to do!
The stuff you created yourself is also the stuff you can't just download or reinstall from CD, and the very hardest to replace.

[JayBdey]

There is nothing wrong with XP. All the bad things you can possibly say about it are easily fixable if you know what your doing (yes, even the activation )

If you aren't that good with computers or your hardware is lacking then stick with 98.

[SpaceBadger]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Backing up your important documents (like SE4 savegames) should have been the very FIRST thing to do!
The stuff you created yourself is also the stuff you can't just download or reinstall from CD, and the very hardest to replace.

Oh, no worries there! That stuff was all backed up to CD at first sign of trouble, and real important stuff (original stuff created by me or my kids, digital photos, various other kinds of data that would be impossible or time-consuming to replace) was already getting backed up before the HD ever started giving trouble, just as a matter of routine.

What I meant is mostly copying and re-installing software on the new drive, and moving settings (and savegames ) from the old HD. I didn't want to do all of that stuff until I had it working right. I'll also move all of that important "original creations" type stuff to the new drive now, just because it is easier to copy it from the old HD directly to the new HD than it would be to load it all from various backup CDs. Then I'll run CRC comparisons to make sure there were no errors in the copying. I don't take chances with family stuff that can't be replaced!

I figure I'll continue to use the old HD as extra storage space until it fails, =only= for stuff that would not be a big pain to reinstall - games, archives that are already backed up on CD, etc.

SpaceBadger

[Roanon]

Originally posted by JayBdey:
There is nothing wrong with XP. All the bad things you can possibly say about it are easily fixable if you know what your doing (yes, even the activation )

If you aren't that good with computers or your hardware is lacking then stick with 98.

Agreed. Although I consider it to be "something wrong" if you only can fix important things with inside knowledge .