On Saturday 22 February 2003 11:29 pm, RJT wrote:
> HI,
> I have just got a Celeron 1 gig, 256 sdram, 40 gig hdd.  It had Win 98 and
> Linux Mandrake 9 on it.  I wanted only win98 so I deleted the partitions
> and reset a primary dos partition and formatted the disc.  Windows
> installation goes fine until it starts setting up any plug and play
> devices.  It freezes at the 11 minute mark and will go no further.  After a
> long while I take the advice given on the screen and restart the machine. 
> It boots to a dark blue screen and stops there.  I've done this 3 times. 
> Can anyone advise what is wrong or how to overcome this? Thanks
> Rick Thornton
>

Rick:
Is it possible that some of the remnants of Mandrake are the cause? Two things 
come to mind:

1. Most Linux distributions -- including Mandrake -- require that the BIOS 
setting "PNP OS Installed" be No, whereas Windows wants it to be Yes.

2. The Linux bootloader, LILO, rewrites the master boot record (mbr). Did you 
restore the original mbr with the command fdisk /mbr from a Win98 boot disk? 
It's been several years since I went through this drill, but IIRC this should 
be done before any other repartitioning or formatting operations.

Regards,
Carroll Grigsby

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