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I did replace the driver with the one obtained from Dawicontrol page. It does have newer files and istalls without a problem on the Windows 98. Everything seems to be working fine until a second SATA drive gets connected. Then Windows 98 freezes during boot. So, no change for me. I do not know if it is safe to replace the Silicon Image BIOS with the Dawicontrol one. The chip is not exactly the same, I'm afraid.

Have you looked at Cygwin's ssh server? I have serious doubts if the Cygwin with ssh will be able to provide remote access to DOS full screen applications. In theory, since Cygwin is a linux API it should provide a remote acces just for linux applications. On the other hand it could be an option for the remote files transfer problem. I'm well aware of the Team Viewer. But, since I'm planning to use the solution in wider range I can not stick to "for noncommercial use" clausule. This solution is much too expensive to use it in small scale business. Besides, I have a working VPN solution, already. So, the strongest point of the Team Viewer does bring me nothing new. A full version of Real VNC could do the trick (if it works as advertised). It's price is just 30 USD for a licence, so it's way cheaper then the Team Viewer. The freeware version seems to be the most reliable VPN software for Windows 98, so far.

Well, I'm using the PUTTY to access linux console form Windows remotely. But, I see no possibility to access Windows, the same way. Some additional software would have to be running on the Windows remote end, I think. I was looking for a way to access remotely Windows text console for quite a time, already. The VNC does not work for the full screen text modes.

I'm looking for alternative ways to transmit and receive files from remote computers trough VPN connections. The problem is to get a reliable free software with Windows 98 support. 1) Microsoft Networking works, but it is relatively slow and exploited by quite a number of trojans and other unwanted stuff. I found no good way to block the Microsoft Networking services to work in just one direction, as I can not block incoming traffic with a firewall. The Linksys/Cisco RV042 router's firewall does not process the VPN inbound traffic, apparently. 2) Some VNC software do have the file transfer ability, but there are numerous issues with these. Also the file transfer speed seems to be quite a slow one. a ) Tight VNC - the version with Windows 98 support does have a problem with slow connections. The client keeps hanging if there is a need of the full screen refresh. The file transfers seems to be reliable, but slow. The Linux client can not transfer files, apparently. b ) Ultra VNC - very feature rich, yet very problematic on integrated Intel graphic adapters with Windows 98. The client hangs on Windows 98 while receiving files from remote locations (it is necesary to use the Java client instead). I found no good linux client supporting file transfers properly, so far. 3) The FTP seems to be the best choice when the transfer speed is the key factor. Well, the speed is importand, but the simplicity of usage is more important. I do not have much experience to be able to evaluate this idea. I had no opportunity to use Windows 98 based FTP servers or easy to use clients. So, I'm looking for additional ideas and softawe related to these topics. Since all the communication is going through the hardware secured VPN tunnels, the software does not need to use encryption.

It does not have a sense. According to the ATA specification the DMA transfer commands do not contain memory addresses. So, the DMA tranfers have to be done through motherboard DMA controller, as a memory adress has to be passed for a DMA transfer to be performed. I would rather say, the Windows displays just the DMA channels staticaly assigned to particular devices. All other channels can be used by any device, when necesary. So, the free motherboard DMA channels are used by any device in need of such a resource. Unlike IRQ, the available DMA channels are not staticaly assigned to particular devices.

The truth is, other devices are using DMA (the best example is the IDE controller). Windows 98 does not report the real DMA usage, simply.

Well. The Windows 98 has a problem with installation a Windows NT only drivers. If there are two INF files in the same folder, Windows 98 sometimes installs the Windows NT INF file instead of the 9X one. So, Windows 98 does not believe windows NT is a newer system. I had exacly the same problem with SiI3114 controller. So, I've switched to SiI3512. As, the 3112/3512 seems to have a better Windows 98 compatible driver support.

I do have a motherboard with Intel 845 chipset, as well. In the device manager there are just 4 entries. One for the FDD controller, one for DMA controller, ant two for Sound Blaster card. In case of IDE drives, all DMA related settings are available in Intel Application Accellerator pannel. However, it does not cover SATA PCI controllers. So, the effects you mentioned are quite normal, if you have a Intel Application Accellerator installed.

My SiI3512 is working fine, as long as there is just one SATA drive connected to it. But, there is no DMA checkbox available in the Device Manager. Still the performance is just a bit worse than the same drive connected through a SATA to ATA adapter with UDMA-5 working. The difference in speed is just a few percent caused by the bus mastering, probably. I do not have the SiI3114, any more. In any case, I was not able to make it work with windows 98. I do not know the bios version, but only the Si3114r5.inf had a proper identyfication strings for it. So, ir was the Soft Raid 5 version. I'm not using the java utility. The one provided with 3114 was not working for me.

There are driver sets available for both RAID and non-RAID controler versions. The problem is the compatibility with Windows 98 got dropped in both driver sets, quite a few years ago. So, the newer controller versions are no longer covered by the drivers for Windows 98. I do not know if reflashing the controller BIOS to older version can affect the driver compatibility problem. The description of the 3512 chip has got ilustrations from the 3112. The driver sets are the same, as well. So, basicaly, it is the same design. Also, file names in driver sets for 3512 are clearly 3112. There are no files for just the 3512, then. A wile ago, I was playing with a 3114 controller. While the driver was reported as working correctly, the drives were still in DOS compatibility mode. So, no exclamation mark in device manager does not mean, the driver is working correcly. Since there are driver sets available, it can not be the problem with the AHCI interface. This problem is only valid, when using generic drivers for SATA controllers.

Well, I've tried installing the non-RAID drivers forcefuly, already. The driver was not working and all the partition from the drive were in DOS compatibility mode. So, changing the device ID in the .inf file will not do, I think. I have no idea how can I reflash the BIOS in the controller. Unitek does not seem to provide any BIOS upgrades for their PCI-SATA-2R controller.

I was able to get the same version of drivers installed. But nothing have changed. I can not force the 1.5GBit transfer rate on the ST31000524AS. The other drive is WD10EARS, so it does have the jumpers to force the 1.5GBit transfer rate. The drives are both working correctly, when connected without the other one to the same controller. So, the 1.5GBit transfer negotiation should be working fine. The problem starts only when both are connected, in the moment the windows driver is initializing. In some point the HDD LED stops blinking and gets permanently lited. The system gets frozen, before GUI kicks in. As a workaround I'm using a IDE to SATA adapter in order to connect the ST31000524AS through the mainboard IDE port.

Apparently, there some differences in two files in my driver set: si3112r.mpd (version 1,0,57,0) silsupp.cpl (version 3,0,22,0) I'll try to make some experiments related to these files, later.

The Sil 3512 seems to be based on the 3112 design. The chips are close related, so the same set of drivers can be used. The question remains, what driver version were you using? In my case, everything seems to be working fine, before the SiI3x12 32-bit Windows SATARAID Driver 1.00.51 kicks in.

No problems on my previous and current system with two 250GB SATA drives in such configuration. Previous system was an Abit NF7-S mobo with a Silicon Image SATA controller and the current one is an Asus A8V Deluxe with VIA and Promise SATA controllers (never used the Promise one so far). There are many Silicon Image chips on the market. Are you sure it was the Sil 3512? I have not heard about this particular chip to be integrated on a motherboard, so far. No, it is not set to the RAID. There are no RAID sets defined, there.

I do have two 1TB SATA drives. Both of them are working fine when either one of them is connected to the PCI Sil 3512 controller. But, when both are connected at the same time, the Windows 98 does not boot freezing during the Sil driver initialization. The driver installed is SiI3x12 32-bit Windows SATARAID Driver 1.00.51. It seems to be the newest one. There is another driver available named as "SiI3x12 32-bit Windows IDE Driver" 1.2.0.57. But, it does not seem to be recognized as a valid one for this particular controller. I tried with two different Sil 3512 controllers form different manufacturers, but result is still the same. It appears the Windows 98 RAID driver works fine as long as it is just one drive connected. With two drives not arranged in a RAID set the driver hangs the Windows 98 during booting. Does anyone else encountered the same problem? Or perhaps someone was able to get two SATA HDD drives working on Windows 98 without a RAID set defined. I'm out of ideas, for the moment.

Well. I've found another UltraVNC 1.0.2 related problem. Windows 98 hangs during restart, if there is an active connection with VNC server. Also, I've tried to connect to a Windows 98 from a Linux VNC client. Everything works quite well, except for the file transfers. So far, the most reliable VNC software seems to be the Real VNC. Unluckily it does not have the file transfer option. But, perhaps it would be possible to use some other remote file tranfer software, instead of relying on the VNC server. The microsoft networking works, but I would like not to use it. I had an opportunity to watch how a virus was infecting files on a remote computer through a VPN tunnel.

The Asus EEE PC 900 series were sold with an SSD. Perhaps, that's why the whole netbook weights less than 1 kg. The reading speed is high, but the write speed seems to be much slower. I can not say if the device you mentioned is a good one, since I do not know the specifications or benchmarks of my own SSD. The only thing I've noticed about the speed is the MHDD test of the whole 16GB drive takes about 20 seconds. It seems to be too unrealistic, I think.

I do have a two and a half year old Asus EEE PC with 16GB SSD drive. I've installed a Windows 98 on it over two years ago. It works quite well, so far. I decided to switch off the memory swap file. It seems the factory 1GB RAM is large enough for the memory swapping to be disabled completely. So, far, so good. The computer works almost every day for over a year, now. I encountered no SSD related problems, so far.

These three lines in smb.conf solved problem.

I tried to access the SMB:// from Firefox, with the same effect. So, the conclusion is, the problem is related to libsmbclient, somehow. - I found no .smb folder on the HDD. - There are three smb.conf files 1) /etc/samba/ 2) /usr/share/samba/ 3) in some documentation and example related folder - I replaced the two significant smb.conf files with the one from Xandros with no apparent effect. I'm out of ideas. Perhaps the libsmbclient have a bug of some sort.

Anyways, I've decided to test the Samba server functions. I used the Nautilus to add a share. It told me it has to install two packets to make file sharing work. Then two Samba related packets were downloaded, and after a reboot I was able to add a folder share. This is the part when the first problems came out: 1) When trying to access a newly created share from a Windows computer I had to use IP address. The NetBios names were not available. A patch to smb.conf solved the issue. [global] netbios name = xxxxxxx 2) The Windows XP was able to access the share without any problem or password, but Windows 98 kept asking for a password before being able to display server shares. What's more important no password were accepted. It was not possible to get through the password dialog. Fortunately there is a solution available. I had to make a change in the smb.conf, again. ####### Authentication ####### security = share After that, Windows 98 was able to access the network share without any problems. I sent a few files with the Polish national character in their names and everything worked correctly. So, the conclusion is Nautilus uses some different settings. Samba network shares do not have any problems with national character, while the Nautilus can not read them correctly through smb://. -------------------------------------------------- I did some research. Nautilus is using libgnomevfs2-extra to work with many different virtual file systems. The next software layer i libsmbclient (a part of Samba suite).

Yes, its the Nautilus, indeed. The Xandros has a different file manager, as far as I remember. I can not check it, since I've replaced Xandros with EasyPeasy. And yes, I'm accessing the network shares trough the smb:// url.

I can not tell which particular drive is the third one. I just have too many of them. Besides, the problem is not related to the drive 3, I believe. In any case the hardware is: IBM NetVista series motherboard with Intel 845 chipset. - primary motherboard IDE port - 500GB SATA drive connected through SATA to ATA adapter (the problem happend on this particular drive) - secondary motherboard IDE port - DVD-RW and CD-RW drives. - Unitek PCI SiI 3114 SATA controller - 1000 GB SATA drive - Tekram DC-390 PCI SCSI controller - Removable drives - SyQuest 270MB drive and 640MB Fujitsu MO drive - USB flash reader. And, No, I'm not using any Diskeeper software.

I do know the smb.conf is responsible for the Samba and sharing resources. But, in this particular case the problem lies in accessing SMB resources from Linux. Is the Samba and smb.conf responsible for both server and client related network tasks?