OK, I'll provide what I can, but it will be impossible to remember all
the things you asked, since this has been an ongoing problem for over
3 weeks.

First - the exact message was stated in my original post, i.e. "Error
loading KERNEL. You must reinstall Windows". That's it, no more, no
less.

The newly installed motherboard is a Biostar P4M80-M4. I can provide
lots more details if needed here.

The NEW hard drive is a Seagate 160 GB "Barracuda" ATA HD, 7200 RPM,
which I used approx. 6 months in another computer, and removed it to
install a 500 GB SATA in that unit. This 160 GB was then reformatted
and used as the destination disk for cloning from the failing 160 GB
ATA, 7200 Maxtor drive which is at least 3 years old now.

Now, your next 2 questions are not easy ones to answer with any
certainty, since getting this entire system to work in all aspects has
forced me to try many, many things - some of which might have added to
my woes, admittedly. But as said in my original post, the new
motherboard demanded that it go through a complete setup where it
looked for drivers that I never expected. And it required my
inserting the CD provided with it, to get its own drivers. I failed
to keep record of what all this was. HOWEVER, when things got really
screwed up, I actually pulled out the new drive and stuck the old
failing one back in to check it out. The motherboard forced me to go
thru the same setup of looking for drivers that suited it, etc. And
it had a few problems also, but I got lucky and overcame them - all
but one! That one concerns Boot Magic, which does not come up
automatically, BUT if I use the Boot Magic 8.0 Rescue Disk, I can
choose which system to boot under. And then all 3 OS's run just as
they did earlier. SO, the "old failing" drive boots ok in Win 98 as
well as Win 2K and DOS. That's when I tried cloning over from that
old one (ONLY the W98 partition, though) to the new one. I did this
many different ways, and many different selected files from the backup
of the old drive's partition. So far, none of this has solved the
problem with the ERROR message on the New drive, as far as W98 is
concerned. Again, BOTH drives boot up and run fine in Win2K.

Remember, the above answer is partially related to the New drive, and
partially related to the Old drive. Both currently have a problem,
but the problem with the Old one is easy to live with - stick in the
BM Rescue disk. But that problem with the New one is intolerable, I
cannot use W98 on the New drive.

Now, let me ask a question out of total frustration. Is it possible
the Master Boot Record (MBR) got screwed up on the New one? And if
so, how to check and/or repair?

Finally, if I have a complete backup of both Win98 partitions off both
these drives - as they exist now, would it be useful to reformat the
New drive and do a New installation from the original factory CD, then
Restore from one of these backups? Or would I be right back where I
am now?

After all this time, I'm willing to try the above, just groping for
straws if it has a chance of working.

Olin McDaniel


On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 15:04:56 -0500, "MEB" meb@not
wrote:

Hmm, no responses.. so to help the group to help you;

How about some information related to:

What motherboard - make/model.

What make and model hard drive, and is it SATA.or PATA, etc.. What is the
old drive, make and model, SATA/PATA

What had you [both recent and just] installed when the error first occurred
[driver,application, etc.]

The exact error message.

Safe mode runs just base system drivers so likely the issue relates to
something that was installed, hence the reason for the above. Kernel errors
can be caused by numerous things from: other corrupted files, corrupted
registry, to even a corrupted swap file, so we have to back-track through
what occurred prior to the issue.
Also, what system did you FIRST attempt to use after the change over [98 or
2000]...

--

MEB
http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com
_________


"Olin K. McDaniel" wrote in message
. ..
| Hopefully this won't get too longwinded, but as a bit of background, I
| recently upgraded my hardware and wanted to keep all the software as
| before. I installed a new M.B. and CPU to go from a 600MHz Pentium 3
| unit to a 2.6 GHz Celeron unit. Also I cloned over the multiboot
| OS's from drive 1 to another HD, since the older one was showing signs
| of failing. The program used for cloning was Acronis True Image.
| There were 3 OS's on Drive 1, and they also are now on the newly
| installed HDD. The heart of the multiboot system is Powerquest's Boot
| Magic, that has worked wonderfully for years. The 3 OS's are DOS 6.22
| (rarely used anymore), Windows 98SE (most heavily used) and Windows
| 2000 Pro (used somewhat).
|
| The problem developed subsequent to several days of allowing the new
| M.B. and CPU to install all its drivers, etc.
|
| Essentially, I cannot boot up (on the NEW Hard Disk 1) into Win98SE in
| Normal mode - I get an error message that says "Error loading KERNEL.
| You must reinstall Windows". BUT - much to my annoyance, it WILL
| boot up fully in SAFE mode. Nothing that I've tried has cleared up
| this anomaly. I've followed the procedure found on MS's web site
| which tells me to "extract Kernel32.dll" from my installation CD and
| copy it to the folder Windows\System\, all to no avail, after multiple
| efforts. In addition, I've copied it over from the presumed "failing"
| hard drive, again with no success. I'm about ready to throw in the
| towel - hopefully, someone can give me an out. Before someone asks,
| there is NO problem booting up in Win2000 on this drive.
|
| Finally, as a further frustating fact, I can still do the multiboot if
| I swap out the new HD 1 to the old failing one. But I don't trust it
| lasting much longer.
|
| I'm admittedly out of ideas - and if it should be a problem with the
| MBR, then I don't know how to repair it.
|
| Sorry it got this long - and it may not have all the useful info
| someone might think would lead to a clue. If so, please tell me what
| to check.
|
| Thanks, Olin McDaniel
|
| To reply by email, please remove "abcd" from Return address
| -----------------------------------------------------
| "Ignorance is treatable, Stupidity is incurable. Sometimes
| the difference is hardly distinguishable, however."




To reply by email, please remove "abcd" from Return address
-----------------------------------------------------
"Ignorance is treatable, Stupidity is incurable. Sometimes
the difference is hardly distinguishable, however."