ERROR

An I/O subsystem driver failed to load - Reboot only in Safe Mode

Last Published: April 25, 2020

Solution or Workaround

Summary

ArcView 3.1 and Crystal Reports installed successfully. After rebooting the system this error occurs:

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.

Upon rebooting, a 'General Protection Error' message may also occur.

After this, the computer will only reboot in Safe Mode.

Cause

According to Microsoft, this problem may occur when all memory below 1MB is allocated prior to initialization of Ios.vxd. Ios.vxd needs memory below 1MB for use as real-mode buffers, if it can't do so, it fails to load, and Windows 95 fails to boot.

Solution
Edit the system.ini file as follows:

1. Find the area marked

[VCACHE]  

2. Beneath it, type this line:

MaxFileCache=6144  

You should now be able to reboot normally.

Article ID:000001509

Software:
  • Legacy Products

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