Dan -- I have a Presario 4122; quite similar to the machine in question.  Upgraded it to Win98 SE some years back.  Simply installed it right on top of the Win95 that was in place on the machine as purchased.  Had no problems and everything works fine to this day.  (Evidenced by the fact that that is the PC I am writing this email with.)

I can't answer all the various scenarios you mention, but do have a suggestion.  Does your friend have the recovery CDs that came with the machine?  If so, I would try to bring it back to its "factory fresh" state, and then do the 98 install on top of that.

BTW -- The non-DOS partition has a number of Compaq's preloaded diagnostics and information screens associated with it.  Don't believe it has anything to do with the BIOS.  For some reason, they still include that with their current models in the stores right now...

Steve

"Dan Davis (Computer Connection)" wrote:

> I'm a builder of PC's and therefore do not attempt many repairs on machines other than my own.  However, a friend has lured me into trying to upgrade a Compaq Presario 4112.
>
> The machine has a Non-Dos partition on it.  I assume this is reserved for Compaq's BIOS.  The other partition is the Primary Dos.
>
> I have downloaded every SoftPaq and Driver from Compaq's web site for this machine.
>
> Scenario 1 - I reformatted the Primary Dos Partition and attempted the Win 98 install.  Everything went okay until I reached 16% remaining of the Win 98 install.  (This is after the windows driver database has initialized and hardware is about to be detected and installed.)  The machine stops.  Re-booting doesn't help.  The machine continually freezes at 16% remaining in the Win 98 install.
>
> Scneario 2 - I booted up with a Win 98 start-up diskette.  Using the FDISK command I deleted all partitions on the hard drive, rebooted, and (using the FDISK command) created one Primary Dos partition.  The install went as before - okay until it locked up with 16% remaining.
>
> Scenario 3 - I substituted another hard drive that I know is good and repeated the steps in Scenario 2.  The same thing happened.
>
> Is this a Compaq issue or a hardware issue?
>
> Please Advise!
>
> Dan Davis
>
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