Knowledge Base

You receive the "While initializing device IOS a Windows protection error occurred" error message when you start Windows 95

Article ID: 164666

Article Last Modified on 10/7/2004

Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 95

This article was previously published under Q164666

SYMPTOMS

When you start Windows 95 you may receive the following error message:

While initializing device IOS a Windows Protection Error occurred.
You need to restart your computer.

CAUSE

You may have a Quantum Bigfoot hard disk that requires a BIOS upgrade to work properly with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 or 2.1.

RESOLUTION

Quantum Bigfoot hard disks that meet both the following criteria are confirmed by Quantum to exhibit the behavior described in this article:

Part number: P/N BFxx011-Rev03-D
A serial number ending in "S"

If you have one of these hard disks, you need to update the hard disk BIOS. You can obtain the update from your local dealer or from Quantum. To determine if your hard disk meets the criteria listed above, contact your dealer or Quantum.

MORE INFORMATION

Note that the error message does not occur if you boot to MS-DOS prior to starting Windows 95. You may also be able to boot to Safe mode after receiving the error message, shut down, and then restart Windows 95 normally without an error message. The error message occurs only in a cold boot situation.

For information about how to contact Quantum, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

60782 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, Q-Z

Additional query words: hang

Keywords: kbhardware kb3rdparty KB164666