On Feb 25, 1:17 am, "Gary S. Terhune" wrote:
I suspect it's the lack of drivers more than anything else. Especially if
you're using the JMicron RAID channels,

Many thanks again.
I am not using the RAID aspect of the JMicron driver, just the SATA,
the which drive is happily (with some reservations about using that
work in this context!) booting W98 SE in normal mode- until it freezes
of course - and all the way in safe mode. So I don't think it is the
HDD that it is choking on during the install. As an aside - I think -
I notice that the safe mode intro message says that all driver
installs are off in safe mode and this seems to include my mouse, even
after jamming a serial mouse (I still have one!) in there is no mouse
function. Being an old hand, I am not fazed by such a lack...

See:
"Memory Management in Win98 & ME"http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.php

I tried inserting the three SYSTEM.INI entries offered but they didn't
help this current problem but I'm sure will once I get this sorted.

Try a PS/2 mouse if you haven't already. Might work in Safe Mode.

Done that. Even a serial mouse doesn't run at this stage of the
install...

Which brings me back to my original plea:
Can anybody who is intimate with the setup process of Win98 please
give me a silver bullet which will circumvent this blockage and get
Win98 running - even limping - on bootup?

Cheers

Hil, the ever-hopeful