windows98se running like frozen molasses

[trenchfoot]

never happened to me before and i'm stumped. i did a format and partition using maxblaster on a ibm deskstar 40gig hd. the boot was normal but as soon as the windows desktop appeared on screen the hdd running light started to do a slow pulsing blink and windows hit the brakes and took about four minutes to boot after dos. everything else as far as the format and partition went fine. i've heard that win98 will sometimes install "legacy drivers?" (or something) which will make win98 bog down, but i've been using the same boot disk and full version win98se cd for at least the 10th wipe and slice on 3 different hd's so far with no probs. i did an ibm diagnostics on the hd and all tests say drive is ok. sisoft reads comparable to previous benchmarks i've done before this happened. i've gone through five partition/format cycles using a different boot disk from another 'puter and the original one along with another that i made from the first partition/format cycle on this run with no joy. anybody got any clues as to what's causing this?

 

[MTDEW]

Check the performance tab under system properties & be sure youre not running in MS-Dos Compatability mode.

 

[eeeeal]

That's a known issue with Win98
Anyways, I've just stolen the KB article link for getting out of Compatibility Mode, that is posted in another thread, with apologies to jaywallen for the wanton plagiarism

void

 

[trenchfoot]

thanks for the replies, sorry for posting back so late, your help is appreciated. it turns out that the problem is related to my latest (4.25a) via 4 in 1 drivers and plextor's 12x10x32 ide cdrw. when i remove the drive from device mgr. everything is ok. or, when i remove the via 4in1's then everythings fine. they just don't seem to like each other. i wonder if anyone else has got this problem?