Re: W98 to W2K upgrades -- PCTECH

Adam Lang wrote:

Just as a side comment, that doesn't directly help you right now, unless of
course you take the advice, is never do an upgrade.  ALWAYS do a clean
install of an OS.  This is emphasized even more going from a 9x lien to an
NT line.  They are completely different operating systems underneath.
There is even a chance that a variety of programs you use on the computer
won't run, or at least need different versions, under NT line.

I can guarantee life is easier if you do it that way.

In general, I agree. However, I had done almost the same upgrade on very similar machines with no issues that wouldn't have also happened on a clean install. A fundamental reason for upgrading in these cases was to preserve various general settings such as desktops.

Had these been business systems, it would have been different. Because this last PC was the Mrs.'s machine, the attempt to preserve as much look-and-feel as possible was needed. What one does to preserve the atmosphere at home isn't always what one might do professionally. (Of course, 'professionally' I don't do W98->W2K conversions.)

In any case, a clean install resulted in exactly the same error, i.e., I also tried that. The problem has two potential resolutions: (1) A BIOS upgrade and (2) a return to W98.

The BIOS upgrade will give resolution in two possible ways: (1) a proper handling of the ATI AGP graphics chips in W2K, interrupt handling for which seems to be the real problem, perhaps due to improper plug-and-play handling, and (2) access to a new primary IDE drive that appears to have an incompatible ATA number -- the spare drive I want to put in there is already old, but it _is_ spare and will provide more than enough space for some recovery operations plus the basic advantage of a second drive. Due to an apparent proprietary BIOS, the upgrade attempt is going to be via a BIOS extension card. (From now on, I will _always_ determine whether a BIOS is proprietary to the system manufacturer first! Who'da thunk it?))

If a return to W98 is required, I'll still want to install the spare drive in order to make future recoveries feasible. I'll first install the current drive temporarily as a secondary in another W2K PC and pull the needed files off of it in order to return them to W98 later. (The drive was converted for W2K at the beginning of the upgrade.) The _BIG_ requirement is recovery of a saved address book. Because the original drive is small, I'll then reformat it back to be compatible with W98 and install W98 clean on it. The spare drive would then be used as a secondary where general files and applications will reside, separate from W98 and its registry, etc.

Whew. Wish I knew what I was doing.

Tom

:

> ----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Liotta" <qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Newsgroups: midrange.public.pctech
To: <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 7:42 PM
Subject: [PCTECH] W98 to W2K upgrades

Though I'll accept all suggestions, this is more a rant than a request
for help.

My wife has used a PC we've had for some 6 years. She's no computer
person by any means, but has gotten well into e-mail, browsing and
similar PC functions. Spends nearly as much time as I do at her keyboard.

Nothing fancy... 333Mhz, 256MB. Upgraded from the original W95 to W98 SE
a couple years ago when I had a spare license. Another spare license
brought the attempt to upgrade to W2K this weekend. Upgrades were
motivated by desires for more stability.

Start the upgrades by general cleanup -- everything from running a
couple rounds of RegClean to removing unused programs and apps to disk
defrag. Common stuff. The primary concern was to make the newly upgraded
PC look as similar to the previous version as possible while getting the
benefits of an OS upgrade. She has the apps she uses and knows; they do
exactly what she wants them to do and there's zero need for new bells
and whistles. (An ideal 'user'.)

Now the rant...

The W2K upgrade does _not_ like the ATI 3D RAGE PRO AGP display adapter.
I have no idea why not. When it boots, the logon window appears; and
approx one minute later, the system crashes hard with a
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error in AtiBt829.sys, does a memory dump
and reboots.

Shouldn't be a big deal. Search for info in various forums, search for
W2K drivers, etc. I found a few, downloaded, transferred on floppy, used
Safe Mode to work some replacements, but clearly not to the point of
making a difference. Go to microsoft.com for Hardware Compatibilty List
issues or driver updates. But...

Though there seem to be a few issues with AtiBt829.sys and W2K upgrades,
there are apparently _zero_ sets of suggestions on exactly what to do.
No info anywhere on how to actually update the drivers.

Microsoft Windows Update is the real knee-slapper in this case. Of
course, there's no way to connect to Windows Update with the PC in
question; I need to connect with a different PC in order to download
what Microsoft recommends in this case... and there does seem to be a
recommended fix, there are references on microsoft.com and links to
follow that lead to Windows Update for the fix.

[THE rant:] But when I connect with another PC -- which has a different
display adapter and therefore has no need for no stinkin' AtiBt829.sys
update --  Windows Update provides no way that I can find to get to the
recommended fix. Aaaaggghhhh. All links go to Windows Update.

Meanwhile, there's Mrs. Me tapping her foot in the background... "When
can I have my computer back?"

Fortunately, Safe Mode shows that all the e-mail archives and documents
and photos and everything else are still intact.

Sigh.

Tom Liotta

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