virtualbox.org

AFTER INSTALLING WIN 98SE INTO VB , I GET THIS MESSAGE (INSUFFIENT MEMORY TO INITIALIZE WINDOWS) WHEN I TRY TO START WINDOWS. I SET UP 2GB OF RAM FOR VB WITH 2GB HARD DRIVE. MY HOSTCOMPUTER HAS VISTA HOME PREM 64 BIT WITH 8GB OF MEMORY AND A 640GB HARD DRIVE. I TRIED SAFE MODE AND WINDOWS MINIMUM INSTALL WITH SAME RESULTS. ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED!

Try with less memory say 1GB instead.

Anyone have any suggestions when Windows 98 simply locks up during a normal or safe mode boot? As far as I can tell, the OS installation completed successfully, however the Windows 98 logo with the "Preparing to start windows for the first time" message froze up, and upon reboot, will continue to freeze up during the logo screen.

I've never been able to get it to boot to the desktop; anyone have any thoughts?

Set basemem to 128mb, try again.

Hmmm, tried with 128 and setup went through fine, but it still keeps locking up during the initial startup phase...

Any other recommendations?

Win 98SE does not require that much memory to install or work. Suggested settings below:

I would start over and use these settings

Everything off except ACPI. Just leave the default settings alone.
Do not setup any USB,
Select the windows sound
Network to NAT and PCNet-Fast III
The Memory will start out at 64 meg (leave it there for now) You can increase it later.
Do not share folders yet either.
When it tells you to reboot after the install you must tell it to shut down before it boots and then go into the settings and unmount the CD.
boot the VM and it should work.

Same results' shutdown after setup finished and restarted and windows still froze up. i'm booting off an iso file from my host pc-would it make a difference if i burned that to a disc and ran install again?

Check your config.sys/autoexec.bat for stuff that might conflict, emm386 values, cdrom driver, aspi drivers, etc...... did you read the win95/98 sticky?

The sticky doesn't provide enough details; and the user didn't get even as far as being able to change config.sys/autoexec.bat... ok, I checked my logs and perhaps they are outdated given the number of VB revs but the problem seems to be same so here we go:

- if you plan to set up VMs in 98SE more often you might copy the setup files to a separate virtual HDD, this saves you some (potential by now ?) problems with the CDROM during setup (using an iso or a physical CD should NOT make any difference)
- memory must be low indeed, 32 or 64 M is fine
- at display freeze (that was also my main hurdle) I have logged two options:
1 - kill the VM and reset it
2 - kil the VM and restart it under VBoxSDL
Typically this made me loose the CD driver so I began to copy the setup files to a virtual HDD which you can reuse over and over again

EDIT: see Tuxrug's comment in the win9x sticky

With dos/w95/98 its always issues like himem.sys(wrong version) and emm386(not using noems), cdrom.sys drivers that barf, devicehigh/loadhigh parts that don't like being high(pun intended), too much basemem, etc...... I'd could write a book about it

I had the start-up freezing problem at first too, but then I disabled the VT-x/AMD-V option, and everything started working fine again... The setup continued right where I left off