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DeadDude

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Everything posted by DeadDude

  1. "all the others" in reference to drive being reported as 10.blah refers to some OLD software I had tried. Old boot CD from 95OSR2.1 Win98 *.*.2222 CD (I really need to just LOOK at it already and give you the actual label #'s- it isn't listed in any listing I can find on W98SE revision charts I can find) floppy boot disk images from bootcd.something that were put onto CD by me. Ancient redhat installer CD (4.?2. Not in front of me right now) only when those things appeared faulty did I try the W2k cd again. When the 80 got here, I first installed W2k (to test his software ona "modern" OS) to remove W2k, I booted 98SE cd and removed the partitions from the installer. If I remember correctly, I had to reboot afterwards, before files were copied.
  2. On my iPod, sorry for lack of quotes and clarity... I do not know if fdisk listed gig or Meg, very possible I misread and assumed it was gig. Reading the suggestion of percentage instead of absolute values sound *very* familiar... Like I forgot that bit from not doing this for such a long time. The HPA may have been immediately reinstated upon first boot and I didn't notice until later.... The first boot didn't show any XPRESS message, but a later boot up (after I partitioned?) had the message. Weird thing tho, as I have since checked the other machines (remember, these machines came from the same batch- all parts sans this 80, were purchased together) do NOT have the HPA. So it sounds like something I did during initial setup all those years ago 'worked around' it. I will post again and answer more questions, just need to 'reply' so I can scroll back and re-readanother post I want to respond to. This site is real hard to use on tiny handheld...!
  3. well, I removed the HPA anyways and started fresh. Interestingly, the HPA came back after a few power cycles... and I noticed the BIOS splash screen starting listing "Booting from XPRESS blah blah" I did some digging, and found the motherboard itself creates an HPA exactly as I had seen on this drive previously. There is no option to deny it happening. I looked at the existing installs today. None of them have the HPA. Very strange, but I simply gave up. I was going to try the image crap again, but decided against it. I am all ears if anyone is aware of software or method to clone this. In the meantime, I have decided to simply add the bits by hand. I was able to recover the specific files off the existing server, and found a previously forgotten TXT file with instructions. I wish I had the time to check the existing server beforehand, as I had already searched all the backup CDs and didn't find these files. (apparently, the IMAGE had the files, but the W98 QIC files did NOT.) I am also now in the process of changing the backup structure for his shop... the old method only worked because of using BOTH the image and the backups (QIC). For unknown reasons he prefers the W98 backup program. Personally I had no issue with that until now. I am thinking of a batch file utilizing RAR command-line to compress, and img burn (name?) to burn to CDR... automated.... multi-pass.... and putting the bits back in through the script... any ideas? Thank you Jaclaz and everyone else for the patience while I freaked out. To be sure, would you agree the problem (for unknown and unimportant reasons right now) is W98SE Installer CDs FDISK? Whether loaded through the install process or booted into DOS and loaded from there? I had only used the W98SE installer disk for those steps (until ya'll pointed me elsewhere). Now I *did* use the W2k CD to fdisk it at some point, but I am now of the impression that is irrelevant in the big picture. Would you agree?
  4. ??? Can you elaborate on that please? The HPA region is removed from the count? Honestly, I have no idea what I am talking about here (never heard of HPA before today). I've read a few articles earlier on it, but don't understand how 'given the HPA region' fits in. (to be clear, I'm just dumb and asking for clarification) Thanks for all your help would you agree then the most likely scenario is FDisk in the 98SE installer is not happy with this drive for some reason? But all other things should be fine so long as 98SE Fdisk don't get near this? I am going to try the image thing tomorrow.
  5. drive goemetry RPM finds gimem sec. EDIT across top of page Hard Disk 1 76,318Mbytes 9,729 cylinders x 255heads x 63 sectors Sector info (I hit F4) # type row filesystemtype startingsector #ofsectors endingsector partsize 0 MBR Master Boot Record 0 1 0 0 1 Pri Unused 1 62 62 31 2 *Pri 1 Windowws FAT-32 LBA 63 40936547 40936609 20468273 3 Pri Unused 40936610 156299374 57681382 4 UNUSED I hope the data requested is listed there, I have to run to the airport right this second. Lots more stuff happening then just this PC... If it still isn't what you are asking for, I apologize again... please tell me where to look in RPM for the data. I do not have Partition Logic. When I get back (about 2hrs) I will look for it. EDIT EDIT We passed in by each other with those last posts... Off to airport, be back in a long bit. thanks
  6. I'm sorry jclaz if I missed something you posted... The sectors reported by RPM matches the amount of sectors minus the HPA area. I've never heard of HPA before. Yes, I am in over my head looking through those things. The BIOS reports the sector values matching the WD official count. HDAT2 reports the drive is missing roughly 1.05 megs at the very beginning of the drive. Looking through that 1.05 megs, I see the FAT 12 listings and over 5,000 FILECHK files broken into chunks of roughly 100 files with 1k-2k of gibberish between them. EDIT EDIT I am installing all the 98 drivers and whatnot at this moment. Afterwards, I will use this 80G and clone it using previous posts to one of my spare older FAT32 drives and see if the result works. I am very curious about imaging now... if an image of a drive does NOT include the HPA, would that be able to cause some of these issues? I've done all these same steps for the last 15+ yrs of my life and never had anything like this occur. I've always been able to simply low level format a drive to undo any partitioning issues I may have caused... and I've never seen data left behind from a low level format.... let alone zero'ing the entire drive...! Am I just spontaneously stupid or something? Maybe I need to step back from this for a while... I swear I'll pull and Office Space on this tower if after this current install it still cannot image properly (and restore). And I apologize if I miss responding to any questions posted here. If you ask again, I will properly answer. My mind is a jumbled mess over this. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
  7. RPM reports the size WITHOUT the HPA area included. Let me see if I got Parition Logic somewhere....
  8. got 98se installed with no drivers so far. but on a whim, I decided to 'check out' the drive... jaclaz said I would try contacting WD support, as what Deaddude bought was a disk with 156,301,488 sectors (of 512 bytes each). every tool/utility I use to check out the sectors reports the drive has a total of 156,299,375 sectors. MHDD v.4.6 HDAT2 v4.5.3 While using HDAT2, I see there IS actually the correct number of sectors... but the 'missing' sectors are in HPA at the very beginning of the drive. Does anyone here know how to read the info HDAT2 displays? I see a lot of data that is nearly meaningless to me... sector 0 000-1F0 33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c fb 50 07 50 1f fc be 1b 7c bf 1b 06 50 57 b9 e5 01 f3 a4 cb be be 07 b1 04 I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see looking at the drive in HEX.... BUT... ?!I see CHK files from Scandisk?!?!?! I RAN SCANDISK AFTER THE LOW LEVEL FORMAT! And since then, I have ActiveKilldisk'd this bugger 2-3 times! I see FILE0001CHK through FILE0285CHK I also see a FAT12 table listed afterwards. I am labeleing it FAT 12 because it keeps listing FAT12...NO NAME... gibberish for 5 lines then repeats. Weird things... cuz whenever I have run scandisk on this drive, it has never reported any errors... and the first thing I do is set scandisk to NOT save chains in files. I also check the root of the drive for corruption, and I've never seen these lost chain files there. but a hex view shows them?! Did I get a refurbished drive? That came from a 4k 'home' and transplanted into 512b? yes, I know. I sound totally stupid and crazy. With the tiniest bit of info, my mind is racing through possibilities now that I'm looking through HEX eyes... been years and years, and I never was good without a cheat sheet.. and I ain't got a cheat sheet... so if y'all know this hex stuff... I'm staring at it and will leave it as is for a little bit.... very very odd. 0'd HD has bits that were never placed there...?
  9. alright, I zero'd it out. I ran WD lifeguard Used it to make partitions. Loaded RPM. RPM says Unknown IPL I zero'd it again. Ran RPM Still Unknown IPL ????!! Using it to create primary partition as I type this. After partition created, RPM formatted it. Now, RPM says "Standard IPL" Going to add 2nd partition next... and if that appears fine... I am going to try the install to this drive... NOTE: RPM **IS** user friendly. All options labeled on-screen. Lots of power at fingertips. Seems very simply to use. VERY simple. maybe toooo simple...? great find, wish I knew about it sooner!
  10. found out my cam is useless... LoL here's my attempt at copying all text data for ya to inspect. PATA / 8MB Cache WD800AAJB S/N: WCAV3E898896 MDL: WD800AAJB - 00J3A0 WWN: 50014EE1AF077CA2 DATE: 18 AUG 2011 DCM: DBRCNT2AHN DCX: 9009JES38 5VDC: 0.65A 12VDC: 0.50A R/N: 701596 Circle with arrow splitting it in half D33015 C backwards R U us E101559 KCC - REM - WDT - 1596 Fragile symbol of broken glass trashcan with 'x' over it ecs in tiny print bottom right corner of label bar code next to plug, on bottom of drive: 2061-701596-A00 19R about 5 spaces away from that is: XC 8G17 05NH 9 005060 2065 greenboard on bottom of hard drive has the following printed: TS-M-8V03C SG TOPSEARCH E96016 94V-0 in a box: 18702 in green print at edge: 2060-701596-001 REV A The bottom of the drive, the 'motherboard' appears to be lacking a LOT of components. I realize this doesn't have to mean anything at all... but this is the first drive that appears to be lacking an entire chip that I have seen. Place is labeled "J2"... so it makes me think Jumpers... but whatever... blah blah. Hope I posted the bits you were interested in!
  11. http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/New-WD15EARS-Showing-512-byte-Physical-Sectors/td-p/248170 others have reported the model # doesn't always mean it's the exact same part when it comes to WD drives. I'll see if I can get a pic of the drive to post.... otherwise, I'll try my best to copy it all down here
  12. Oh yeah, one of the FIRST things I did was use the WD life thingy to zero out the first 100 megs and last 500 megs... or reverse that... it was MUCH faster. I ain't taking another step (no 0'ing) until the 4k thing is sorted... Standing by, Capt'n! Thanks!
  13. if you take 4,096 and divide it by 512 you get 8. The drive is 80gigs. FDisk and all other partition manager software pre-2001 report is as a 10gig. After reading how a 4k HD gets mangled by 512 software and partitioning.. I have deduced the drive is in fast a 4k drive. Installing W2k or XP... the drive is properly seen and handled as an 80gig. Installing *anything older* and the drive is seen as an 80gig, but handled as a 10gig. One of the times the drive was mangled, but still booted, I tried to access various files across various partitions. The partitions 'looped' into phantoms. And media files being accessed would on occasion cause VFAT errors. So long as I only accessed the first 500ish megs on the hard drive, it all seemed okay except for cosmetics in My Computer. The first time I accessed D;\ it worked fine, but the 2nd time it said the disk wasn't formatted. In the beginning, I suspected partition damage somehow, so I got into the habit of copying over 2 gigs of mp3s and about half a gig of videos to test it with. Looking at my notes, I can safely conclude the files that 'nerfed' the drive were all beyond the initial 500megs of the drive. Sometimes the copy would 'just work', other times it would only get so far in and BSOD VFAT. another member PM'd me the post link I reposted earlier... and after reading their entire story and the WD white papers... and some basic math... I do believe the drive is using 4k clusters internally, while the OS I am attempting to use is interacting with the drive as if it uses 512b internally. A previous poster shared a link about LBA and BIOS stuff. Thank you very very much, as this was a great primer for the deducing required to reach my conclusions. The page gave me an understanding of how a drive head of 4096 size could mangle a track written in 512 size. Hard to explain that idea properly at this time... but it does explain every single thing I have seen happen, in a nice, tight little package all at once. And for the record, this IS the thing that changed in hard drives in the last 5 years.
  14. I just confirmed the drive is 'Advanced Formatted', and from what I understand that means 4k instead of 512b... does that mean I'm dead in the water? Is RPM 'advanced format' aware? It looks like I messed up the drive majorly from using utilities/partitioners/etc that aren't 4k aware....? Does any of this make sense to someone out there? I thought a low level format would place a 512b format and remove the 4k? Insert profanity here. I'm still going to sero it out with killdisk. pending answers posted, I might take a trip to the shooting range with this sucker.
  15. it took me a second to find xxcopy... at the moment, I couldn't see the forest for the trees... I have since discovered all other utilities are on my UBCD, so I figure I would avoid the extra work of loading the drivers into the 'old' hard drive (only install 98SE, no patches, no updates, no drivers), run xxcopy, swap drives, and load drivers in the 80. Do you see any possible issues with that? In about 10 minutes I'll be zero'ing the drive. got side tracked... located everything and made sure in a VM my UBCD is a good copy.
  16. POST COPIED CUZ IT'S ON FIRST PAGE AND I'M LAZY! ______ Let's do a more controlled experiment: 1) Get Active KillDisk and use it to zero-out (= write 0s) to the whole of the problem 80 GB HDD. It takes dome time to complete. _____________________________________ Okay, so I've used that utility in the past, so I guess I should boot off that and kill the HD while it is inside the tower. 2) Get the aforementioned RPM 2.44 and use it to write an standard IPL to the MBR, and to create and format exactly two partitions: the 1st, set active, should be a primary 40 GB partition and the 2nd, an extended partition with a single logical partition inside, spanning the rest of the disk. _________________________________________ Got the file... appears to be DOS compatible? cwspdmi file generally means DOS, right? So I need to create a boot CD with KillDisk and RPM? 3) Use the DOS LABEL.EXE command to give each partition a meaningful label, say, "PRIMARY" to the 1st partition and "LOGICAL" to the 2nd one. __________________________________________ So THAT'S what Label.exe is for?! I've never ever used it. Wouldn't RPM have the naming option? not splitting hairs, just trying to reduce the steps to minimal CDs burned (no floppy drive on machine!) 4) Get the free version of XXCOPY (you must get XXCOPY FREEWARE v.2.96.5 - xxfw2965.zip, which is the last version that works in 9x/ME), install it to your working machine and use XXCOPY to clone the live system to the 80 GB HDD's 1st partition. To do this you'll need to either connect it to your internal IDE controller as a slave disk or, much easier, connect it by means of a USB-to-IDE bridge cable that you can get cheaply on eBay or at your local computer shop. Suposing you decide to use the USB-to-IDE bridge, and that your 80 GB HDD gets the letters X: (1st partition) and Y: (2nd partition), and you can ensure you got it right because you know the labels of the partitons, you can clone the live system by simply issuing the command: xxcopy c:\ x:\ /clone /yy /X"c:\win386.swp" ___________________________________________ I don't have this package yet, but from what I understand.... this command line will /clone the C:\ to X:\ (which should be the FIRST partition in the 80) and EXCLUDE the swap file? What is the /yy for? EDIT- it suppresses all prompts during activity. You said this command will ONLY work on a Win9x system when the system is 'live'? Put another way, this technique specifically will only work in this manner on a Windows 95/98/98se/me system? Could/should I try using DOS USB drivers and issue the command from a true DOS commandline? I'm asking simply because the other utilities seem to be DOS-specific, and I'm beginning to think it might be advantageous to stick to these DOS tools (possibly make a custom boot CD with only these packages/drivers/specific purpose in mind?) I do have an USB to IDE bridge adapter, and I have the MaxumDecim USB package as well as a working DOS USB-Driver boot CD. To be honest, I believe I would prefer to try the DOS method first, as the USB drivers in the M.D. package sometimes results in a phantom USB2.0 controller on these boards for some reason... I understand it don't mean it's broke, but it looks bad to the client if/when he sees it. Silly me... I missed the part where you said I could install it internally... Since my DVDRW is SATA, and this board supports running SATA in IDE mode and I can have 2 true IDE channels AND the SATA in IDE mode... would it be ok to connect the suspect 80g as master to the secondary channel (solo drive on channel?) and the boot on primary master with DVDRW on IDE 3rd channel? I understand that question may seem trivial, but I also understand you more than likely know more than me on this. 5) Put the 80 GB HDD back to its machine jumpered as master and reboot the machine. ______________ to summarize, I would like to know if it should be acceptable to make a custom Boot CD with all these programs on it and place the 80G on 2nd Master IDE with origin HD on 1st Master IDE with SATA DVDRW in IDE comp. mode on IDE3? And is it safe to do all these steps from the DOS BootCD? I know I need to reboot between steps (to be honest, more than likely I will power down completely, just for good measure). I am working on getting the files suggested and building the BootCD in the meantime. I will definitely check back before taking another step. Thank you for your help! oh yeah, I contacted WD on this matter and am waiting for a response. I also read all the tech data I could find on the drive and discovered that others have reported similar issues recently, but only one person has had an issue with the same drive I have here. a thread here : http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=975157 by Rjecina appears to have similar issues to mine, but with a 2Tb hard drive. Reading it makes me wonder if I goofed up right off the bat by using the internal FDisk from the 98SE installer... and the next thing I did (boot w2k and use that to partition) made things worse... the real question at this point then, is why would using the WD low level format tool NOT remove debris from earlier attempts? I assume a low level format should completely destroy any fubar'd partition data, shouldn't it? I see that THAT is why you suggest using ActiveKillDisk, I think. Right?
  17. if I understand your method... there would never be an image to begin with...? So, I could technically take a known working hard drive (80gigs or smaller) and use THAT as my 'live' system with my USB adapter to clone it to the suspect new 80gig drive and then place the 80 into the tower and try booting it? So long as the first partition is 40gig and I can create a tester 2nd partition (to mimic the real world issues)? Because only the first 40Gig partition will matter? I may have a spare 60gig for this test and confirmation... I need to confirm a working solution before I implement it. To answer the question why imaging... it is quite simple in this scenario. We built 5 of the exact same tower. 4 are in use daily. One of the 4 is the file server. The only machine imaged is the file server. Once every few years we take one of the units down and apply the original image to it. then, we swap the freshly restored imaged tower for the existing file server. I apply the backups to the 'new' server and there is minimal actual down time for the business while the previous server is pulled for maintenance of a physical nature (torn apart, blown out, clean heatsinks, change fans, etc) since this is a machine shop of sorts. Only one machine *must* support true MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 9x, and that isn't even the file server. But these steps are done because a computer will die sitting on the shelf for too long. It sounds overly complicated and slightly convoluted, but this is honestly the best way to keep this system alive as long as possible. Some of the software requires special dongles that ONLY work in Windows 95/98. Other software is similar, but only DOS specific for the dongles. We have an as-of-yet unused full image of the dongle-laden machine. The 'server' is the only machine that has been swapped out with the spare, as it is the only machine that uses the hard drive for more than boot. Meanwhile, the dongle machine has had to be rebuilt twice because of blown power supplies (bad dusts in this area, and the 'server' in here, too) This setup requires a minimum of 4 serial ports that are mapped to very specific addresses- there are special DOS-loaded files to accomplish this. The machine(s) were built for this exact purpose- the motherboard was the only one available that supported all the necessary components and was real world tested with my own build. The dongle machine has NOT been imaged correctly yet- the only image available is possibly corrupt. I need to make a new image. Since the existing image seemed corrupt (same errors and reaction I posted in the first place about), I decided to check out my imaging software by doing the most simplest example I could think of- a basic 98 install with a 2nd partition and random files on it. Each machine on the network has a 2nd partition with the settings and files the actual user has placed on the machine. This data is also stored on the file server. This way, a single dead HD won't render any data lost. This time around, I had just backed the dongle machine up to the server with the latest files and swapped it for the spare. The spare was completely set up, and then it's hard drive failed. I had to place the original machine back in it's place while I waited for this WD drive... so in the meantime, a machine that was slated to be cleaned out and cleaned up is sitting past due in a hostile PC environment because of this no good for 98 p.o.s. hard drive. and until I can confirm a working 98 image and restore, I'm unable to remove the existing system to make a new image without being able to swap the other machine out at the same time (make image one night, restore image to swap during day, make backup at night, swap towers, restore backup same night). What is REALLY sad is no single hard drive *NEEDS* to be over 4 gigs. I haven't seen a brand new drive that small for about 10 years. I've also taken this time to attempt a virtual environment for this use, and it is of no use. The timing isn't 'true' enough to work with these applications. I'm very much interested in a Live98 DVD for use in this application... If *ONE* machine lost it's drive, the Live98 could in theory keep it operational as the 'browser' machine (no local files of any sort needed). That would render my current issues moot, as I could create this DVD and use one of the existing hard drives in this dongle machine. Sorry for the book I wrote above, but I realize the choice to image is honestly foolish... but it appears the easiest to implement when the biz owner is looking at retirement within 10 years and can't retire if he needs to find a solution by throwing money at inferior possibilities. ! thanks for your help! I'll try the killdisk stuff and get back! g'nite!
  18. All drives tested are WD brand. "old" drive is 40, new one 80. as far as I can tell, BOTH drives have otherwise identical stats. The machine has 256megs of ram. Yes. DOS is great. FDisk is only real issue. Even then, Windows is where all the phantoms lie. DOS doesn't report extra drives, BUT it does remove the 3rd partition and all utilities to view the drive return funky results and occasionally lock it up real good. And I've tried various imaging schemes... bit by bit, only what is used on the HD, only the specific partition.... heck, I've even tried ONLY a single 8G partition and the rest empty. As soon as I restore the partition to the 'new' drive, it CREATES phantom drives! Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Everything statistically looks 100% compatible... everything appears to work.... but doesn't. Sorry I took so long to reply this time, I was reading the link posted about BIOS and whatnot and reading some other things to try to sort it out. All I came up with is the same thing I said earlier: Maybe the SATA controller being enabled is somehow causing this issue? I've also managed to boot off a USB stick with 98 on it yesterday on this machine. It saw the hard drive, BUT NO PHANTOM DRIVES?!?!?! Reboot without USB stick (using HD win98) and phantom drives returned. I really think they changed something in the controller chip INSIDE the hard drive, and they ain't telling no body. I am going to search for the IDE standards white paper and cross reference WD controller chips... (wrong terms, but close enough) Thanks for your help! I'll try anything out at least once if y'all think it could help.
  19. to be honest, images are just easier to make and deploy compared to loading up the first version of the softwares and updating/upgrading/patching and the software company is now defunct. I tried part of your advice. I removed one of the hard drives from my working exact same tower clone and it runs flawlessly in the machine. I did another image from that drive and restored it onto the new drive and it is all screwed up still. I have previously tried other image software solely on the new drive with the same results. I have tried everything I can think of... and it all points to this one drive not being DOS/Windows9x compatible. Weird thing, it seems to 'just run' if I ignore all the warnings and screwed up space reported. BUT. As soon as I try to copy a partition onto it.... same results. all I can think of is there is some sort of problem with the drive's firmware compared to the BIOS of the motherboard. And for some reason, starting with W2k, there's some over-ride taking place. Thank you for telling me I am over-complicating it!! I've been banging my head on this for a WHOLE WEEK! Some 3 day weekend... I would try OnTrack or something similar if not for the fact I know it will render images useless since no other machine/HD has this issue. EDIT EDIT I am already using an original legit 98SE CD. I actually have 4 different copies (all report standard 98SE except one, whose label says 98Second Edition, but the revision is higher than the standard 4.10.2222A copy I got this copy from a M$ conference in 1999 as a door prize)
  20. Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-8I865GME-775-RH LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard Original Hard drive HD 40G|WD 7K 2M ATA100 WD400BB New Hard drive Western Digital Caviar SE WD800AAJB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive The old drive did not require any sort of special software to make it work. Plugged it in, did same steps I listed in first post, and no problems whatsoever. Thanks for looking into this with me everyone! Really surprised how fast I got responses! P.S. BIOS has never been upgraded/updated or modified in any way. P.P.S. I have the exact same computer (built 4 at the time and kept one for myself) and it currently has a 80Gig WD drive and W98SE; once again, no special steps... plug 'n pray and it plays. This drive *IS* partitioned using Partition Magic boot CD. Machine has been modified since then and hold 98, w2k, XP, and a few Ubuntu/linux installs. Also have added more drives. NEVER USED SATA PORTS ON MY OWN MACHINE. P.P.P.S. BIOS on all machines has always been set to AUTO in the field where you could choose LBA. P.P.P.P.S. Drive works flawlessly on exact same machine with a newer OS instead of 98 used. Even my LiveXP sees it all properly. EDIT EDIT I wonder if the SATA controller itself is screwing all this up? I gotta see if I can pull my IDE burner outta my own tower to throw in this tower and see if that clears it up. I really don't know why it could help, but something in the back of my head says it may be an issue with SATA translating to IDE... the BIOS says there is a total of 4 IDE channels if/when I tell the SATA to run in IDE mode... got some reading to do... but if anyone thinks this might hold some weight, please tell me before I go ripping through my storage unit like a bat outta you know where.
  21. I have created a different thread with my problems detailed, but I am posting here because you all seem to be the ones to ask about it. I got a brand new 80Gig IDE drive. Booted 98SE CD, and it reports the drive is only 10gigs. I can partition it into (3) 8gig partitions just fine using FDisk in the 98SE installer. FDisk still reports 10gigs available unallocated. Blew out partitions using w2k cd. Made new ones. No issues. Booted 98SE CD. Sizes misreported still in internal FDISK screen. Went ahead and installed anyway. Made image. Restored image. Phantom drives every where. Extending past Z:\ according to error box. 1st part C: 2nd & 3rd in extended area. 2nd & 3rd have logical volumes. 3rd partition disappeared after restore. 2nd partition repeats. Restore program complained about FAT16 partition with FAT32 FAT. Told it use the FAT32 copy. Phantom drives. Tried again, told it use FAT16 copy, partition was 2gigs and Win98 refused to boot. VFAT errors and whatnot. How can I used this new 80G HD with 98se? Am I forgetting something? Or did LBA change in the last 5 years, and this 9yr old board ain't got the patch or something? I am in waaaaay over my head, as I don't know anything about hex digits in partitions. It has been almost 10 yrs since I did a fresh 98SE install on a real computer. Sorry if I hijacked this thread, but as I said, ya'll seem to be the ones to ask.
  22. I, for one, still have a need for a fully patched and fully upgraded through non-MS ways install of 98SE. It would be groovy to have full internet support (circa 2010, not circa 2001), but not really needed. It would be awesome to have the KernelEx thingie on it, too. Anti-virus is totally un-needed, unless circa 2010 internet is possible (Flash, proper Java) Networking components MUST work. Ability to jack in a Vista/7 laptop on the network without issues would be the best thing since sliced bread for me. Ability to utilize more than a gig of ram... full color and resolution support (wasn't there a Universal VESA driver at some point? don't newer GFX cards still support VESA?), USB support (Maximus Decim?), etc. I have machines used in production environments that require true DOS and Windows 9x support. Don't say "Upgrade", cuz that ain't an option unless you got a couple hundred thousand dollars to donate. Just ran into the first problem in the last 10 years... hard drive failed. New drive is 80gigs... made a thread about my issues... look for it near the top of this forum. If someone could provide COMPLETE instructions as well as WORKING LINKS to all files (MDGX site is great, but no real tutorials for each package) I would be more than happy to bundle everything. I've tried to create my own Live CDs... but they all fail when 'detecting hardware'. Followed guides on this site using WinBuilder, still flops. Keep 98 alive no matter what. Last great OS you can completely utterly control. And, Yes. I am a control freak.
  23. Friend has biz that requires ancient 9x only and DOS only software that is used DAILY. All files/exes reside on a server, and the clients currently have their own hard drives with 98SE installed, using network to load everything else off server. I recently discovered that a brand new WD hard drive (80gigs-smallest I could find) does NOT support 98. At first, I was like, yeah right. It's a dumb drive. I'll just partition it and get going.... NOPE. I've re-partitioned the drive using the built-in 98 installer. No go. It reports the drive is 10gigs. But then it proceeded to allow me to create a primary partition of just under 8Gigs and a second partition the same size. And it reports there's still 10Gigs free to make more partitions. Thought it might be old version of FDisk, so I tried w2k. Tried using a W2k CD. It partitions and then I pop in 98SE and format from there- installs fine. but then when I try to image the 98 install, the restored image has repeats of the 2nd partition all the way past drive Z: ! I realize the BIOS must support the HD. It does. I realize that 98SE may only 'see' 8gig HDs. So all my partitions are 8gig (actually more like 7944kb so it won't reach the barrier). NO MORE THAN 2 PARTITIONS ON DRIVE- primary and extended with 1 logical I require at least 2 partitions for use. C: and D: (D: is local backup storage) The machine itself is from around 2005. I have successfully loaded W2k, XP, Vista, and 7 on the new drive one at a time (no dual boot weirdness, just did this to test HD). Only thing I can think is narfing it is the fact that the machine has a SATA DVDRW that is configured in the BIOS to read as 2ND IDE Channel (real 2nd channel has nothing connected- tried with 2nd IDE disabled, enabled, no SATA attached, ONLY SATA attached) BUT. I have also tried loading the files onto the 2nd partition and installing from there. Problem isn't actually installing, more like I can't backup the resulting install into a usable form. At some point in my testing, the drive actually claimed to be bad. I ran the WD Tools and selected an option that claimed if the drive passed it is certified 'new' (can't remember actual option off hand). Left that running all day and overnight. No errors reported. Tried again, same result. So I loaded up the WD tools and low level formatted it. Tried to partition using UBCD. Partitioned fine. Installed 98SE again. Added 3rd partition at some point with 98cabs in it. Imaged. Restored. 3rd drive gone completely. 2nd drive cloned across drive letter extending past Z: (Windows 98 reported error on reboot). Windows loaded fine otherwise, but when I saved a 100 meg avi file and played it, computer locked up hard hard. Reboot, try playing again, BSOD can't read FAT. Reboot. Try again. VFAT ERROR BSOD. Loaded up w2k cd. Killed all partitions. reboot. popped 98SE in again. Installer said "partition me" so I said 'sure'. Go ahead and use all the **** drive. Size reported at 10gigs still. 98 installed. Load it up, it reports 10gigs FREE even though 200megs or so used. Loaded avi file again. Same errors and results as before. I tried loading MP3s to the drive. Some play, most won't. When one won't play, same errors as before. So I concluded this drive must no be compatible with Windows 98. I've even tried a 1.5gig partition. Same results ever time. I sure hope someone out there can help me with this.... and I absolutely hope I simply forgot something from the 98 days.... I cannot believe a standard IDE ATA100 drive would not support 98. BUT w2k and everything newer seems fine on it. Oh yeah, and the image software reports that the partition table is in FAT16 while the data is stored in a FAT32 form. Asked wich copy to use. Tried each one out one at a time and still same results every time. I gotta be forgetting something here, right? please help
  24. thanks for the help and tips!! ::gonna get back to uber-vm usage now::
  25. Methinks it was a dodgy motherboard... awesome. er... well, awesome to have such a large consensus on that particular bandwagon... I had since stopped using my beloved VMs for everything... but since y'all are so sure (and I just figured it was 'open-and-shut'), I believe ya. I won't be fearful of 'over doing it' with the VMs... I just bought a temp sensor with lcd panel... it is in F, not C... oh well, at least it takes accurate readings... (found out most MoBo sensors have an unknown temp offset) (I'm one of those weirdos that likes to run something in something else... over and over again... Vm in VM in VM in VM running an Amiga 500 emu that is running another emu... thought maybe that was *bad*, but you say hardware issue... better news)
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