Virtual PC give VFAT bluescreen

I am trying to run Virtual PC (6.0.192.0) on an XP (SP3) host and win 98 SE
guest. The installation appears to have gone OK, but when I try to run win
98, it gives a BSOD which says

"VFAT device initialisation failed, a device or resource required by VFAT is
unavailable."

I have no idea what to do with this!

It might be something basic. I note that the installation created zero
AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS, and I seem to remember that Win 98 did have at
least rudimentary ones of these. So maybe something obvious is missing.

This error is not consistent. At one point there was a different error,
namely, Win 98 couldn't find HIMEM.SYS in the \WINDOWS directory. I made an
AUTOEXEC.BAT with a PATH statement and that seemed to fix it.

Now I'm completely stuck - any advice very welcome!

REgards

Andy

It really doesn't sound like Win98 got installed correctly. It
doesn't need a config.sys or autoexec.bat, but it should be having no
problems finding things like that.

What is the path statement you put in the autoexec.bat?

--
Bob Comer



On Wed, 2 Sep 2009 08:28:38 -0700, Andrew_White
<> wrote:

>I am trying to run Virtual PC (6.0.192.0) on an XP (SP3) host and win 98 SE
>guest. The installation appears to have gone OK, but when I try to run win
>98, it gives a BSOD which says
>
>"VFAT device initialisation failed, a device or resource required by VFAT is
>unavailable."
>
>I have no idea what to do with this!
>
>It might be something basic. I note that the installation created zero
>AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS, and I seem to remember that Win 98 did have at
>least rudimentary ones of these. So maybe something obvious is missing.
>
>This error is not consistent. At one point there was a different error,
>namely, Win 98 couldn't find HIMEM.SYS in the \WINDOWS directory. I made an
>AUTOEXEC.BAT with a PATH statement and that seemed to fix it.
>
>Now I'm completely stuck - any advice very welcome!
>
>REgards
>
>Andy
>
>

On Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:00:33 -0400, Robert Comer
<bobcomer-removeme-@mindspring.com> wrote:

>It really doesn't sound like Win98 got installed correctly. It
>doesn't need a config.sys or autoexec.bat, but it should be having no
>problems finding things like that.
>
>What is the path statement you put in the autoexec.bat?

Did you (the OP) try the fixes from the MS KBs?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/139063

I'd second Bob with a corrupt install as the root of the issue.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Dear Bob, Dear Steve,

Thanks for you assistance! Steve - I followed up the link you gave. Among
other things it talks about missing lines in the config.sys, well, sure
enough there was no config.sys but fixing this did not fix the problem and it
seemed better to re-install.
Bob - the path was just "path c:;C:\windows"
Maybe another clue is that Win 98 doesn't start up automatically, you have
to type "Win". That's how I found out there is no autoexec.bat. I thought
that was just an idiosyncrasy of Virtual PC. But I now agree the install must
be corrupt.

However the install LOOKED OK so I'm not sure how to do it again so that it
is even different, let alone better.
I stabbed around in the dark a few times in setting up Virtual PC. Maybe
that left toxic debris? I can uninstall VPC, delete its files and start from
scratch. Beyond that would either of you know of any step-by-step guide to
using VPC to set up 98?

Many thanks

Andy

"Steve Jain [MVP]" wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:00:33 -0400, Robert Comer
> <bobcomer-removeme-@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >It really doesn't sound like Win98 got installed correctly. It
> >doesn't need a config.sys or autoexec.bat, but it should be having no
> >problems finding things like that.
> >
> >What is the path statement you put in the autoexec.bat?
>
> Did you (the OP) try the fixes from the MS KBs?
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/139063
>
> I'd second Bob with a corrupt install as the root of the issue.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
> http://vpc.essjae.com/
>

IT WORKS!!! - complete success.

Mark, many thanks for your link, it is excellent. I think I had previously
done just as instructed here with the exception that I had not copied the
files onto the virtual hard disk and installed from there. Maybe that made
the difference, or maybe there was some kludge in what I had done.

Many thanks to all of you for your help!

Andrew


"Mark Rae [MVP]" wrote:

> "Andrew_White" <> wrote in message
> news:92DD6E55-EE73-40B0-BA65-...
>
> > I stabbed around in the dark a few times in setting up Virtual PC.
>
> Hmm - that sounds a little strange. In my experience, Virtual PC is one of
> Microsoft's most straightforward setups...
>
>
> > I can uninstall VPC, delete its files and start from scratch.
>
> Can't hurt...
>
>
> > Beyond that would either of you know of any step-by-step guide to using
> > VPC to set up 98?
>
> http://vpc.essjae.com/VPC2007TR.pdf
>
>
> --
> Mark Rae
> ASP.NET MVP
> http://www.markrae.net
>
>