system
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Stone, when you installed M.E., did you delete “non dos partitions” ?
I’m assuming you are using the original hd that came with the machine.
If you don’t get a workaround for the Avast install, using a win98 start-up floppy run fdisk and delete all dos and non dos partitions to use the full capacity of the hd. I realise that this might mean a complete re-install and might break some functionality of the motherboard (onboard sound and video for example) but I might be able to help you with that.
This programme (and thanks to Eddy here for this, not my suggestion)
http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=1
might help identify the mainboard and various other cards etc.
If it is a problem with firmware, I’m sure we can resolve it eventually. Don’t give up on these forums just yet, someone is sure to come up with an idea before taking the long process of a re-install and new drivers etc.