Please Help with "could not allocate code/patch RAM below 4mb boundary" error

Greetings:

My home computer developed a problem yesterday evening that I have not
been able to solve despite my trying several things. I was wondering
if anyone might have any suggestions of what else I might try. Sorry
to be so detailed, but I know that with computer problems, the more
detailed and clearer the explanation of the problem and what was tried
the better.

My computer is a Pentium III 850. The Motherboard/Bios is the Award
440BX (which has no onboard video). The bios was flashed several
months ago with the last BIOS update available for it. I have 512
memory on 2 two 256 SDRAM. It's running Windows 98SE and I've done all
the updates on Windows Update. I have one 60gb WD Drive and one 80gb
WD drive. I have an NVIDIA Geforce 4 video card.

I routinely copy the contents of each drive every other week to
firewire external drives. Every 3 months, I actually do a hard disk to
identical hard disk copy (using Western Digital's copy utility program
in DOS). My last Disk to Disk copy was Nov 04. My last Firewire copy
was in late January.


Here's the problem and what I tried so far.

Yesterday evening when I started the computer, after it got to the
Windows 98 startup screen, it gave me the following message " could
not allocate code/patch RAM below 4mb boundary. Try loading
SBLINIT.COM before smartdrive.exe." I wasn't able to go into Windows.

I checked the BIOS setup settings and all were correctly set (I have
them written down). I checked autoexec.bat and config.sys and they
seemed fine) Windows wouldn't load.

I restored a previous version of the system registry. Windows
wouldn't load.

I did a step by step loading of the drivers and it failed (black
screen, messed up video) when I told it to load Windows system driver
"VGARTD.VXD".

I tried renaming that file, but it then told me it couldn't find the
file and couldn't load Windows.


I then swapped the C: drive with the exact copy that I made back in
November, 2004 (with the jumper set correctly for master with slave).
To my surprise, I got the SAME error message regarding "could not
allocate code/patch RAM below 4 mbyte boundary".

At this point, I suspected it might be a hardware issue rather than
Windows itself since I would think the hard disk from 11/04 should
have booted into Windows.

I removed and reinstalled the memory chips. I tried various slot
combinations as well as one chip at a time.

I removed the video card and reinserted it.

I tried loading Windows in safe mode and it DID load in SAFE MODE to
my surprise. The items in device Manager looked fine. I ran NAV virus
scan and it found no viruses.

I uninstalled the NVIDIA video drivers in Safe Mode and restarted the
computer hoping that it would boot into Windows in VGA mode but it
gave me "Windows Protection Error". I also tried installing the
NVIDIA Video Drives in Safe Mode but it said it couldn't find a card
with an NVIDIA chip.

I swapped the NVIDIA AGP card with an old PCI 3dfx Voodoo card .

I either get "Windows Protection Error" or the "Could not allocate
code/path…" error on every attempt to start Windows normally.

Since my computer at my office is very similar except for the
processor (800 rather than 850) and the fact that it doesn't have many
things connected that the home computer does, I'm going to try the
following.
1. copy VGARTD.VXD from the office computer to the home computer
to see if it will work.
2. Swap the Geforce 4 cards and see if it will boot into Windows.
I might try the same with the soundblaster card as well.
3. Put the C: drive from the home computer into the office
computer to see if it will boot to Windows. If it does, II'll probably
install both hard disks from the home computer into the office
computer and install the firewire card, and copy the C drive and D
drive to the external firewire drives so I can have a current backup
of the drives in case I need a new computer. I could also do a disk
to disk backup with the Western Digital utility but a friend told me
that most new computers come with serial hard disks which are better
but you cannot install the type of hard disk I have in a computer that
has a serial hard disk.

Does it sound like a motherboard problem possibly with the video bus
or whatever it is called? Is that motherboard still available
somewhere (I tend to doubt it). I wish I could boot into Windows in
standard VGA mode which would give me support for the firewire drives
so I could do a backup.

Thanks for any suggestions.

I would suspect a RAM problem. Try removing one RAM module, and swapping
them. If the problem changes then that indicates RAM.

What do you have in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT - W98 doesn't usually
require any entries for either of these files, and if they do contain stuff
it's likely to affect memory below 4Mb.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"J Golden" wrote in message
...
Greetings:

My home computer developed a problem yesterday evening that I have not
been able to solve despite my trying several things. I was wondering
if anyone might have any suggestions of what else I might try. Sorry
to be so detailed, but I know that with computer problems, the more
detailed and clearer the explanation of the problem and what was tried
the better.

My computer is a Pentium III 850. The Motherboard/Bios is the Award
440BX (which has no onboard video). The bios was flashed several
months ago with the last BIOS update available for it. I have 512
memory on 2 two 256 SDRAM. It's running Windows 98SE and I've done all
the updates on Windows Update. I have one 60gb WD Drive and one 80gb
WD drive. I have an NVIDIA Geforce 4 video card.

I routinely copy the contents of each drive every other week to
firewire external drives. Every 3 months, I actually do a hard disk to
identical hard disk copy (using Western Digital's copy utility program
in DOS). My last Disk to Disk copy was Nov 04. My last Firewire copy
was in late January.


Here's the problem and what I tried so far.

Yesterday evening when I started the computer, after it got to the
Windows 98 startup screen, it gave me the following message " could
not allocate code/patch RAM below 4mb boundary. Try loading
SBLINIT.COM before smartdrive.exe." I wasn't able to go into Windows.

I checked the BIOS setup settings and all were correctly set (I have
them written down). I checked autoexec.bat and config.sys and they
seemed fine) Windows wouldn't load.

I restored a previous version of the system registry. Windows
wouldn't load.

I did a step by step loading of the drivers and it failed (black
screen, messed up video) when I told it to load Windows system driver
"VGARTD.VXD".

I tried renaming that file, but it then told me it couldn't find the
file and couldn't load Windows.


I then swapped the C: drive with the exact copy that I made back in
November, 2004 (with the jumper set correctly for master with slave).
To my surprise, I got the SAME error message regarding "could not
allocate code/patch RAM below 4 mbyte boundary".

At this point, I suspected it might be a hardware issue rather than
Windows itself since I would think the hard disk from 11/04 should
have booted into Windows.

I removed and reinstalled the memory chips. I tried various slot
combinations as well as one chip at a time.

I removed the video card and reinserted it.

I tried loading Windows in safe mode and it DID load in SAFE MODE to
my surprise. The items in device Manager looked fine. I ran NAV virus
scan and it found no viruses.

I uninstalled the NVIDIA video drivers in Safe Mode and restarted the
computer hoping that it would boot into Windows in VGA mode but it
gave me "Windows Protection Error". I also tried installing the
NVIDIA Video Drives in Safe Mode but it said it couldn't find a card
with an NVIDIA chip.

I swapped the NVIDIA AGP card with an old PCI 3dfx Voodoo card .

I either get "Windows Protection Error" or the "Could not allocate
code/path." error on every attempt to start Windows normally.

Since my computer at my office is very similar except for the
processor (800 rather than 850) and the fact that it doesn't have many
things connected that the home computer does, I'm going to try the
following.
1. copy VGARTD.VXD from the office computer to the home computer
to see if it will work.
2. Swap the Geforce 4 cards and see if it will boot into Windows.
I might try the same with the soundblaster card as well.
3. Put the C: drive from the home computer into the office
computer to see if it will boot to Windows. If it does, II'll probably
install both hard disks from the home computer into the office
computer and install the firewire card, and copy the C drive and D
drive to the external firewire drives so I can have a current backup
of the drives in case I need a new computer. I could also do a disk
to disk backup with the Western Digital utility but a friend told me
that most new computers come with serial hard disks which are better
but you cannot install the type of hard disk I have in a computer that
has a serial hard disk.

Does it sound like a motherboard problem possibly with the video bus
or whatever it is called? Is that motherboard still available
somewhere (I tend to doubt it). I wish I could boot into Windows in
standard VGA mode which would give me support for the firewire drives
so I could do a backup.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks Jeff. It turned out to be a video issue. I put the hard disk in
my office computer and it booted fine. So I got it to boot into VGA
mode then, on a hunch, installed the NVIDIA drivers and rebooted. It
was fine. Then I put the hard disk back into the home computer and it
booted fine. I guess it was a video driver mismatch between what
Windows had and what the bios had.



On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 09:20:23 +1100, "Jeff Richards"
wrote:

I would suspect a RAM problem. Try removing one RAM module, and swapping
them. If the problem changes then that indicates RAM.

What do you have in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT - W98 doesn't usually
require any entries for either of these files, and if they do contain stuff
it's likely to affect memory below 4Mb.