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From: anderson@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Problems with Windows 386
Message-ID: <2702@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
Date: 18 Nov 89 03:40:42 GMT
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Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Lines: 138


Probably most of us have heard that rudest of all
suggestions:

   RTFM!

Well, I shoulda.

Hoping to spare at least one other soul a week's grief
and worry, here are the facts (as I know 'em).

In article <2693@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>, I said:

>I'm having a problem with Windows 386.  I have a
>new machine, Club American 333C (AMI Bios) with
>a Sigma Laserview 19" monitor and an MSC PC Mouse II.

Further (very relevant) detail:

Western Digital WD7000FASST controller (SCSI, with
Seagate 267N drive).

The problem was: after installing WIN386 umpteen times (that
monitor has its own installation process which makes it all
take even longer), I would try to start it up, the disk
would spin about a second and I'd land back at the DOS
prompt.

>I called Microsoft (it's Windows 386, v. 2.11); no
>help there (nice person, but no help).  I called
>Sigma, they tell me I have the latest version of their
>stuff (the monitor is brand new).  I called Club American,
>where so far nobody has gotten back to me (maybe they're
>looking into it).

I heard from Club American today, but they had nothing
useful to suggest.

So I turned to You Out There:

>Any suggestions?

A couple folks did respond (since it's email, I won't
identify them, but I *am* very grateful to them).

>Subject: Re: Windows 386 Problems

>I have had similar problems with my 386sx.  I have a
>Precision motherboard with 2 Megs of RAM, ATI BIOS and
>ATI VGAWonder VGA card and software. I think I installed
>Windows 386 with the Compaq option, too.  However, I just
>used the VGA option in the Windows setup (ie. no special
>driver). When I type Win386 at the prompt, sometimes
>Windows comes up and sometimes I get the Microsoft Windows
>intro screen, but then when it tries to switch to the
>actual windows, it goes back to the DOS prompt.  When this
>happens, I can usually just enter "Win386" again and it
>will work this time (or at least the next).

Pretty similar situation to mine, despite the different
monitor.  He goes on:

>You may want to try using the VGA (or whatever fits your
>system) option in the setup to use the Windows driver.
>Otherwise, I'm not much help, but I would appreciate you
>forwarding any helpful responses you get to me.  Thanks!

This gave me the idea of installing for a Hercules monitor,
since Hercules emulation is built into the Sigma card and
does not require the high-resolution drivers.  If that
worked, it would look more like the drivers were the
problem.

So I did that.  Still no go, same behavior.

Then I got lucky.  I finally tuned in on the fact that the
thing dies while trying to load (the disk whirs, but not
long enough to load that large a program, and it croaks
before the initial screen (Microsoft's ad, dontcha know).

I decided to read all the pertinent documents.  Naturally, I
did it in the backwards order (Club, Windows, Laserview,
Western Digital).  Here's what fixed it (mostly, not
completely):

The disk controller software comes from Columbia Data
Products.  After the disk is set up and all that, you
load two drivers via config.sys:

   device=c:\dev\sstbio.sys
   device=c:\dev\sstdrive.sys

The first of these has to do with making the ROM information
readily available to the controller.  Come to find out it
takes options, one of them to create a 64K load buffer of
some sort *for Windows* (says it there plain as day!).

Changed my config.sys to read:

   device=c:\dev\sstbio.sys /w

rebooted, and (wondrous) it worked!

Still a bit flakey, though, because it just works *once*. If
I exit from Windows and reload, Windows loads as far as the
opening screen, then hangs and needs to cold boot to get
unhung.

I got another suggestion via email that may touch on this
question and may also help the first person who wrote.  I
haven't tried it yet (am presently at home):

>Subject: Re: Windows 386 Problems

>I had a similar problem except that the disk would
>sometimes return after 20 seconds to a minute, and

(patient fellow, eh? :-)

>sometimes return with an error message. You might try
>adding the following statement to the WIN.INI file, it
>worked for me.

>   VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF

>This switch forces windows to use the disk drivers in the
>bios instead of its own.

Thanks, I'll give that a whirl on Monday.  Just proves that
reading is good for your health.  I mean, I've been doing
this computing stuff for 34 years and I *still* can't
believe any of it works!


==Jess Anderson===Academic Computing Center=====Univ. Wisconsin-Madison=====
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