🚀 go-pugleaf

Rod Speed <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote

> Rather odd problem with a Win98SE install on a Compaq Prosignia 340.
>
> IE, OE, VET and firefox all crash very quickly after starting them.
>
> Everything else works fine.
>
> Those that do crash are all attempting to use the net.
> Firefox was installed after first seeing the problem and
> is the evidence that there is some fundamental problem
> with net access somewhere.
>
> The system file checker did replace a couple of files, made no
> difference.
> It was running IE and OE 6, repairing IE 6 made no
> difference, uninstalling that back to 5 made no difference.
>
> Same result with the internal modem and an external router.
>
> Clean install of 98SE fixes the problem completely so its
> clearly SE thats got screwed up somehow. Reasonably
> clean install of SE, tho its been installed quite a while now.
>
> Main problem is that I cant get the Compaq QuickRestore
> to even start, it just whines 'restoration cannot continue',
>
>    This is caused by one of the following conditions :
>    The QuickRestore disk is not in the drive
>
> cant be that, the CD is in the drive and the floppy makes no
> difference
>    This QuickRestore disk is not designed for this computer
>
> thats a real possibility, as far as I know its never been used
>
>    The system board has been replace
>
> not as far as I am aware
>
>    The Flash BIOS is corrupt or has been rewritten
>
> no evidence of either
>
>    A hardware error has occurred
>
> no evidence of any hardware problem.
>
> It comes with a diskette too which appears to write the serial
> number to the hard drive and diskette. That runs fine with no
> complaints and it makes no difference if thats in the drive when
> the QuickRestore CD is booted.
>
>
> So I'd like some way of actually fixing the problem in the current
> SE install thats causing the crashes in IE, OE, VET and firefox.
> Presumably it must be a problem with one of the dlls or something,
> but the system file checker doesnt see any problem with any of them.
>
> Or some way of getting the QuickRestore to work.
>
> I can obviously do a clean install of SE from a normal OEM CD
> and the product key on the SE manual works fine. But thats quite
> a bit different in detail to the original SE install, no drivers etc
> and it looks like there is a problem with the drivers from
> http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/DesktopProsignia/us/family/134.html?lang=en&cc=us&prodSeriesId=96448
> no obviously suitable video driver for starters, this one has an intel
> chipset video. The original SE install has got the supplementary
> drivers on the hard drive too, so you dont have to fart around
> with a CD when say adding a NIC etc either.

Wota saga, mostly due to compaq being missing
most of the time over the holiday season.

Turns out that the reason the recovery CDs dont work is because they
are for the wrong system, a prosignia laptop, not a prosignia desktop
340. And they are for 98 anyway, not 98SE, so are useless anyway.

The web site is useless for drivers, no drivers for the
stuff integrated on the motherboard at all, video and audio.

Not a huge problem, its easy enough to work out what the intel
embedded video hardware is using Everest, and get that from intel.

Not much harder with the audio, it turns out there is a
Softpaq from the compaq site for that integrated SoundMax
audio, just not listed for the Prosignia Desktop 340.

And one way around the problem is to use the DriverGuide Toolkit
to save the drivers from the current install and use them in the
clean install from the OEM 98SE CD that accepts the product key
from the original certificate of authenicity. No CD came with that.

BUT it would be more convenient to just do an install in place
of SE over the current install, mainly so I dont have to migrate
all the apps and configs etc to the new clean install. The existing
install is clearly in \Windows\Options\Cabs, with all the cabs and
setup.exe etc in there. Trouble is that you cant run setup.exe in
there, it whines about the lack of _setup.dll, error 103, even tho
that file is clearly in that folder and isnt corrupt etc. Putting it in
\windows\system or \windows\system32 doesnt help. Presumably
its looking for it somewhere else and isnt finding it. Compaq claims
you cant run it from there.

While you can do an install in place from an OEM 98SE CD
as long as you initiate that at the Win level, thats not as
desirable as redoing the current Compaq install, and for some
reason doesnt fix the problem, and clearly keeps IE6 SP1,
so isnt actually replacing what is causing the original problem.

Uninstalling IE6 doesnt help. It does uninstall fine, but
then you cant actually run setup from the CD at the win
level, Explorer just crashes as soon as you load it.

XP does install fine, and finds all the drivers for all the hardware,
but its only a 64M machine and appears to only accept 128MB
PC100 dimms, and the user isnt too keen on the cost of XP.

Automatic updates isnt ideal since its
on dialup with an unlicensed copy of XP.