Home Page Forums MAME MAME Windows 95 on ct486 machine doesn't boot

Hello, I've installed Windows 95 on ct486 machine for network testing purposes but am unable to complete my installation.

After removing the -flop1 option and rebooting the machine, Windows 95 shows the "preparing your first Windows execution" for a few seconds and then freezes.

Rebooting the machine again Windows can boot in safe mode and show the desktop, no conflicts in Control Panel, but it shows the message "reboot in normal mode to complete the installation".

Rebooting in normal mode it shows the Windows logo for a few seconds and then freezes.

I've used a "standard" 500 mb hard disk, created and formatted using the "DOS 7.1 boot disk" (https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=86866#Post86866). I haven't specified any video card.

Which is my mistake?

Many thanks.

I just finished installing Windows 95 4.00.950 B from floppies and it runs perfectly... The only modifcations to the CT486 machine i have done are 8MB of RAM and a CD-ROM drive... this is my command line

mame ct486 -hard1 hd\HD504MB_pruebas.chd -board3:ide:ide:1 cdrom -ramsize 8M

the HD was created with chdman, using the following configuration: 1024 Cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 512 byte sectors

Glad you figured it out, I usually set -ramsize 64M

(cannot recognize the RAM option 128M (valid options are 4M,1M,2M,8M,16M,32M,64M).
Setting value to default 4M

¡Muchas gracias!

The problems were the RAM size and the disk configuration: I've reduced the -ramsize option from 64M to 32M (I've got an old real 486DX2 PC with 32 Mb RAM) and set the disk configuration you stated: 1024 cyl + 16 h + 63 sect and could complete my installation.

To allow Win95 (my version is just "4.00.950") to boot without freezing I've had to remove the "-isa ne2000" as well; at present I get an error message but I can reach the Windows desktop. I'll check later if the NIC works.

Unfortunately I have to set the disk configuration every time I start the machine, since the BIOS shows a "cmos size mismatch" at boot and states 4161 cylinders instead of 1024, maybe because I haven't reinstalled everything from scratch.

Last note: creating a 500 Mb hard disk via chdman its output is 2048 cyl, 16 h, 32 sect. Such data didn't work to correct my installation, maybe they can get saved reinstalling everything.

Many thanks again, bye!

UPDATE:

Even creating a new hard disk, the "save to CMOS and exit" option in the ct486 BIOS has no effect: the data don't get saved.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Is your nvram path valid and does it point to a location you can write to?

So, this is the command I issue:

mame ct486 -hard w95_512.chd -rp /home/web/mameh/ -ramsize 32M


The stated dir is mine so I can do everything into it.

In particular, the geometry data don't get saved, while the floppy drive and the boot sequence do.

Right, I mean the "nvram_directory" value in your mame.ini.

This is the nvram path in /etc/mame.ini:

nvram_directory $HOME/.mame/nvram/

that doesn't exist...


Doesn't mame create it automatically?

Ok, I have created manually that dir, but it remains empty.

Instead, a nvram dir gets created in the current directory every time I start mame; into it there is a subdir ct486 containing a cs4031_rtc file.

So, data get written somewhere but not recovered at the next boot.

How can I fix that? Thank you so much.