Unable to control A20 line / XMS Driver not installed / HIMEM.sys is missing on Dell Latitude E6420

[Zackyist]

Checklist

• I have searched the issue tracker and was unable to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing.
• (If the issue occurs AFTER or DURING Windows 9x's hardware detection phase) I have tried to install with Skip legacy non-PnP hardware detection phase to [OFF] and the issue still occurs.
• (If the issue occurs AFTER or DURING Windows 9x's hardware detection phase) I have tried to install with the integrated driver library set to [OFF] and the issue still occurs.
• I understand that support is provided voluntarily for free, and that the author is not Microsoft and can/will probably not fix bugs in the operating system code itself. I also understand that it is impossible to support every single hardware combination out there.

What happened?

I tried to install Windows 98 on a Dell Latitude E6420 laptop from an USB stick using the full USB image. I tried all three OS images, including Win ME, NO ATA DMA mode, as well as most install options (leaving only the experimental ones always off and the Write MBR, Format and Write new boot always on).

All of the these end up with Win98 showing its splash screen and the error:

ERROR: Unable to control A20 line!
       XMS Driver not installed.
       
HIMEM.SYS is missing.

For Windows ME the error is different (and only shows it on the first boot, afterwards it gets stuck in a black screen with a blinking underline cursor when trying to boot). The splash screen shows for a while and then I get a BSOD with the error:

Cannot find or load required file KRNL386.EXE. Access to the file is denied.

System halted.

Linux dmesg output

No response

Target Motherboard, CPU and RAM

Standard Latitude 6420 mobo, Intel i5-2520M, 4 GB DDR3-SDRAM

Target GPU and Sound card(s)

Integrated Intel® HD Graphics 3000, no sound card

Target Storage Devices

128 GB Patriot Memory Burst SATA III SSD

Boot method

USB key

Reference image

Windows 98 SE Micro

Additional context

I tried installing on a 20 GB partition after formatting the disk to MBR. There is nothing else on the disk.

[oerg866]

Right, I had a fix for this from @LordOfMice but I forgot to put it in the image... oops!

Will fix for next release

[Zackyist]

No worries, I'll just start by installing XP on the laptop then! Great to hear it's getting fixed, I'll be waiting for the next release. :)

[LordOfMice]

I had a fix for this from LordOfMice

Pay attention on the second part of problem, there is no fix from me for ME :)

P.S. http://sweetlow.orgfree.com/download/a20alwon_me.zip
Simplest patch for ME, test version. If I correctly understand that ME uses exactly this version of HIMEM.SYS during boot, of course.

[ExistingPerson1321]

Right, I had a fix for this from @LordOfMice but I forgot to put it in the image... oops!

Will fix for next release

Hey, sorry to bother you, but could you please link a download or short tutorial to fix the missing himem.sys error?
I understand that you are releasing it with the next release, but I just want to try it out.
If you don't have time it's fine!
Thanks

[LordOfMice]

for Windows 98 SE
#124 (comment)

[ExistingPerson1321]

for Windows 98 SE #124 (comment)

Do I simply move the himem.sys to c:\windows or do I also have to do the config.sys thing?
I'm not the best at this stuff, but could you please post the commands I should do to even copy the files through command prompt or edit a sys file as if it were a text document?
Sorry, just trying to understand
Thanks for the himem file though!

[LordOfMice]

I simply move the himem.sys to c:\windows

Copy new HIMEM.SYS to %windir% is enough.

[ExistingPerson1321]

I simply move the himem.sys to c:\windows

Copy new HIMEM.SYS to %windir% is enough.

Sorry to bother you again, but the link seems invalid, I had to use a wayback machine archive to download the files.
For anybody else that comes across here, I used this wayback save https://web.archive.org/web/20260401184217/http://sweetlow.orgfree.com/download/a20alwon.zip

[LordOfMice]

the link seems invalid

Your browser is invalid, not the link.
#124 (comment)

[Zackyist]

I finally had time to try the HIMEM replacement for Win98 and it worked, the system now boots without problems! Unfortunately I can't fit another primary partition on the disk at the moment so I can't check if the ME file fixes my second problem.

By the way, the same HTTP -> HTTPS redirect for the zip file links also happens with Firefox, not just Chromium-based browsers. But pasting the link directly is a workaround for that one as well.