VFAT Device Initialization Failed error

[JSarra]

   

I've had a WLI-PCI-G54 wireless adapter installed in a Dell Dimension XP machine for four years without incident.

 

Recently, I decided to install the card in a Gateway PII Win98SE machine. Following installation guidance, I receive a VFAT Device Initialization Failed error on reboot. I have verified that none of the conditions cited on the Microsoft Support site are the problem.  I have tried a variety of things, but always experience the same result. I removed the other NIC card, but it doesn't appear to make a difference. The error does not occur when you remove the G54.

 

Does anyone have a clue as to what may be going on here?

 

Thanks much!

 

John

[Colin137]

I've never seen that before... that's pretty old hardware, it may not have support for newer pci devices. See if you can update the bios and chipset drivers for the pc.

[JSarra]

   

Can you give me some guidance on how to go about doing that? The computer was about 5 years old at the time the G54 was purchased. I wouldn't think that the bios was that old at that point.

 

I was actually able to configure the card to get a connection, but once I rebooted the machine, I got the VFAT message again.

 

Thanks,

 

John

[Colin137]

You'd need to get the BIOS and chipset updates from the computer manufacturer.

[JSarra]

   I started the BIOS update process last night, but now am experiencing a problem where the machine will only boot into Safe mode. It was getting late, so I'll try to resolve the issue tonight and will report back what happens.

[rloew]

   

Your problem may be related to a problem I found with insufficient DMA Memory.

You can try the Demo of the RAM Limitation Patch on my website to see if it solves your problem.

 

www.geocities.com/rloew

[JSarra]

   

Thanks, but my computer only has 384 MB of RAM, which is the max for this machine. Your program only addresses problems with machines that have more than 512 MB of RAM, if I read your description correctly.

 

Right now, I have a bigger problem trying to figure out why the machine will only boot into Safe mode and why my drives appear to have been disabled.