I have just reformatted my hdd and everything installed without problems until I tried to install my broadband drivers. I got the message "Hardware error 1024, please consult your program vendor." I believe it might have something to do with the internal modem which has not been functioning. While I was on dial up I used an external modem to overcome this. I also noticed when installing Win 98 that the broadband option at the top of thr list could not be selected. Although the box was unticked and not greyed out, I was unable to tick it. All the other options related to dial up so I left them blank. I have been unable to access the inernet and wonder if I still need to install the drivers for the internal modem even if it is faulty.

Any help would be appreciated

Go into device manager and find the internal modem, go to properties and put a check mark on disable in this hardware profile. Reboot.



Not sure what you mean by this. Never seen that.

How is the broadband modem connected? If its through your Lan (Ethernet) card make sure it shows in device manager. Go into network properties and look for TCP/IP and TCP/IP -> network card. They both need to be there.

Perhaps post back what is in your Network Properties.

Thank you Leurgy for that info. I am new to this forum and couldn't find my post or your reply until today. I will try what you said when the "big" computer is free and let you know.

I re-installed my broadband drivers again last night after first uninstalling them and saw the same error as soon as I plugged the modem into the USB port on the computer.

The computers are not set up on a network yet, though I might do this in the future, so I do not think the problem lies in that direction, but I will check what you suggested. I did not install the drivers for the internal modem last night and I was unable to connect with the internet. Previously, before the reformat, the internal modem drivers were installed but didn't appear to work and the broadband drivers were installed later when we moved from dial up. We still got the error message but could connect to the internet.

I am still puzzled as to why Win98SE would not allow me to check the top box (ASL which I think is a broadband or maybe cable option) when installing the internet options, (Custom install) As I didn't want dial up I left all of them blank. I wonder if this is where the problem lies?

Many thanks for your help

When you are using broadband, be it cable or DSL you are considered to be on a LAN (Local Area Network) even for a single computer. So it is important to check your Network Properties. At a minimum you need a Client (Client for Microsoft Networks), a Protocol (TCP/IP) and a Network Device bound to your Protocol (TCP/IP ->The USB Modem). Whenever you see that option then you should select that. Go to Tools>Internet options>Connections and click setup. As you go through that you would pick LAN in each case.

BTW, when you post a reply you can select email notification at the bottom and you will get an email with a link back to any threads you have going when someone posts a reply so you don't have to look for them.

Thank you Leurgy for all that information. I have looked in device manager for internal modem under "Other devices" (which has a yellow ?) so has PCI Comm. Device (which I disabled as suggested) Ethernet Controller has the third yellow ?

I do not appear to have Network Properties installed but I have looked at Internet Properties/connections/setup but I do not think this is what I need and there was no client for Microsoft Networks there. I cannot see the Protocol or Network Device either which will have been there before the reformat. Perhaps I was too clever in the custom install. I think it might be better if I reformatted the C partition again as all my files and most of my applications are on different partitions so it is not a great problem. I can then let the operating system install what is needed.

The items with a yellow ? need to have drivers installed after you load 98SE. Windows does not have the drivers natively.

Network properties are accessed through control panel. This is where you need to see the protocols and client.

If you do reinstall, when you format the drive, use the format /u command. This will remove all current settings. If you don't use the /u switch, some current settings remain.

When you run setup, pick typical rather than custom or minimal and you will have the network properties you need for DSL. Does your ISP give you a CD? If so that will set you up for DSL also.

Thank you Leurgy for all your help. I did look for Network Properties on the Control Panel but it was not there, probably because I played around with the "custom" install. It is 1.00pm Wednesday, here and hubby is once again on the "big" computer which I have messed up for him. He is happy enough as he doesn't need the internet at present. I will follow your instructions when I do the reformat of C drive tonight and choose "typical" which I should have selected and avoided all the present problems. I have an integrated motherboard with video, sound and LAN which I installed after the O.S and this will also need to be reinstalled.

BTW is the instruction "format C:/U?"

I have the CD for my ISP which has the drivers for the broadband modem. I suppose the error message, "Hardware error 1024, please contact the program vendor," relates to the broadband modem and not the computer. I contacted my ISP about this before posting here and they said it was a computer problem. They couldn't explain why the error message appeared as soon as I plugged the modem into the USB port and was not there when it was not plugged in.

We can only connect to the internet with one computer at a time. We have 2 broadband modems, (no router) and plug in the modem for whichever computer is going to connect to the internet (and unplug the other modem)

Will report back when I have done as you suggested. Once again, sincere thanks for all your help and guidance it is very much appreciated and has given me a better understanding of what is needed.

You would type "Format C: /u". The spaces are important.

Thank you for the clarification. I will do as you advise and let you know the result

BTW does format C: not clean everything off that drive including all settings? Will it affect my partitions? - I have 3, C D and E

You have been very patient with all my questions and I am grateful.

Many thanks again.

Well, yes and no. When you format a drive or delete something, Windows simply alters the info at the beginning of a file which makes it unreadable. But ever since the first Dos computers there has been a function called undelete which restores the altered information and voila its back.

When you format a drive with Windows on it , and promptly reinstall Windows, Windows will undelete two files (user.dat and system.dat) and reuse some of the information that concerns system settings and the like in order to make for a faster and less error prone installation. When you use the format /u command it supposedly does an unconditional format that does not allow for undelete.

The best way to format a hard drive is to go the hard drive manufacturers website and get the utility that they offer. These utilities also have diagnostics and sometimes data backup tools. If you press the pause button near the beginning of a boot (the screen with the Energy Star logo top left) the boot will stop and your HD name and model # is displayed there. Press the any key to continue. You can pause, any, pause, any to get to the right place.



Not at all.

Just a brief update on my 1024 hardware error. Tried to find manufacturers name on boot up - nothing specific - no name. Looked in System, only info was "generic". Not very illuminating. Phoned computer supplier, it seems they did not have this info. However they suggested the hardware error could relate to the Win 98SE being run on the desktop with a USB modem plug, (although they could not find the meaning of the error message). I believed Win 98 supported USB but they said it is not natively supported. A scanner and printer are connected to another USB plug through a hub - the modem is a direct USB connection to the computer . I did however discover the make and number of the HDD by opening up the computer. It is an IBM hard disk (their HDDs are under majority ownership of Hitachi.) Haven't reformatted yet need some spare time.

Thank for all your advice and help. I have learned a lot from all of this.

If you could give us that number it would be helpful.

The 1024 hardware error in relation to your broadband modem doesn't really mean very much with the current configuration. You wont be able to connect to the internet without Network Properties.



Other Devices might be your internal modem. PCI communication device is likely your sound card and of course Ethernet controller is your NIC(Network Interface Card).

When you reinstall Windows, you will then need to install the drivers for these devices as Windows doesn't seem to have them. If you were to download and run Belarc Advisor we can figure out what these devices are and find the corect drivers for them. It will fit on a floppy.

I believe this program may be of some assistance in the identification of installed hardware & also the links online to it's (their) manufacturers. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/everest.html
It is free.
It does reveal inner workings rather well.

Reply for Leurgy

It is an IBM Desktop (website shows it as IBM Deskstar 120GXP(07N8450)
Model No IC35l040AVVN07-0 40GB 7200 RPM ATA/IDE. There is also a P/N 07N8450.

Tried IBM's website and was referred to Hitachi at www.hgst.com. Didnt find it very illuminating as there seemed to be 2 or 3 models with similar specs.

I appreciate I will have to reformat and load the typical version to be sure that everything is there. Have just downloaded Belarc Advisor on to my laptop and copied it to floppy to try on the desktop. It is an amazing program and has checked out my laptop in great detail. I will report back probably tomorrow

Renewed thanks.

Reply for phawgg

I will take your advice on the download an post back tomorrow.
Very many thanks for your help.

For Leurgy

Just tried Belarc on the desktop. It won't run, probably because it needs a browser which of course is missing. Do I need to be online for it to work? If I am wrong on this perhaps you could let me know. I am very impressed with what Belarc has reported so far.

Many thanks

No, you don't need to be online for it to work. Your browser should be working. I just reread the thread and don't find any mention of that. You can install IE from your ISP's disk. They usually have browsers on them. You will need to look through the various folders on it though. Perhaps you could call your ISP and they will tell you how to do it.

By the way, do you have the CD that came with your computer that applies to the motherboard?

For Leurgy
Yes I do have the CD for the motherboard. It has the sound, video and Lan on it. I installed the Lan after my last reformat and then disabled it as I had been unable to connect to the internet and thought that might have been part of the problem - I don't think it was - the real problem was me trying to be too clever without really understanding the consequences. I will check the ISP's disk for IE, I am sure it will be there, but of course I uninstalled this also while trying to find where I had gone wrong before posting here. I will put this back in and have another go at getting the internal information on the desktop later this afternoon and get back to you with the result.

Renewed thanks for your help

For Leurgy
I have reformatted my C drive adding the \U as it seemed the only option and everything seemed to install correctly but with a few error messages along the way. The 1024 hardware error is now gone although I am no wiser about it. I have also run Belarc and printed a copy. Installing the motherboard with Win98 CD support, gave the following: The file 'choosur.dll on Win98SE could not be found. Setup couldn't find a file on the specified path, if the path appears below please make sure it is correct' It was looking on C drive and I tried G: drive (CD ROM drive) but no luck. I skipped this and continued. The next message was "The following error occurred 'the path was not found' (error #3) Setup could not finish opening a file on the source disk. Source file:G:/Windows\Devices\choosusr.dll. Destination file: C:/Windows\system\choosusr.dll=CAB. Reboot gave these error messages on the black DOS screen: "Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a Windows application. The Windows registry or Systen INI file refers to this device file, but the device file no longer exists. If you deleted this file on purpose try uninstalling the associated application using the uninstall or setup program. If you still want to use the application associated with this device file try reinstalling that application to replace the missing file. There are 3 of these messages followed by 3 different files - vnetsup.vxd. vredir.vxd and dfs.vxd. The next screen shows a Windows Networking error "unable to load the dynamic link library MSNP32.dll The system cannot find the specified file. Some or all of the following features are not available: "Microsoft Network" I have not changed anything this time and have kept notes on each stage of the installation. Sorry to be so long winded I hope you can help me. Thank you

Did you run the Motherboard CD after you installed Windows?

Go into device manager and tell me what you see there. I was able to pull choosusr.dll off my 98 CD so I'm suprised it cant be found. The other three would appear to have something to do with the modem or network card which is why I asked about the MB CD.

Also look in Network properties and tell me what you see in there.

Pm me with your email address and I will send those four files and also let you know where to put them.

Reply to Leurgy

Yes I installed the motherboard and the drivers for video, sound and Lan. I did not mention that I can connect to the internet on the desktop now and the original error message has gone.

Device Manager - Modem is Intel 536EP V92. (This is the internal modem which I installed after reformat. this could be disabled later if necessary.)

Other Devices: ? Epson Stylus C86 (yellow ?)
? SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (yellow ?)

Ports (Com & LPT) Communication Port COM 1
Epson Printer port LPT 1 (This was where the printer installed. I changed this to the USB hub although it is still showing)

Speed Touch USB Modem
Speed Touch 330 ADSL modem

USB Controllers: Generic USB Hub
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
(The scanner and printer are on the USB hub which is plugged into the computer.)

Network Properties
Client for Microsoft Networks
Microsoft family logon
Dial up Adapter
Speed Touch USB ADSL PPP
NDISWAN - > Speed Touch USB ADSL PPP
TCP/IP - > Dial up Adapter

Primary Network Logon
Microsoft Family Logon

The "family logon" I believe refers to the computer user I chose when reinstalling.

I hope this the information you need and that it is helpful. Very many thanks for all your help.

Leurgy

Sorry I am not sure how to pm you as requested. Any help on this would be appreciated - these boards are all new to me

Thank you

If your printer is working just ignore that yellow splat.

Just for future reference go here and in the top right click on "click here to identify your product". SiS will suggest the best drivers for your computer. You can download them and save them on one of your drives (you seem to have a few) for later use.

No need to disable the modem. The drivers from SiS will remove the yellow splat from the Ethernet card if needed in the future.

If you are happy with the way your computer is running then I would just leave it as it is. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

In response to your PM, choosusr.dll and dfs.vxd are on my Win98SE CD. The other two .vxd's are not. It is possible that your 98 CD may be scratched or need cleaning. The two .vxd files that are not on the Win98 CD are specific to your Ethernet card or modem and should be on the motherboard CD.

If you were to go to Start>Run and type in sfc you will bring up System File Checker. This is a Windows utility that looks for files that have changed or been corrupted. It also allows you to Extract files that you need from your 98 CD. If you were to click on Extract and then type in the file you are looking for, say dfs.vxd, and click Start, another box will pop up asking you where to extract from and where to extract to. In the Restore From box you would browse to the 98 CD and in the Save file in box you would browse to, in this case, C:\Windows\System.

You can run SFC periodically to look for changed or corrupted files, but it can be a confusing exercise as files are changed all the time through updates, program installations and the like.

More information on System File Checker can be found here.

I have looked on the website you suggested, it is a mine of information and I believe it will be very useful for me I will check the Win98 CD and try again to get the drivers using the system checker routine as suggested. I will also have another look for the 2 missing drivers from the motherboard if not on the CD then they may be on the website. I have not had drivers missed from the Win98 CD before so possibly cleaning will help, I hope it has no scratches!

My postings here have been a tremendous help to me and I appreciate all the advice, thank you very much.