Error Message starting Win98 (HP pavillion 6465)

[h***@hotmail.com]

From ***@hotmail.com

Has anyone seen the following error message? This is where it ends up
when I try
to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or in Safe mode.
I never see it when I boot the DOS prompt.

"While initializing device IOS:
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."

The first time I saw this msg I rebooted to the DOS prompt and looked
in
Windows\System directory. There was NO IOSUBSYS subdirectory in it!
Therefore the driver file did not load because it did not exist.
Let's check Memory. C:\> MEM => 260 MB ram(xms).
That's more than adequate for Win98.
In Windows\System I made an IOSUBSYS directory.

What I need is the file name the System is looking for.
The error message does not tell me.
Can anyone help?

[Sanity Clause]

Post by h***@hotmail.com
Has anyone seen the following error message? This is where it ends up
when I try to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or in Safe mode.
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."
What I need is the file name the System is looking for.

Not necessarily a missing file. Just something that it thinks was supposed
to load, but didn't.

(I'm no expert. I just did a quick Google search of the error message.)

Have you tried this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/149962

Go down to #3 and start from there...
"If you receive the error message when you attempt to start the computer in
Safe Mode, follow the steps listed below to restore the registry:"

See if any of that helps.

[98 Guy]

This was originally posted to alt.windows98. I'm cross-posting my
response to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion.

-------------------

Post by h***@hotmail.com
Has anyone seen the following error message? This is where it ends
up when I try to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or
in Safe mode.
I never see it when I boot the DOS prompt.
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."
The first time I saw this msg I rebooted to the DOS prompt and
looked in Windows\System directory. There was NO IOSUBSYS
subdirectory in it!
Therefore the driver file did not load because it did not exist.
In Windows\System I made an IOSUBSYS directory.
What I need is the file name the System is looking for.
The error message does not tell me.
Can anyone help?

The obvious fact is that your iosubsys directory was deleted.

If the system is still using it's original hard drive, then it would be
a very old drive and quite likely near or at the end of it's useful
life, and you are seeing the result of read errors.

The first thing I would do is boot into DOS and run scandisk, and select
yes when asked to run a full surface scan. Scandisk might find your
missing iosubsys directory.

If you have any DOS-based drive tools (like unerase.exe which I think is
part of Norton Disk Doctor) or if you have ndd.exe then I would say try
those programs and see if they can bring back your iosubsys directory.

I have 63 files in my iosubsys directory. I think some of the more
important files are built by windows during original installation, so
it's not necessarily so easy to replace the files from other sources.

[Axel Berger]

and looked in Windows\System directory.
There was NO IOSUBSYS subdirectory in it!

Quite. It's in %windir%\system\

Axel

[Ben Myers]

Post by h***@hotmail.com
Has anyone seen the following error message? This is where it ends up
when I try
to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or in Safe mode.
I never see it when I boot the DOS prompt.
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."

<snip>

Try using "Step by step confirmation" from the startup menu. Be sure to take
note of the last process loaded before the error occurs. You also might try
running scanreg from the DOS prompt to check for registry damage.

Ben

[h***@hotmail.com]

Post by Ben Myers

Has anyone seen the following error message?  This is where it ends up
when I try
to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or in Safe mode.
I never see it when I boot the DOS prompt.
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."

<snip>
Try using "Step by step confirmation" from the startup menu.  Be sure to take
note of the last process loaded before the error occurs.  You also might try
running scanreg from the DOS prompt to check for registry damage.
Ben

From ***@hotmail.com

Let me elaborate:
At the Windows Startup Menu, in these choices:
1.Normal
2.Bootlog
3.Safe Mode
4.Step-by-step
After initial, if any, every one of them
give the Windows98 screen and then the error message.
The cursor blinks on an empty line just below the msg.
It produces no more output itself and takes no input from KB.
I can turn the machine off, or reboot with ctrl+alt+del.
MS-DOS is the only system in that works.

[98 Guy]

Post by h***@hotmail.com
1.Normal
2.Bootlog
3.Safe Mode
4.Step-by-step
After initial, if any, every one of them give the Windows98
screen and then the error message. The cursor blinks on an
empty line just below the msg. It produces no more output
itself and takes no input from KB.
I can turn the machine off, or reboot with ctrl+alt+del.
MS-DOS is the only system in that works.

You admitted yourself in your first post that your
Windows\System\IOSUBSYS is missing.

You won't be able to start windows without restoring that directory.

I told you to try to run an unerase program to try to recover that
directory. Did you?

[Ben Myers]

Post by Ben Myers

Has anyone seen the following error message? This is where it ends up
when I try
to start Win98 (hp pavillion 6465) in Normal mode or in Safe mode.
I never see it when I boot the DOS prompt.
Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load.
Either a file in the .\iosubsys subdirectory is corrupt,
or the System is low on memory."

<snip>
Try using "Step by step confirmation" from the startup menu. Be sure to take
note of the last process loaded before the error occurs. You also might try
running scanreg from the DOS prompt to check for registry damage.
1.Normal
2.Bootlog
3.Safe Mode
4.Step-by-step
After initial, if any, every one of them
give the Windows98 screen and then the error message.

<snip>

The idea behind "Step by step confirmation" is to take note of the last
process loaded before the error message occurs and use that information
to try to diagnose the problem. For example, if the last process loaded was
"vmouse.vxd", then the problem could be a defective or missing mouse
driver. Please note that "Load all Windows drivers" means that startup
is about to load the Windows registry.

Ben