On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 03:39:49 -0500, "MEB" meb@not
wrote:



"Olin K. McDaniel" wrote in message
.. .
| 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.

Okay, I have had that occur more than once...

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

Not a the moment, this will allow background review of drivers/etc..

OS support - Win98SE/ME/NT4/2K/XP/64 - onsite drivers seem to be
2004/5-7[XP/64]

http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=p4m80-m4 - general
description
ftp://ftp.biostar-usa.com/manuals/P4...80M4manual.pdf - manual

Looks like a nice board for 98. Not thrilled with the S3 on-board video
though.. but that's just me..

I do not currently use the on-board video nor the sound. I do use the
on-board LAN for DSL though, as opposed to a PCI card before upgrading
motherboards.

To clarify for the group, BootMagic is/was part of PartionMagic.

|
| 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.

Okay, just to clarify, though you mention a 500gig drive we are NOT talking
about it as part of the issues.

That is correct. The 500 GB SATA drive was installed in another
computer that I use for different purposes.

The two drives at issue are 160 gig. One was apparently failing and relaced
by the Seagate. Was that drive 'cut" to the 137 gig barrier or is it full
capacity?

Let's go back thru how things had to be done. First of all, the old
motherboard DID have the 137 GB limit, so - the "old" 160 GB drive
(which was the Maxtor, incidentally) was limited by the motherboard's
137 limit.

Then after upgrading the motherboard, that Maxtor drive was still
unexpanded, even though I could have. That's when I used Acronis True
Image to clone that drive, plus the other 2 drives. I cloned that
Maxtor "EXACTLY" as it existed to the new Seagate - all this being
done under Windows 2000 since that's where I installed Acronis.

Next, I swapped the 160 GB drives, and at some point (no longer am
able to remember exactly when) I used Partition Magic to expand the
top partition of the drive containing Win2000 (but the NEW DRIVE
ONLY) to fill up the Unallocated space. All this may or may not be
important, but at the present time, the "Old" drive is still
unexpanded, and the "New" drive is expanded. That's exactly why I
keep asking if that expansion is what screwed up the "New" drive, by
messing up the MBR or something else. So far, no one has answered
that question for me.

Was the Maxtor "cut" or was it allowed to remain at full capacity?

See above answers.

Also, was the machine the Seagate was pulled from XP or VISTA?

NEGATIVE! I refuse to use either of those. It was pulled from a
machine using Windows 2000 Professional.

These questions are to determine potentials.

Hope my answers suffice.

|
| 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.

Okay, two others have provided suggestions, Glen [and PCR] directs to some
viable issues [cleaning old drivers] to attempt to start with. Perhaps he
will again place the Registry entries suggested at removal when making major
changes in the 9X OS due to hardware changes. This will mean re-installing
the MB drivers and other AGAIN.

PCR caught the issues with the Boot, and I'll add that depending upon how
the drive was cloned [what you chose to image], and formatted, the Boot
partition [BootMagic] may not be properly setup [clusters/sectors may be off
or other]. Manufactures use differring adapter chips and routines, and the
BIOS will translate somewhat differently, BootMagic may be having
difficulties. Reinstalling/reconfiguring the boot manager, if possible
without destroying the data/files, might help; though Scandisk will
sometimes correct those issues if not to drastic [you have all
OSs/partitions as either Fat16 or 32 correct?]. 2K can better handle
cluster/sector issues [self-repair], but that leaves DOS and 98 out in the
cold.

|
| 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.

I certainly hope you changed/checked the BIOS when you installed the new
drive. If the drives are set to AUTO detect then you can negate that issue,
though hopefully you also checked the other settings.as well.

|
| 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?

Possible, but let's deal with these other potential fixes first.

|
| 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?

The clean install would be the best recourse, but once you over-install
[copying the old over the new], you're right back here again. The issues
seem to relate to the drive layout and the registry. Work through the
suggestions and Post back with issues or results.

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

--

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
| |

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