Win 98 system failure

Question

Question

Win 98 system failure

by oiptoner Apr 3, 2013 7:16AM PDT

I think I am in deep trouble, but maybe someone can make it less painful. I have a W98 SE system on an old 33 MHz X4 machine which has always worked flawlessly (about 20 years). I set it up to run my accounting package and to prevent outside access this machine is not connected to the internet or a network. It is a stand-alone machine with QB Pro 5.0 on it and a ZIP drive for weekly backup. My regular work- a- day machine has W7 64-bit loaded. As fate would have it the W98 machine failed to boot today and the monitor displays a "No Signal" message. It also does not sound like the OS is loading.

I am also unable to load QB Pro on my W7 machine since it is a 16 or 32-bit program. Ideally I would like to get the W98 machine operating again, but the mobo may have two bad caps (slight bulging at the top). My guess is a new mobo would not recognise the old equipment and OS.

Can anyone help?

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16 Posts

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(NT) My fallback position

by oiptoner Apr 3, 2013 9:24AM PDT

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Need more details please

by oiptoner Apr 3, 2013 12:17PM PDT

Since the date on the QB CD is 1999 and the Win 98 OS was bought in 1999 I have got to believe that it is a 16-bit system. That being said, I am too much of a neophyte to understand what I need to do to follow through on your suggestion. Can you give me more details/directions as to what I need to do?

Also, I have an old hard drive in an HD Enclosure attached to my new machine which has Win XP Pro as it's OS. I probably could boot from this drive if it would help, although I am not sure if this could cause other problems.

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32 bit OS started with Windows 95

by wpgwpg Apr 3, 2013 12:24PM PDT

If you'd tell me what version of Windows 7 you have (i.e. Home Premium, Professional, etc.), I could give you specifics. Not knowing that, I'm afraid I have to tell you my dog broke my crystal ball. Once you get to one of the 3 versions I mentioned, you can go to <span id="INSERTION_MARKER">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx and download XP Mode.

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Windows 7 Home Premium

by oiptoner Apr 4, 2013 12:32AM PDT

I have the Home Premium version, fully updated.

I did the download you suggested, and tried to access XP Mode, but as you stated the Home Premium version does not allow access. Following the MS directions to get around this problem led me to a false link. Can you give me more details on what I need to do now?

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Use the anytime upgrade

by wpgwpg Apr 4, 2013 12:43AM PDT

To upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional, click Start -> All Programs -> Windows Anytime Upgrade. Then click where it says choose the version that's best for you -> Click Buy Windows 7 Professional. It costs $90. Once upgraded you can download and install XP Mode.

Good luck.

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Follow-up Other possibility

by oiptoner Apr 4, 2013 12:56AM PDT

Since I have XP Pro SP3 as the OS on the hard drive in my hard drive enclosure, can I just change the start-up sequence to access that hard drive (H) instead of C:. Would that then allow me to load QB on the H: drive, and access it from there until I can transfer the data? Does this run any risk of XP not recognising components on the new machine and creating problems? New machine is an ASUS PC CM1730 with an AMD Athlon II X2 220.

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When you move a HD w/OS, several problems

by wpgwpg Apr 4, 2013 3:32AM PDT

The first problem of trying to boot from that external hard drive would be drivers as you suggest. You'd probably get some kind of blue screen. If you were lucky enough to get by that bugaboo, you'd next be told you needed to activate XP. If that version of XP is an OEM version (i.e. it was pre-loaded when you bought the old PC), you wouldn't be able to activate it under any conditions.

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Still a problem

by oiptoner Apr 4, 2013 1:52AM PDT

Did the download of VirtualBax that you suggested, but once it reached the install sequence I got an error message saying "Your System Has Not Been Modified". I find other instances of people having this problem, but I cannot find a solution.

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I would try the following instead

by Pepe7 Apr 4, 2013 3:44AM PDT

FWIW, my dad has worked with number crunching his whole life, in various forms, for various large law firms. Not an account by title, but close enough. When his PC crashed a few years ago, we simply imported and converted the old data into a newer version of the same software. QB is very well supported, luckily. The current support pages online can likely walk you through the process with no data loss if you still have the zip drive & files.

Instead of the headache of dealing with some sort of Virtual Machine as a non-techie (no offense), you should instead deal with the data and finally scrap W98 and the software it used to use, virtually or otherwise. There may even be a 30 day trial (etc.) for a newer version of QB that could get your feet wet so you can stick with a single PC running a newer OS.

HTH, at least for another perspective.

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Tends to happen when something was installed and no reboot.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 4, 2013 4:42AM PDT

There are a few hundred reasons but after many hundred installs at office, home and more, I can't say it's a bug in VirtualBox.
Bob

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Think I have it installed

by oiptoner Apr 4, 2013 5:03AM PDT

I played around and think I got virtual machine to load, but when I double click on it it gives me a DOS screen and begins asking questions which I can't answer. I now have it in hibernate mode. It is asking for a source drive, but does not state what needs to be in source drive.

I do have the install disks for XP.

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Here's a tutorial to install XP to a virtual box VM.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 4, 2013 5:15AM PDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RIyoGZcZe8

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Final result

by oiptoner Apr 11, 2013 6:46AM PDT

I want to thank all of you for the suggestions. I actually took something from each to come up with a solution. I feel comfortable with hardware suggestions, but recognise software is often the solution. What I ended up doing was resurrecting an older XP Basic laptop and pulling the HD from the crashed machine. I put the HD in a HD Enclosure and connected to the laptop. I then loaded the QB software on the laptop and accessed the files on the hard drive. It's a little clunky, but it works so I will be able to access and transfer data without any data loss.

I may also follow up with the suggestion to set up XP Mode. I can see some real advantages to having it.

Thanks guys.

Back to Windows Legacy OS forum

Kees_B · Answer 1 · Apr 3, 2013 7:32AM PDT

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Answer

Re: machine broken

by Kees_B Forum moderator Apr 3, 2013 7:32AM PDT

If you suspect the caps, you (or a tech) might be able to replace them. But, after 20 years, it can be any other component.

You might be able to find another machine running Windows 98 or capable to run it on freecycle or such, if this one can't be fixed. It's only 2 years ago I dumped mine (which had a motherboard I bought in 2003 or 2004, and still functioned perfectly).

Kees

wpgwpg · Answer 2 · Apr 3, 2013 7:35AM PDT

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Answer

Several possibilities

by wpgwpg Apr 3, 2013 7:35AM PDT

The first thing you could try is doing a compatibility install if QB Pro is 32 bit. If it's 16 bit, you could install XP Mode and run QB Pro under that. You need the Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate version of Windows 7 to do that, but you could always use the anytime upgrade if you don't have one of those. Then XP Mode is free and for other than action games it works extremely well.
As far as that old Windows 98 system goes, I'm afraid you got a lot more use out of it than it was ever designed to last, so I'm afraid you'd have between an extremely difficult and impossible task of trying to revive it. Give XP Mode a try - I think you'll like it as much as I do.

Good luck.

r. proffitt · Answer 3 · Apr 4, 2013 1:09AM PDT

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Answer

Since you looked at XP Mode how about

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 4, 2013 1:09AM PDT

VirtualBox which is free and you can load W98 in that. At the office we have one last piece of software in that and on the upside the entire virtual machine complete with the OS and all installed apps and data is contained in a SINGLE .vdi file. Here's a link that shows this. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/itdojo/clone-and-move-virtual-machines-in-virtualbox/3305

What this means is that once we created this, backup is a snap (it's just one file) and we don't worry about what machine it will run on.

Quite an amazing bit of tech and it's free.
Bob

Win 98 system failure

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