Monroe

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.

I have no clue to why my computer won't load Windows 98SE today ... it goes so far and just stops. Then because Windows didn't "fully load" it will go into Safe Mode and actually load there. I have some files that I need to get off the hard drive before I can use my Ghost backup ... so my question, how can I save those files? My flash drive won't load in Safe Mode, Nero won't burn to a CD, keeps shutting down due to an error. Is there any way or method to save files in Safe Mode?

frogman (above) ... New Adobe Flash Player available 11,2,202,233 I just installed the new flash player version and it seems to work. I use K-Meleon and I unpacked the "Firefox" dll package into an empty folder and manually installed only the NPSWF32.dll into the K-Meleon plugin folder (saved my older one, just in case!) ... wasn't sure what to do with the nppdf32.dll so I didn't install it. Have been to some FP test sites and everything seems to work ... so far! I will spend some more time checking this new version out. Flash Player Version Site: http://www.duber.com/LetsTalk/playerCheck.html Note: If you use Proxomitron, you have to check Bypass to do the test. ------------------------------------- Flash Player Version Check If you have the Flash player already installed in your computer, you will see its version type and number below. This player version check requires a minimum of Flash version 4 to work at all. Below, you should see your platform (e.g., Win or Mac) followed by the long version number of the Flash player. WIN 11,2,202,233 If you don't see any results above, then you will need to download and install the free Flash player. Please remember, this site requires version 6 or higher of the Flash player (the first number in the long version above is the player version). If you haven't yet upgraded your system to version 7, we suggest that you consider doing so. It offers better performing audio and video streaming in the LetsTalk forums. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another version test site: http://www.codegeek.net/flash-version.php Flash Player Test Page Which Flash Player Version Do You Have Installed? Javascript is enabled in your browser. You have Flash player 11.2.202 installed. ...

First of all, I appreciate the additional information on the USB matter, Device Manager and other things that have been posted. In my case, I have limited knowledge about certain things which includes USB and Device Manager ... I use them and can work with them but I'm always on the lookout for more information. Dencorso, I got some answers from the links that you posted ... I never saw anything anywhere over the years that Device Manager should be "cleaned out" at least once or every now and then. When I was in Device Manager - Safe Mode earlier ... I noticed that there were many more items to delete under Universal Serial Bus Controllers than there are in Device Manager - Normal Mode. I wondered about that but the one article sort of clears that up. From article: "Safe Mode Device Manager shows devices that are NOT 'currently installed' (but are still logged in the system), unlike Normal Mode Device Manager." "Removable USB devices don't show up in Normal Mode Device Manager unless they are plugged into the system, so you can't remove them from there unless they're plugged in, and removing them from (Normal Mode) Device Manager while they're plugged in may not be a good idea in certain cases!" .... so that definitely explains why USB items have to removed from Device Manager while in Safe Mode and not Normal Mode. In my case I did follow PROBLEMCHYLD's instructions while working with these USB devices. "USB 2.0 NOTICE - Unplug all USB devices. Install main updates. Remove all current USB/EHCI drivers + controllers from Device Manager in safe mode. REBOOT! Let all drivers redetect on startup. Plug in USB devices one at a time." ... however, I knew nothing about WDMSTUB.SYS and how it is connected to USB items or USBSTOR.SYS in particular. I can't speak for others but all this "extra information" that you and others post are a big help to me in understanding the inner workings of my computer. dencorso : "With all due respect for everyone involved, USBSTOR.SYS (v5.00.2195.6773) *requires* WDMSTUB.SYS for working. So, it's necessary to delete *all installed USB devices* from program manager, and insert them again one by one for redetection (as is stated just about everywhere in big capitals). When one fails to do so, the installation reamains as it was before the uSP, so WDMSTUB is not loaded and USBSTOR refuses to work." I went into Device Manager - Safe Mode last night and found many old items to remove. A good example was under the CDROM tab .... there must have been close to 10 or 12 items that I removed ... from older CDROMs that I no longer use .... From article: "For instance, in Normal Mode Device Manager, you will only see your currently installed optical drives in the CD-ROM tab, whereas in Safe Mode Device Manager, you will see every optical drive that has ever been installed in that computer (even all of the external optical drives that were ever used, as applicable), unless/until you remove them from Safe Mode Device Manager." I have been fooling around with these USB drivers in the interest of seeing if I could possibly get a faster transfer speed between a flash drive and my computer. I dealt with this in another post in asking USB file transfer questions. Anyway, all information and links appreciated. ...

Well after my last post I thought more about what egrabrych posted about 7 messages back ... that I think, was the problem I had when my USB stuff didn't seem to work. I remember now that I did do some research and further testing with the USB problem and discovered that it was the Usbstor.sys file (v5.00.2195.6773) in the U98SESP3.EXE that "seemed" to be the problem ... I had used WinRAR to take all the USB items out of U98SESP3.EXE to check the versions with the USB versions in NUSB v3.5. I guess I just figured it would be faster to just put the Ghost backup back on instead of trying to delete and add USB items from NUSB 3.5. I am pretty sure I isolated the Usbstor.sys file (v5.00.2195.6773) as the "possible" problem but there may have been another file also ... but as egrabrych posted ... when I went to NUSB 3.5 and Usbstor.sys (v4.90.3000.1) ... everything seemed to work just fine. On my Ghost backup which was from Oct 2011 at the time of the problem, I had NUSB 3.3 installed then after the USB problem with U98SESP3.EXE a few months ago (Jan) I decided to install NUSB 3.5 and now have a more recent Ghost backup with NUSB 3.5 installed. So after reading egrabrych's post from yesterday, things started to refresh in my mind about Usbstor.sys being the culprit ... at least on my computer. Hope this helps some ... but it doesn't seem to be a problem with most people when they install U98SESP3.EXE since there hasn't been any mention of USB install problems from anyone. Perhaps installing the U98SESP3.EXE package on a fresh Windows 98SE install works better than installing U98SESP3.EXE over an already installed Windows 98SE ... I have no idea about this, just a thought. ...

Yes Fredledingue you are correct ... I was able to reboot but very quickly I realized I had some kind of problem ... This was sometime in January so that would be several or many versions back. It's just not fresh in my mind what exactly was happening that I had to install my Ghost backup. I remember some USB problems and some freezing up, couldn't seem to repair it, wasn't sure what to repair anyway, just fell back to my Ghost backup and manually installed Unofficial Windows 98 SE Native USB Drivers (NUSB) 3.5 using PROBLEMCHYLD's USB instructions ... all my USB devices seems to be working. Thanks egrabrych for clarifying what Usbstor.sys version is in NUSB 3.5 : In NUSB 3.5 Usbstor.sys file is currently in version 4.90.3000.1 That's about all I can say for now ... sorry about being so light on any hard facts or information. It may have just been an isolated problem with my machine only. ...

Well I can't be 100% sure Fredledingue ... I just suspected that my problem could have been with that part of the install ... the USB 2.0 part but really not sure. As I said earlier, no one else has mentioned anything about any problems with the USB part of the package. It could have been something else on my machine or I might not have followed PROBLEMCHYLD specific instructions to the letter. I will try it again but was just going to wait till PROBLEMCHYLD releases his final version. I seem to be the only one reporting this so it does not appear to be a common problem ... I just decided to keep looking to see if any one else mentioned a possible USB problem. As far as the install of the whole package went, it was smooth and flawless ... didn't know I had a problem till a short time later. I think the computer rebooted OK ... should have written some notes down at the time. thanks,

Fredledingue ... in regards to the "angry" e-mail that you received about that person having to reinstall Windows ... something similar happened to me a few months ago when I installed U98SESP3.EXE ... I also had to reinstall Windows but in my case, I didn't get angry since I have a Ghost backup and I was up and running again in minutes. I didn't post anything about it since I saw no one else mention having this problem and also I wasn't exactly sure what had happened. I think I had trouble with the USB part of the install. I personally would like to manually do that part of the install myself or have it separated in some way but I may have done something wrong when I installed U98SESP3.EXE. I thought I would wait till the final version is done and give it a try again. Nobody else has complained about this so it's probably working OK for others. As I said, I saw no complaints or discussion from anyone else about having problems with the USB install part of U98SESP3.EXE and I'm not even sure that was my problem but if I remember, my USB stuff didn't seem to work right or was freezing up. Also, PROBLEMCHYLD had enough people telling him to add this or drop this and I didn't want to add to the mix when I had no proof it was actually any particular part of his project that messed up my computer. I have manually installed Unofficial Windows 98 SE Native USB Drivers (NUSB) 3.5 ... I just mention this as an observation on my experience with U98SESP3.EXE. ...

Post deleted ... The fast USB transfer that were mentioned in the deleted post are no more. They only lasted for about 30 minutes ... now the old slower USB transfer speeds are back. Just a fluke, no rhyme or reason, nothing was installed, nothing was changed on the computer.

Thanks for the USB 2.0 verification ... I guess the transfer speed I have is as good as it's ever going to be. It's still better than USB 1.1 speed ... not much, but for Windows 98SE I'll take it.

Well I couldn't get the information from Device Manager to print. I have PrintKey 2000 and a Syntax error kept popping up. I copied everything exactly as shown below and everything is installed and working. These computers are IBM Thinkpads (T41 and T42 notebooks) with USB 2.0: Note ... These notebooks came with XP Pro installed but I removed all that and installed Windows 98SE. Product Specification: Lenovo ThinkPad T41 2373 Laptop Computer Product Type Notebook Operating System Windows XP Professional Networking IEEE 802.11b, Gigabit Ethernet Interface Type 2 x USB 2.0, S-Video Yes Included Drives CD-RW/DVD-ROM Video Chipset ATI Mobility RADEON 7500 Processor Type Intel Pentium M Screen Size 14.1 Processor Speed 1600 Installed Memory 512 Hard Drive Size 40000 Additional Specifications Modem Yes Product Series T41 Screen Mode XGA Number of Total Memory Slots 2 Expansion Bay Type Ultrabay Slim Hard Drive RPM 5400 Total Number of USB Ports 2 Number of USB 2.0 Ports 2 (T42 is the same) ------------------------------------------------ (T41 Reading) Device Manager: Universal Serial Bus Managers: Intel® 82801DB/DBM (ICH4 Family) USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD Intel® 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C2 Intel® 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C4 Intel® 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C7 Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port USB 2.0 Root Hub USB Root Hub USB Root Hub USB Root Hub ------------------------------------------------- From Astra32: Motherboard System System Vendor: IBM Product Name: 23738RU Version: ThinkPad T42 Serial Number: 99PZVTC UUID: AB624881468911CBB99DAB5AD752C6C3 Wake-up Type: Power Switch Motherboard Motherboard Vendor: IBM Corporation Vendor URL: www.ibm.com Board Model: IBM 23738RU Version: Not Available Serial Number: J1W8S48523L BIOS Version: Phoenix FirstBIOS Notebook Pro Version 2.0 for IBM ThinkPad for IBM BIOS Date: 06/02/06 Chipset Name: Intel 855PM (Odem) Chipset Vendor: Intel Corporation Chipset: 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller Southbridge Vendor: Intel Corporation Southbridge: 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge Onboard Device 1 Description: IBM Embedded Security hardware Device Type: Other Status: Disabled System Enclosure Manufacturer: IBM Type: Notebook Version: Not Available Serial Number: Not Available Asset Tag: No Asset Information Boot-up State: Unknown Power Supply State: Unknown Thermal State: Unknown Security Status: Unknown OEM-defined: 00000000h ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pointertovoid ... thanks for the Atto version numbers. I couldn't locate a working link for v2.02 but I did get v2.34. Probably a better version anyway for Windows 98 ... it does work. As far as the USB 2.0 driver for the Southbridge ... I really wouldn't know. I installed the Unofficial Windows 98SE Native USB Drivers (NUSB) 3.5 - adds native USB + USB 2.0 support for most internal + external USB devices (free). So that is what I'm working with. In "rough timing" with a stop watch ... a 700 MB file will transfer around 5 1/2 minutes ... so a 700 MB file is transferring at around 2.1 to 2.3 MBs a second. I guess that's slightly better than USB 1.1 speed. Just disappointed that USB 2.0 speed isn't better. As dencorso said about the OS having something to do with it, that XP would be faster over Windows 98SE.

Thanks for the detailed explanation on everything.

Well, I am not interested in doing any USB flash drive testing on any file. I just want to transfer files and maybe get a quick flash speed reading every so often. There was no Help (to me anyway) that came with the program and I have "no clue" as how to work with it or "understand" any information the program is giving me. I looked at the figures and wasn't sure what I was actually seeing. I appreciate that you posted the CrystalDiskMark image but I still don't understand what I'm looking at ... as I said earlier I am not interested in running USB Flash Drive tests. OK, ... let's say this is what I want to do. ... here are three examples of me wanting to transfer a 700 MB file from C drive to drive E . First flash drive will be a 4 GB drive, the second flash drive will be an 8 GB drive and the third flash drive will be a 16 GB drive. .... As I said ... I do not want to DO any USB tests ... this is the "real thing" ... transferring one 700 MB file to each USB drive. What settings should be set ? .... would the settings for all three drives be the same? This is over my head as I look at that image ... I guess I would set the 5 to 1 pass, one file, one time transfer. I just want to transfer a file and see some "speed figures" and not fool with any tests. I don't always pick up on things posted here, I feel most people at this forum are "light years" ahead of me with computer knowledge and all the inside workings ... but I still learn something new once in awhile. So you are saying I can use CrystalDiskMark to bypass all those "test tabs" and get my file transfered and get a quick no-nonsense speed reading and move onto another file? I do appreciate your assistance and from everyone else also, but I don't think this is the program I was hoping to find, but I could be wrong. I will work with it again later tonight or tomorrow. ...

OK ... well Flash Drive Tester requires .NET Framework 2.0 so whether it actually works on Win 98SE, I can't say. I only have .NET Framework 1.1 installed and never went any higher. USB FlashSpeed (ZIP download name is FlashBench) also requires .NET Framework 2.0 ... ATTO Disk Benchmark did seem to give some readings but I'm not sure if it really works on Windows 98 ... it wasn't listed as doing so ... my test folder was transferring (from C to E) with 4 minutes remaining and then jumped to 68 minutes remaining and my USB mouse quit working so there seems to be some conflict there. I really am not looking to do any USB flash drive testing ... I have bought several different makes of USB flash drives and I am "stuck" with them, some weren't cheap ... not buying anymore but most all these programs just do a benchmark or have USB flash testing in mind. I just want to do a file transfer from C to E and have it "pass through" a program every so often (when I want to use it) to get the "actual transfer" rate for that file from C to E or E to C. If anyone knows of such a simple flash speed measurement program, nothing complicated with various settings to set ... just a transfer speed being indicated as a file is moved from one drive to another. In my earlier post (#14) I listed that article title: 5 Apps to Check the Speed of Your USB Flash Drive (Windows) ... that's what I would like, a simple program (working with Windows 98SE) that will give a speed reading of a flash drive. Also in that article, there was one program that sounded like it was exactly what I was looking for ... HD Speed: HD_Speed is a pint sized software that can be used to gauge the speed of data transfer on your hard disks, CD/DVD ROMS and USB flash drives. This program is compatible with Windows 2000, XP and Vista only, though it supports both FAT and NTFS volumes. The 80KB utility does not require installation and runs with a click. Select the drive and hit start. The read/write results show up as a graph and also as real values. ... but I couldn't get it to work with Windows 98SE, still sounds like a neat simple program though. ... thanks Update: I just found a warning posted about HD Speed: ( 10-24-2009 ) The read test is quick and time limit can be manually set. However, if you proceed to do a write test on your drive, a popup message alerts you as follows. "This will destroy the contents of \drive" "are you sure you wish to continue" ... You must be kidding, no way! NOT recommended. ... so beware if anyone might decide to "test" HD Speed on another OS. Only found that one warning. ...