Monroe

OK, you make good points but at present I am still opting for DVD storage. Having just changed my system to XP, I guess I can look into larger type hard drives. I can store the DVDs easier for now ... a good quality DVD may have a storage life of 80 to 100 yrs or so I have read ... obviously nobody has been around yet for that length of time to see if their DVDs are still OK. Thanks for the input ... I was also wondering if the floods in Thailand has something to do with the upward trend of blank DVD prices or maybe oil prices dealing with the plastic. thanks ...

Multibooter (or anyone also) ... have a question related to this discussion and long term storage. What brand DVDs do you use? I have also noticed the jump in blank DVD prices since last year. I was waiting for Amazon to drop their price on Verbatim 97459 4.7 GB DVD+R (100 Disc Spindle) ... some discussion there that Verbatim DVDs made in Thailand are superior to the ones made in India. Over the last month the price on these DVDs dropped below $22 but not for long ... usually less than a day or just for a few hours. They are usually priced at around $28 ... they also make a lower grade/priced brand I believe but the good ones are the ones that have Azo ("Advanced Azo" recording dye) on the outside wrapper. "Verbatim DVD+R offer 4.7GB or 120 Minutes of write-once storage capacity, superior recording quality, and compatibility with 1X to 16X DVD+R writers. Verbatim's 16X cutting edge technology allows users to record a complete 4.7GB/120Min disc in approximately 5 minutes. Recognized as the choice for professional users, Verbatim DVD+R offers the optimal "Advanced Azo" recording dye, which provides the highest level of read/write performance, reliability, and archival life." I ordered these (Verbatim 97459 4.7 GB) in Apr/May .... the DVDs with that number were made in Thailand. I guess that Taiyo Yuden DVDs are maybe the best but these seem to be close for long lasting storage DVDs. This was posted at Amazon about Verbatum DVDs made in India over Thailand or Asia .... "I've used to have good success over the years with Verbatim quality and they used to be worth the extra few dollars. Sadly this is no longer the case, you may need to look elsewhere, I am disappointed. This purchase from November 2010 shows the discs are now made in India, so even though they have the same product code as the ones that used to be made in Singapore or Taiwan, they are not up to the same standard." ... as I said earlier, the Verbatim 97459 DVDs that I got were made in Thailand. I had no idea when I placed the order where they were made until I received the shipment, first thing I looked for when I opened the box ... the "Azo" label and place of manufacture. Placed a second order after the price dropped again for part of a day a week or two later (below $22). Today, now they are $27.84 for 100 blanks. Anybody with DVD info or experience with a good brand, I'd like to hear what you recommend or use. I have 400 of these Verbatum DVDs since the price on blank DVDs has jumped since last year. thanks ...

Multibooter ... thanks for the USB info and mentioning Beyond Compare ... found some info on it, will spend more time later today checking it out. "1) Win98SE Explorer has serious issues. To copy, move or delete files I always use Beyond Compare, never Windows Explorer. 2) I always do file copying, moving or deleting under WinXP, very rarely under Win98. 3) Under WinXP I rarely use Windows Explorer, nearly always Beyond Compare for file operations 4) After copying files with Beyond Compare, I always make a binary compare with Beyond Compare of the source and the target." .... thanks for the tips ... also, shortly after I bought the Seagate drive I started reading about serious problems with Seagate USB hard drives ... making clicking noises and just complete failure. So far, since I just discovered that I am able to transfer files much faster with it (March) I have been using it quite a bit and so far all is well ... I have gone over the "half way" mark of having around 300 GB of stored info and all is OK so far. I remember people saying that problems started showing up after going past the 200 or 300 GB mark ... loud clicking noises, general failure and a few other things. Maybe these problems were more with the larger size drives, don't remember much talk about the 500 GB size. I wanted a USB drive with a power adapter and not USB power, Office Max had them on sale 3 yrs ago so I bought this Seagate model. I converted it from NTFS to FAT32 to use with Windows 98SE but it pretty much just sat around in the box till March when I discovered how much faster my files were transferring over using my 4 and 8 GB flash drives. So I have been using it fairly heavy and as I said, all seems to be OK ... maybe I got lucky on this particular model or shipment ... time will tell I guess ... most of the stuff I have on it now will be burned to DVDs shortly when I get the XP setup completely finished on all three IBM notebooks. Want to get all that out of the way and have a final Ghost backup on everything. dencorso ... appreciate the USB 3 info ... 3 to 7 seconds ... that's fast, so I guess I am just getting USB 2.0 transfer speeds but I am very happy with 25 seconds after having 4 minute transfers with the flash drives. You are the USB guy, one of your many "hats" you wear ... I will wait to hear more about this USB 3.0 from you, rloew, jaclaz or anyone with new information but I sure have no complaints with 25 seconds or just having faster transfer speeds. thanks ...

Well, I have a new observation to report about USB 2.0 speeds and that Seagate 500 GB USB drive. From my other post, I am in the process of updating my notebooks from Windows 98SE to Windows XP Pro. Earlier I made the discovery that I was getting fairly fast USB 2 transfer speeds with Windows 98SE and the Seagate USB hard drive. I was able to transfer a 700 MB file in about 45 seconds or so ... just today, using this Seagate drive with my newly installed XP setup, the same files are transferring at 25 seconds ... I am impressed at this faster transfer rate. I don't have access to Windows 7 ... I have to ask, does this transfer speed sound right, are others also seeing a fast transfer rate at times for files with a USB hard drive? dencorso, we aren't talking USB 3 type speeds with this one drive, are we? ... you have talked about USB 3 in an earlier post. What would be your or anyone's guess at how fast a 700 MB file would possibly transfer with USB 3? ... I transferred several different 700 MB files and the little box was always showing 25 seconds ...it was fast. thanks ...

Hi Multibooter ... "Cloning a HDD is so much faster than re-installing operating systems and applications on several computers. Also, to support 3 laptops with different configurations and installations is already quite some task. The comment at the bottom of posting #11 http://www.msfn.org/...post__p__997784 might be interesting. With your approach you may have to activate for example your virus scanning software several times." Yes, I have been working mainly on one computer ... getting everything just right and then doing a Ghost backup. I put that backup on the other two notebooks, since they are so close, it's like 99% OK but I have a driver or two to add ... like the T41 has a different modem than what the T42's have but that can be fixed in less than a minute. Actually all three notebooks have been "ready" for WiFi testing a few days ago but I didn't want to take three computers all at once to a WiFi spot ... just taking one at a time to test everything completely and then I do a new Ghost backup on each computer. I have been updating some of my software programs that were "Last Versions for Windows 98SE" but still have "newer" versions for Windows XP. Yes, I am pleased with the "transfer" from Windows 98SE to XP and then hope to look into a dual system or virtual system soon. Once I get the "final" Ghost backups made, then I will experiment. Thanks for your help ... I don't have a Router setup at present, that's another project for later. ...

Like where this post has gone over the last few days ... thought I would just make my announcement and fade away but a pretty "lively" discussion has been going on. It's just fine with me, learning more and getting some new ideas for Windows 98SE and XP ... maybe others are also. If the Moderators are OK with everything, so am I. Now to why I am posting .... Update: I fired up the T41 with XP complete ... this notebook has no internal WiFi adapter so I use a newer Netgear card with it. When I had Windows 98SE installed and the Netgear 98SE drivers the card would usually take 2 to 3 minutes to get connected and then sometimes the whole process would freeze up and I'd have to reboot, so it could be another 5 minutes (8 +/- minutes total) till I actually was online. Having XP installed with the Netgear drivers and I am up an running (online) in less that 30 seconds. It's totally amazing the difference in speed between 98SE and XP and no glitches. One more notebook to go, sometime next week ... the second T42 which is very much like the other T42 except this once is a little faster ... 1.6Ghz over 1.5Ghz but I don't foresee any problems since the drivers and setup are the same, so I probably won't post anything more on the subject. thanks ...

Just a quick update ... I took my 1st T42 notebook to the WiFi spot and it connected fast and perfect. This has XP now completely installed and many fixes ... It shows me all the available networks in the area. With Windows 98SE and the IBM drivers it never did this ... if it connected, I only saw numbers (no names) and really had no idea where I was connected. Working great at this moment so I guess XP will be staying on my notebooks ... those drivers were supposed to also work with 98SE or there were a few others just for Windows 98SE only but the WiFi just didn't work or look right. Well, this is a really huge development for me ... end of frustration, I hope unless XP has a surprise down the road. ...

jaclaz ... I knew you would show up with your "flame thrower"! Always nice for your input ... I have seen your input in several other forums when I'm searching on Google. I happen to also like the Find Files/Search on Windows 98SE, not crazy about the XP model but I found this web site with registry fixes, there are so many I have not been able to look at every one ... however they have a simple registry fix called : #49. Old Style Search Engine On or Off ... it takes the cartoon character away. These are all registry fixes for XP. Will take a chance and put the link here since Windows 98SE and XP and dual boots are being discussed. I found about five items so far but there are so many, I just haven't had time to check them all. There are two columns of fixes. Looks like over 800 registry fixes. Registry Edits for Windows XP http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm Multibooter ... yes I have all the manuals, got them right away when I bought the notebooks and I have downloaded videos to save from YouTube ... several on taking a Thinkpad model (my models T41 - T42) apart to replace a keyboard and such. thanks,

dencorso: "Download and save Virtual PC 2004 SP1, while it's still available. It's one of the real pearls MS offers for free!" ... thanks again, just finished downloading Virtual PC. Can't wait to try that out.

Multibooter ... man thanks a lot for taking the time to type all that information in your post. Some very interesting stuff you posted plus many ideas on using the two OSs together. As soon as I can get this WiFI thing resolved and get some more XP settings in place, I will take one of those notebooks and start to experiment. All three hard drives have been changed to NTFS ... so I can then partition maybe 20 or 40 GB back to FAT32 to put Windows 98SE back on. The security thing with XP does worry me a little, I did feel more secure with Windows 98SE. I am using the same older ZoneAlarm version on XP that I was using with Windows 98SE. Just a simple firewall and no bloat that came in later versions. I have a simple question for anyone using Ghost to do an image backup ... when you have 2 different partitions on a hard drive ... one NTFS and one FAT32 does Ghost just copy the whole hard drive image on one DVD or do you have to run Ghost separate for each partition (NTFS and FAT32)? Lots of things to figure out on this dual boot setup. Again, I appreciate and probably others do also, all the information in your post. I would never have posted this "farewell" message if the WiFi worked on these Thinkpads. I can live with some shortcomings from Windows 98SE but I really want that WiFi to work most of the time. There is one "radical"solution that someone posted on another forum ... open up the notebook and permanently disable or remove the WiFI adapter and use my Netgear card. I really like the Netgear WiFi card better anyway ... seems to pick up more stronger signals since it is on the outside of the notebook ... but I want to try everything else first, including XP fully before I open up the notebook for WiFi removal surgery. thanks,

Hi Fredledingue ... well the "flame war" over XP and Windows 98SE is probably pretty much in the past since these two OSs are now sharing the same fate ... but I remember years back when someone using XP would drop into this forum and start an argument over the "best" operating system and one of the Moderators would have to get involved. As to buying a new Windows 7 computer ... yes, I could do that but I seem to like Windows XP for now. I think I will have a very good setup on all three of my Thinkpads once I get everything finally to my liking and they will still have some "Windows 98SE" nostalgia to them. I plan on still being around, just not active with very many questions unless the "dual boot" or "virtual machine" doesn't go as planned but there is plenty of information on all that at MSFN ... just have to dig it out. Also, if I stumble across some nice Windows 98SE software, I'll be posting. thanks ...

Thanks Guys for the replies ... the one thing I didn't want to happen was to start a "shooting war" between Windows 98SE and XP ... and that's not happening. So I decided to make my earlier post. Yes, I realize I could maybe pick up a few older computers but I made my decision in 2009 to buy these Thinkpad T series notebooks, bought my third one last October (2011). I spent a lot of money on them since ... additional memory on two of them, three DVD burners and larger Hard Drives for all three. As I said earlier, these IBM notebooks were bought to put Windows 98SE on and also because they had USB 2.0 ports ... my older Dell Latitude has the older USB port. It was a lot of fun converting these Thinkpads over to Windows 98SE and I always had fun looking at someone's facial expressions when I tell them I'm still using Windows 98SE in today's world ... but then I explain about the MSFN group and how people from all around the world have helped keep Windows 98SE going strong into 2011 / 2012. I tell them that it's actually better now than when MS left it go some years back. I have new chances and challenges with XP to explore and once I get all my settings fixed and Ghost backups made then I want to try out having Windows 98SE and XP on the same computer ... and hunt around for older software for XP and probably 98SE also. In 2005/2006 I started to hunt around for everything I could find for Windows 98SE and burn everything to CDs/DVDs since Windows 98SE software links were starting to disappear. I will probably do that now with XP while the software links are still good and working. Like I also said earlier, the age thing has something to do with my decision also ... just want something more stable and less problems to deal with when I turn the computer on. Finding little XP fixes and settings here and there ... I knew the day would come and eventually I would move on to XP. I have no plans for anything newer ... I think XP will do me just fine for the future, along with firing up the old Dell Windows 98SE computer every now and then. As these two old Operating Systems fade further into history, it's nice to know they are still very usable in 2012. ... just to add ... dencorso, that's also my interest of trying Windows 98SE in a Virtual Machine setup. I don't know much about doing it for now but that will be a future project. .

I guess all things come to an end eventually ... I debated whether to even mention it on the forum, most people here could probably care less but a few might be interested in my decision. Part of the decision is due to age, I'm probably older than most members here, but I'm sure I'm not the "record holder" ... at least I hope not! Part of the decision also deals with my notebook computers ... I own three Thinkpad T series notebooks ... one T41 and two T42 notebooks. I bought them because they were listed as decent products and were also listed as the last T series notebooks to work with Windows 98SE. They all came with Windows XP Pro installed which was taken off and replaced with Windows 98SE as quick as I could. This all worked very good for several years and it was fun finding out about new fixes such as KernelEx and additional software discoveries. However, even though the Thinkpads were listed as working with Windows 98SE ... it just wasn't 100% satisfaction on my part mainly due to the WiFi part. The two T42s have built in WiFi and that has always been "hit and miss" ... I've made several trips to WiFi spots and just couldn't get connected and other days everything went OK (for awhile) ... there was much frustration there ... the T41 has no WiFi adapter so I have a Netgear card for that and it mostly works well but acts up sometimes, I think in conflict with the IBM WiFi drivers that still must be installed to get all yellow exclamination marks in the Device Manager to go away. I have tried to use the Netgear card on the T42s but there's a clash somewhere and the computer just freezes up with every install. Also, I have been very disappointed with USB 2.0 flash drive speed with Windows 98SE ... I dealt with all this in another thread that some of you have probably read. Lately, I have been getting the BSOD more often and the Explorer error box when I close some folders and then computer freezes with that. A lot of this is probably due to "pushing" Windows 98SE into new territory and challenges in the last year or two. I rarely had the BSOD ever show up but in the last year or so, that statement has changed somewhat. Anyway, I just decided that Windows XP will probably work better on these Thinkpads even though Windows 98SE was also listed as "OK" to use. As I mentioned earlier about the age part, I just want to turn a computer on now and have it start up fast and go right to work. Have had XP up an running for a few days and finished installing many programs that were on the Windows 98SE setup. I have made XP look as much as my Windows 98SE setup with the Classic folders and a few other settings ... so far things seem to be running very well or much better on the XP setup. The WiFI problems seem to have gone away but I am still working on all that, haven't fully tested everything yet ... but the WiFi looks better than it did with Windows 98SE ... I'm thinking the IBM drivers work better with XP. I have a Dell Latitude Pentium 3 computer that will continue to have Windows 98SE installed ... 98SE always worked very well on the Dell as it was made for that OS anyway. I remember when XP came out and how I hated it and had no interest in it ... probably because it was the "new kid" on the block and no way would I ever have anything to do with it. Well, now Windows XP is riding out to the "Last Sunset" behind Windows 98 and I have "mellowed" in my thoughts and feelings about the aging OS. As I said earlier, I want a computer that will start up, run fast and have very few problems for the future. I have to admit that years later, Windows XP "ain't all that bad". I sure have a faster running notebook and my 2.0 flash drives are working as they should. As I said, I'll still have my Dell with Windows 98SE fully installed and working so I'll still be hanging around for news and fresh ideas. I actually have 98SE Ghost backups on all the three Thinkpad notebooks from May 1st and in no time could change everything back from NTFS to FAT32. Just now thinking that I can live in both worlds of Windows 98SE and XP. thanks ...

PROBLEMCHYLD ... some more observations and questions about U98SESP3. I told you yesterday that I did a fresh install of Win 98SE over the weekend and all went well. So yesterday I worked with my three notebooks that already have Win 98SE installed ... fixed everything, cleaned the registry and then did a Ghost backup on each one. I decided to "experiment" with U98SESP3 on each one, if things don't work out right then I can go back to the old setup in minutes. So here is an observation between a fresh install and today when I ran U98SESP3 on an older install. After installing U98SESP today I am now getting this pop up on Zone Alarm trying to connect to the internet ... "Run a DLL as an APP" ... seems to be something named Win\Rundll32.exe and if I say NO to connecting and remove it from Zone Alarm, it pops right back up trying to connect once again. This did not happen on the fresh install, nothing trying to connect to the internet. I went into WinPatrol and disabled TweakMeUP and ICSDCLT.dll - ICSDCLTCLIENT ... they seem both to be related in some way with RUNDLL32.exe but I'm not knowledgeable in this area so I'm not sure. Another observation and question ... I do like the new Windows logon and logoff screen ... black, looking along the lines of XP but I also like the older more colorful Windows logon and logoff that Gape had in his earlier package. Would you consider in 3.1 ... having that as an option to choose between the "older" and "newer" logon and logoff screens? From yesterday about the USB discussion ... I guess a separate USB package isn't necessary ... since you mentioned that 3.1 will install over 3.0 in the future, then if I can get a good install - update of U98SESP3 over these older Windows 98SE notebooks then I should be set for any future updates. May have more questions, I'm only working with one notebook for now and the other two are different brands ... I pretty much have the same setup and software on all my notebooks but they can still be like "night and day" ... each with different problems at various times. thanks ...

Thanks for the reply ... just wanted to clarify part of my earlier question to you. I wasn't asking your package to be broken up or changed ... leave the USB part and everything just as it is now. Change nothing dealing with U98SESP3 unless you decide to change or update something. I was just asking if there also could be a separate new USB update package that would go beyond NUSB 3.5 ? ... that would just be another option to getting a newer updated USB package for an older Windows 98SE install ... as I said earlier, nothing to be separated or taken out of your U98SESP3 package. Just wanted to be sure this is the way you and others are reading what I posted earlier. thanks

PROBLEMCHYLD, I installed your package over the weekend on a new install of Windows 98SE ... all went smooth and I had no problems with the USB part of the program. Earlier I posted about having USB problems a few versions back but that install was over an older Windows 98SE install. I remember you posting earlier to my asking about that and you indicated that running your package on a fresh install of Windows 98SE would be the better way to go, but installing over an older Windows 98SE install should be OK. My question to you, on an older Windows 98SE installation, if someone just wanted to install only the USB update part and nothing else onto an older 98SE install, would you consider in the future a separate USB update package ... like NUSB 3.5 or something similar or is this not possible since there might be other parts in your package needed for the USB part to install correctly? ... thanks

OK ... have another USB 2.0 question ... this one is a little different. I have an old Dell Latitude Pentium III notebook that only has one USB 1.1 port. Years ago I bought a Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Notebook Card for it to get faster transfer speeds. I have never really been able to get that card to work properly. I have NUSB 3.5 installed on the computer and the card is recognized and can give me a 4 minute transfer over a 14 minute transfer of a 700 MB file but it will never uninstall correctly. My computer will freeze up and I can't shut down except the hard way and then Scandisk runs on startup. When I do a Control - Alt + Delete to shut down, it never shuts down and I always see that "MSGSRV32 Not Responding". I am sick of seeing that message many times when I have computer problems. Is there any newer fix for this in 2012? ... a newer version of MSGSRV32 or some way to correct the problem? It's like I see that most of the time for so many problems. Needless to say I don't really care to use that USB 2.0 card at all. Anyone familiar with this Belkin card? Will just add this: when I put the card in the PCMCIA slot these two items will appear in Device Manager ... NEC uPD720101 USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller NEC USB OPEN Host Controller (E13+) thanks ...

Yes jaclaz, I understand that the "time" shown in that little box is not 100% ... I was going to add that in that last post but I just figured it's more of an approximate time. Anyway, I'm not here to disagree over a few seconds ... OK, let's say the time is between 45 and 50 seconds, no matter ... I know what I am seeing ... those transfers are going under a minute to that Seagate drive ... I will also say that a transfer using a stick flash drive is probably closer to 4 minutes, maybe a few seconds here and there. I said 4 to 5 minutes earlier. dencorso ... you mention USB 3.0 but I don't remember that on the box when I bought the drive. I was looking around last night to see if I could find that drive for sale or some old ads, but all the drives that I found are USB powered, this has a plug in adapter but it looks like the USB powered ones. I remember that it came formatted as NTFS and with Free Agent ... wasn't listed to work with Win 98. I found a little free program by another drive company that would convert the drive to FAT32. I posted about that little program here at this forum, in case others might be interested, early 2010 or late 2009 I think. I also got rid of Free Agent to free up all the drive space. Many others seemed to be wanting to do the same thing when I was searching around. Anyway, I don't need to check the transfer speed to the exact seconds, the speed is there just for that one USB drive ... just hope the drive stays healthy. After I bought the Seagate, I started reading about people complaining about Seagate USB drives and that they were defective ... started making clicking sounds and failing after 200 or 300 MB of files. Those may have been larger 1.5 TB drives, not sure ... mine is only 500 GB. I thought I should post all this concerning Windows 98 ... maybe someone has one of these drives sitting around and can test it out to see if they also have faster transfer speeds.

Well, I transferred about 15 files and they were showing 45 seconds when I use the Seagate drive, I did about 5 or 6 separately and then did 4 at a time, still fast ... I went by the time shown in the little box and afterwards I hooked up a stick flash drive and transferred one file, it took around 4 to 5 minutes which is usually always the time I see using the small flash drives. I will be using the Seagate drive for these larger files from now on ... it was taking me an hour or more to transfer files, now it's just a matter of minutes ... so it's a bottleneck on the stick drives. These files that take only 45 seconds to transfer are around 700 MB size. It's crazy watching how fast they transfer to that Seagate drive ... when I use a flash stick, I can usually go and do other things while the minutes tick away.

OK, I am back with some USB observations and questions. Yesterday and early today I had those "fast" USB transfer speeds occur again. This time I was ready to actually see how it happened. This is of course with my Thinkpad Windows 98SE computer. I have several USB 2.0 flash drives ... I also have a Seagate 500 GB USB drive ... I changed it to FAT32 after I bought it and never really used it much until last month (March). Yesterday, I noticed that I really do have very fast USB transfer speeds using that drive ... but when I go to a regular USB stick flash drive, the speeds are much slower. I can transfer a large file in 45 seconds with the Seagate drive but if I use a flash drive, the same file will take 4 or 5 minutes. In my last post I remembered that some of my files had transferred very fast and some very slow ... but I didn't know it was the Seagate drive till yesterday ... hadn't used it since March. So my USB ports are OK after all ... I do have fast USB transfer rates, just not with a small flash drive. So I am wondering why the fast transfer rates with the 500 GB Seagate drive and the slower speeds with all my newer flash drives? The Seagate is not a slim version drive ... it has a power adapter and a moving drive inside. I figured all the guys, on this forum, who understand USB better than myself, could explain why the difference. What's different in that Seagate USB drive over the smaller flash drives? ... I have USB 2.0 flash drives up to 16 GB.

Thanks Joe and Sfor for the USB info ... I googled around and I see other talk about a definite "yes" with XP SP3. I will "experiment" with all this after I get this computer completely fixed. I tested the hard drive ... just bought it on ebay in Feb ... it was used but seller said it was close to new. All tests said the hard drive is OK. I am in the early stages of recovery. Yesterday, I formatted the drive, did a fresh install of Windows 98SE and installed U98SESP3 by PROBLEMCHYLD, all went well ... did a few Ghost backups at various stages, everything seems to be OK so far ... the Ghost backups work and I am now in the process of installing all the IBM Thinkpad drivers and then all that software that I had on before. Computer fully starts but I will keep making some Ghost backups along the way ... even now, I would hate to have to start completely over. Later I will try to see if I can get USB flash drives to work in Safe Mode. ...

You may be right on dencorso, but for two days I tried to save those files ... and then I was just trying to get the computer up and running again. First I discovered that the hard drive serial number was disabled ... I used WipeDrivePro to enable the serial number to be "seen"again as someone online mentioned using that program for that ... no clue how that occurred. Every time I did a reboot, the start up process would stop, but I was able to get into Safe Mode. After sometime, I gave up on saving the files and decided to install Windows 98SE again ... formatted the drive and did a clean install but the boot up process stopped as before ... then I installed XP ... install went smooth but the boot up process stopped as it did earlier. I don't how many times I installed both Win 98SE and XP but I think after I discovered that the hard drive serial number was disabled and I fixed that, then it seems I was able to boot all the way with a fresh new install of both Windows 98SE and XP .... but when I put my Ghost backup on for Windows 98SE, it was the same as before ... would not complete the boot process. These Ghost backups were OK from before and did work. I found some information online about the System Configuration Utility and was able to get into Windows 98SE to start unchecking boxes. After reinstalling the vxd files I wasn't any better off ... as I said earlier, none of my registry backup programs fixed the problem ... after the 2nd day and with PROBLEMCHYLD so close to be finished with his project, I just decided to do a fresh install on this one computer using the new unofficial SP 3 update. Will test it out but it will probably be a week or more just getting all the settings fixed and software installed. I still think something got messed up in the msconfig area but I am not knowledgeable enough to have figured it all out. My backups failed me. I will make a new Ghost backup at several stages and when I am finished I will make a backup of the Windows folder onto a DVD. Hope to never run into that nightmare again. The files are slowly being found again and being replaced from memory. I was just minutes away from burning them to some DVDs but everything went south from the night before. ...

Thanks PROBLEMCHYLD for all the effort and the "final result" ! ... also thanks to everyone that helped you along the way.

Thanks for the Ghost Explorer info. Won't matter this time ... too many problems ... went from bad to worse. Something major happened to my computer that I couldn't figure out. None of my Ghost backups would work ... Windows would not fully boot, none of my registry backups would fix anything. I just wiped the hard drive clean and will install everything over.

Thanks Joe for the ideas ... decided to do a Ghost backup and hope that I somehow can get the files off the DVDs with a recovery program. This file is rather large and would not be easy to replace. I was just ready to start burning everything to DVDs and the trouble started. Thanks again.