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Ubuntu <== to/from ==> WinXP/Win98SE: Incompatible flavors of UDF? I just : - connected the docking station with the HDD, formatted by Ubuntu to UDF 1.02, to another computer with WinXP (SAI file system driver) and looked at the content of the UDF-formatted HDD, then: - re-connected the LinuxUDF-formatted HDD to the Ubuntu computer and added under Ubuntu a file to the UDF formatted HDD; then: - re-connected the LinuxUDF-formatted HDD to the computer with WinXP (SAI file system driver): SURPRISE: the red light of the docking station with the LinuxUDF HDD stayed on for about 15 minutes, then WinXP displayed in My Computer a drive letter for the LinuxUDF HDD, but no file system; then: somewhere in subsequent experimentation WinXP crashed, then: - I re-connected the LinuxUDF HDD to the Ubuntu computer, which had no problem reading the LinuxUDF HDD; then: - I re-connected the LinuxUDF HDD to the computer with WinXP, and selected to boot into the WinXP opsys selection which contained the MS file system driver, i.e. not into the WinXP opsys where WriteUDF/SAI file system driver was installed. BUT: My Computer in normal WinXP could not assign a drive letter to the LinuxUDF drive, and WinXP kept on trying to read the LinuxUDF HDD for 30 minutes, until I shut down. In other words: Writing to the LinuxUDF HDD may have made the 2TB HDD somehow unreadable to WinXP. BTW, the 2TB HDD, after being formatted by Ubuntu to UDF 1.02, had the default name "LinuxUDF" and contained a folder "Lost+Found". WinXP (the opsys selection with the SAI file system driver, i.e. with free space displayed under WinXP) displayed that about 500MB of the 2TB were used for something, but the "Lost+Found" folder was empty. If I remember right, the 2TB HDD formatted to UDF 1.02 by WriteUDF! under WinXP (SAI file system driver) did not have 500MB used for something. So Ubuntu and WriteUDF seem to create something different when a HDD is formatted to UDF 1.02. I will make some preliminary tests whether there are compatibility issues when the 2TB HDD, formatted to UDF 1.02 (OSTA standard) by WriteUDF! under WinXP, is written to by Ubuntu and WinXP (SAI file system driver), and re-connected repeatedly from the Ubuntu computer to the WinXP/Win98SE computer. UPDATE: I was just able to access the 2TB LinuxUDF HDD under Win98SE, no problem whatsoever. BUT: The file I had added under Ubuntu to the 2TB LinuxUDF HDD was NOT there, i.e. somehow Ubuntu had not completely/correctly added the file, Win98 didn't see it and to WinXP the LinuxUDF HDD somehow appeared corrupted. I had selected "Safely Remove Drive" from the context menu, after writing the file to the UDF HDD and before actually unplugging the 2TB HDD from the Ubuntu computer. BIG SURPRISE: after powering off (disconnecting power plug for 1minute) the Ubuntu computer and restarting it, then connecting the docking station with the LinuxUDF HDD: Ubuntu DID display the added file, which was NOT displayed by Win98SE, and which had caused issues under WinXP.

Hi jaclaz, hi Mijzelf, I first have to apologize that I didn't post an update to my posting #29 earlier, I had found the solution, but it was getting too late at night for another posting. At that time, when I saw that the lights of the docking station containing the 2TB HDD to be formatted were not blinking, I assumed incorrectly that nothing was happening. Actually the Ubuntu computer was working very hard doing some preparatory steps, and I had apparently shut down the Ubuntu computer in the middle of formatting. In a subsequent attempt last night I did format the 2TB HDD successfully to UDF 1.02 under Ubuntu. The old 600MHz laptop on which I have Ubuntu took maybe 20 minutes to do the preparatory work, and then the lights of the docking station containing the 2TB HDD started to blink intermittently. One shouldn't make initial experiments with a 2TB HDD, visible results just take too long. In this second successful attempt last night I had used sudo mkudffs --media-type=hd --blocksize=512 --udfrev=0x0102 /dev/sdb containing 2 different parameters: - /dev/sdb instead of sdb1 - I had added the parameter --udfrev=0x0102 to specify UDF 1.02, so that the UDF-formatted HDD could be read by Win98SE and WinXP without additional software I will eventually check whether by specifying sdb the whole drive can be formatted to UDF, while by specifying a pre-existing partition that specific partition can be formatted to UDF.

Hi dencorso, I tried, the lights of the external 2TB HDD to be formatted did not flash, the Ubuntu computer was apparently accessing the internal disk a lot, for maybe 5 minutes, when the disk access light stopped flashing I shut down and rebooted, Ubuntu came up Ok. When I click on the Permissions tab of the Properties sheet of the 2TB HDD under Ubuntu, the message: "The permissions of "disk" could not be determined." is displayed under the tab, and nothing else, except for the Help and Close buttons. Maybe the above format command works on blank disks, not on HDDs already formatted to UDF 1.02? Here some listings of parameters of mkudffs: http://linux.die.net/man/8/mkudffs or http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/mkudffs.1.html A blocksize 512 is not listed there as a valid parameter When I enter sudo fdisk -l Ubuntu displays /dev/sdb and /dev/sdb1, both with System HPFS/NTFS and 2000.4GB. A UDF drive with a partition?

Hi jaclaz, Thanks again for your link to http://serverfault.com/questions/55089/with-what-tool-should-i-format-a-hard-drive-as-udf in posting #15. UDF v1.02 under Ubuntu I have connected a Kingwin EZ-Dock USB docking station containing the 2TB HDD formatted to UDF 1.02 to a computer running Ubuntu v11.04 - and voilá, the 2TB UDF-formatted HDD and the stuff on it were recognized immediately by Ubuntu. Under Ubuntu v11.04 I was able to copy files onto the UDF-formatted HDD, Ubuntu apparently can read and write to HDDs formatted to UDF 1.02. I was able to read the files written by Ubuntu under Win98SE and WinXP. Data on an archive HDD formatted to UDF 1.02 can be accessed under Win98SE, WinXP and Linux, with no special reading software required. UDF-formatted HDDs may be of particular use for users of multiple operating systems and for a gradual migration from Windows to Linux. I am attaching a screenshot of the Properties sheet under Ubuntu of the 2TB HDD formatted to UDF 1.02. The 2TB was originally formatted under WinXP, in a USB/eSATA docking station, with WriteUDF! to UDF 1.02 Formatting a 2TB HDD to UDF under Ubuntu I tried to format the same 2TB HDD, already formatted to UDF 1.02, under Ubuntu to UDF, with the following line: mkudffs --media-type=hd --blocksize=512 /dev/sdb1 Unfortunately Ubuntu replied: Error opening device: Permission denied Any suggestions?

The products of Software Architects appear indeed to be no longer available at digitalriver.com , except perhaps in Japanese, google search string: "site:digitalriver.com softarch".maybe: http://store.digitalriver.com/store/softarch/ja_JP/pd/productID.43318000 or http://store.digitalriver.com/store?Action=ContinueShopping&Env=BASE&Locale=ja_JP&SiteID=softarch

Technically that page should differentiate versions of Windows 9x. Windows 95 does NOT natively support UDF. Thanks to rloew, UDF 1.02 support is now available for Windows 95, but before this would have required third-party reader/writer software. Hi LoneCrusader,Not everything in wikipedia is correct CP/M, for example, was omitted from that list of operating systems IsoBuster v2.5.0.0 of 23-Dec-2008 (there is also a build 2.5.0.0 of 19-Dec-2013) is the last version for Win9x and according to the product description supports Win95 http://web.archive.org/web/20090123003203/http://smart-projects.net/? IsoBuster reads basically anything written onto plastic, at least what's computer-readable, without stability issues as with the Adaptec UDF reader.

MS Live File System and non-compliant UDF file structures Here an excerpt of a product description of FixUDF of 3 years ago, which apparently is not available at the internet anymore: "Why use our Fix Utilities? ... non-compliant UDF file structures (the OSTA standard may not have been used when the file structure was created. For example Roxio's DirectCD , BHA's B's Clip and Aplix's PacketMan UDF file system utilities create a non-standard UDF format, and therefore are not interchangeable with other kinds of systems.)" Here another excerpt about FixUDF (and other SAI products): "The UDF format for disk file structures [of SAI products] is based on the standard developed by the Optical Storage Association (OSTA)." So I could imagine that an external UDF-formatted HDD, written to by the MS-modded UDF and by e.g. WriteUDF, could eventually get corrupted. BTW FixUDF repairs only UDF 1.02, 1.50 2.0 and 2.01, NOT 2.50 or 2.60, so UDF 2.50 and UDF 2.60 can be rejected because of a lack of diagnostic/repair utilities.

MS Live File System MS Live File System seems to be a modification of UDF with incompatibilities so that it doesn't work on operating systems other than Microsoft XP and higher. The English-language wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_File_System has hardly any information about it, so here a link to the German-language page with content http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_File_System "Kompatibilität[:] Das Livedateisystem ist nach Angaben von Microsoft nur mit Microsoft Windows XP und späteren Versionen des Betriebssystems Microsoft Windows kompatibel. Andere Betriebssysteme werden nicht unterstützt... LFS implementiert nicht die im UDF-Standard vorgesehenen Access Control Listen und eine Implementierung ist auch nicht geplant" So a HDD formatted under Vista to MS-modded UDF 2.5 may not be a "Universal Disk Format" anymore, but just a "DF" (="Disk Format"). Nearly all operating systems can read UDF 1.02, except for DOS or MS Win3.x in the listing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format No idea whether Windows 7 or 8 use MS-modded UDF versions.

I would doubt that ReadDVD! v2.0 for MS Vista works for UDF-formatted HDDs, but I haven't tried it. Only a subset of builds/versions of SAI software works with UDF-formatted HDDs. When SAI used the term "Disk" they usually meant optical (plastic) media, not hard disk drives. Identifying whether a specific build/version works with specific magnetic media is a matter of trial and error, just like looking for undocumented features. And when a product announcement said that it works with Win2000 or WinXP - which version of Win2000 or WinXP did SAI mean? And some claims that a product works on a HDD I have not been able to confirm. Very time-consuming experimentation.Here is an old posting of mine when I was fiddling around with SAI UDF software which works on removable media, but not on hard disk drives under WinXP Here a product announcement of ReadDVD! v2.0 for MS Windows Vista http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=22294 Again this is a READER, not a writer of UDF, probably intended for users of Win2000/XP (Win98???) permitting access to stuff created by and for Windows Vista, i.e. UDF 2.50 and UDF 2.60.

Disk Drive Tune Up v3.1.2 under Win98SE can format SDHC cards in a USB SDHC card reader. I just stuck an old 16GB SDHC card formatted to UDF 1.02 into an SDHC card reader and WinXP SP2 could read it Ok, without any special software.Here an older link The subsequent posting #32 there by Offler may also be of interest: "I was able to acess 8gb files, even write 8gb files with video creating program" (under Win98???)

Thanks jaclaz, a very interesting link, here a quote from it: With which versions of UDF can Vista and Linux format HDDs?I have dumped Vista from my computer, so I cannot check. The book "Windows Vista Inside Out" (MS Press, 2007, pp.921-923) states that Windows Vista supports UDF v1.50 thru 2.60. "Note that all of these variants are afforded read-write support by Windows Vista, and that none of them are supported in any form on Win9x platforms". On first glance it appears to me that the purpose of UDF 2.50 and UDF 2.60 was to introduce incompatibilities so that companies would have to upgrade their older windows and transfer money to MS. Reminds me somehow of the incompatibilities of the various Word, etc formats. I have formatted the HDD to UDF v1.02, which can be read by Win98SE and WinXP without special software. In the revision history of UDF http://web.archive.org/web/20090309023829/http://homepage.mac.com/wenguangwang/myhome/udf.html Wenguang states: "UDF 1.50 adds virtual partition and sparable partition. Virtual partition allows a write-once media (CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R) appears as an overwritable media. A write-once media appears as an overwritable floppy (but hundreds or thousands times larger), except that its available space keeps decreasing as you use it. Even removing files cannot reclaim space. The sparable partition performs defect management on the media, similar to what the hard drive firmware does on modern hard drives... A sparable partition makes a disc with many defects appear as a good one with a contiguous logical space. " So UDF 1.50, the next version after v1.02, adds features for plastic media, which are probably not needed for HDDs, which have their own defect management. Any ideas which version of UDF is the best for HDDs? WriteUDF! v1.0.0.4 can format under WinXP SP2 the UDF versions from 1.02 thru 2.60, so for the sake of compatibility I chose UDF 1.02. There may exist a newer version of "WriteUDF! UDF Data Writer" v1.0.3 for Windows Vista http://www.cdrinfo.com/sections/news/Details.aspx?NewsId=22745 although I didn't see it for sale at Digital River when I looked 3 years ago. The product announcement by cdrinfo.com dated March 12, 2008 states: "The software is available from 20 March 2008" Here is a listing of the file systems supported by Windows 8, but without an indication of the UDF version numbers supported: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/query/aa383358 Can Windows Vista, 7 and 8 read HDDs formatted to UDF 1.02?

Wow! How did you format the HDD to ISO/Joliet exactly? How large was the formatted HDD? What gives me still a glimmer of hope is that about half the files extracted from the 8GB file under Win98 were Ok. If something doesn't work, then often all or most results are bad, but just 50%. Or do the 50% Ok files reflect 4GB accessible, and 4GB not accessible?Maybe 90% of the files extracted Ok from the 8GB iso seem to have been in a perhaps contiguous chunk of the iso, i.e. all files in the folders DB075 to DB119 of the extracted iso were identical to those on the DVD, while most files in the folders DB001 to DB069 of the 8GB .iso had completely different content (but identical file names and file sizes). My intention was to extract an 8GB file into small components, not to create an 8GB file Whether UDF is read-only or read-and-write depends on the file system driver used. The MS UDF file system driver under Win98SE allows only reading from UDF files, while the SAI UDF file system driver allows reading and writing. The UDF software from SAI comes with a SAI file system switching utility, which allows to switch between the MS and the SAI file system drivers. After switching the file system driver you have to reboot. The Windows 98 Resource Kit contains some info about UDF under Win98 (pp. 1312-1319, 1213, 442, 467).

UDF v1.02 is one of the file systems which Win98 understands and which is not tied to Microsoft. Increased knowledge about UDF under Win98 may lead to surprising results. Maybe it will eventually be possible to burn a DL-DVD from an 8GB iso on a UDF-formatted archive HDD, under Win98. I have double-clicked under Win98 on an 8GB .iso image of a DL DVD on the UDF-formatted HDD. The .iso image opened fine in UltraISO v9.3.6.2750. When I extracted under Win98 the files in the 8GB .iso image, all files extracted, but about half of them had a different content from the files on the original DL-DVD, the other half of the files were identical to the files on the original DL-DVD. The same happened when I extracted the 8GB .iso file under Win98 with WinRAR and MagicISO. IsoBuster 2.5.0.0 encountered bad sectors [non-existent in the original files] in some files when trying to extract the 8GB .iso under Win98.What is interesting in this experiment is that an 8GB file could be opened under Win98 if the 8GB file was residing on UDF v1.02 media, but something during the processing/extraction went wrong, perhaps because of some glitch in Win98. WinRAR, UltraISO and MagicISO completed the extraction of the 8GB file under Win98 without an error message, but again, about half of the stuff extracted by them was incorrect. Maybe, with a patch, or with a modification of your Large File Emulator, the 4GB file size barrier under Win98 can be broken with UDF media. Experiments under Win98 can probably be made just as well with 8GB etc iso files on UDF-formatted blu-ray BD-RE media. It's a file system driver limitation, so I doubt that malware will be able to overcome this.

Ditto! As far as I know WriteUDF! is no longer available and, BTW, the Software Architects, Inc. is no more, AFAIK. Did you find an alternative? I would describe all the UDF software I have seen from SAI, when it comes to the use with magnetic media, as alphas, not even as betas. There are dozens of versions, under various names like WriteDVD!, WriteCD-RW, WriteUDF!, WriteUDO! [for Mac], FormatUDF!, ReadDVD!, FixDVD!, FixUDF!, Disk Drive Tune Up, DVD-RAM TuneUp Pro [Mac] and ArchivistPro Hard Disk Edition. The various versions work with specific hardware configurations under some operating systems. Maybe these versions were demos to demonstrate some specific capabilities for specific media/hardware/operating system releases. I have checked out many of these UDF programs by SAI on a dedicated near-virgin operating system selection, to avoid corruptions.WriteUDF! v1.0.0.4 can quick format a USB HDD to UDF under WinXP SP2. Other versions have other capabilities, some run only under Win9x, others only under WinXP. it's a challenging and interesting heap of semi-finished products, at least when it comes to magnetic media (HDDs, LS-120, zip, jaz, regular floppies, clik! disks, SDHC etc). I assume the SAI software works Ok with plastic media (DVDs, etc), which was probably the main interest of OSTA. BTW, a higher version here probably just indicates that it was prepared at a later point in time. Currently, to me, the only alternative to a SAI version is another SAI version, although I haven't spent much time looking.

Reading from a 2TiB HDD under Win98 I have formatted a 2TB HDD to UDF v1.02. The UDF-formatted 2TB HDD is accessible, without special software, as read-only under both Win98SE and WinXP SP2. The Sata rev3.0 2TB HDD (6.0 Gb/s, 64MB cache, 72000 RP/M) was inserted in a Kingwin USB 2.0 EZ-Dock2 docking station (2 slots for altogether 2 HDDs) and connected to a USB 2.0 PCCard in my 11-year-old Inspiron laptop. The EZ-Dock2 was using nusb v3.3. I am still experimenting, but it looks like the whole 2TBs of the HDD are accessible under Win98SE, without any special software. There is no 137GB limit for UDF-formatted HDDs connected via USB under Win98. The 2TB UDF-formatted HDD was accessed Ok via USB on a near-virgin Win98SE system, on which no 137GB patch (ESDI_506.PDR) was installed [this patch is not needed for HDDs connected via USB]. Under Win98 the 2TB HDD had been set in Device Manager as Removable so that it gets assigned a drive letter, under WinXP the 2TB HDD is recognized immediately as "Local Disk". wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems states as limit of the UDF filesystem "2 TiB (hard disk), 8 TiB (optical disc) (2^^32 times blocksize)". Maybe larger HDDs (up to 16TiB?), with 4kB sectors, can be formatted to UDF and read under Win98 without special software, in the USB enclosures with the JMicron chip But right now I am happy that the 2TB UDF-formatted HDD seems to work Ok under Win98SE and WinXP. Here an excellent review of the UDF filesystem: http://www.diskinternals.com/glossary/udf.html The article "Wenguang's Introduction to Universal Disk Format (UDF)" is not available anymore at the link indicated by Offler in posting #3, but can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20090309023829/http://homepage.mac.com/wenguangwang/myhome/udf.html I am attaching a screen shot of the Properties sheet of the 2TB HDD under Win98SE. In the screen shot "0 bytes Free space" shows that the 2TB HDD is read-only, similar to a huge DVD-+R. Read-only media cannot be overwritten by mistake or infected by e.g. exe infectors. 2 years ago the Tenga exe-infector infected one of my 1TB archive HDDs, with FAT32 and NTFS partitions, which demonstrated the vulnerability of regular HDD archives. With some special software on another operating system I can write to the 2TB UDF-formatted HDD (i.e. add/delete stuff in the UDF archive), but not under the normal Win98SE and WinXP operating system selections on my computer.

Hi Laser98IX, Maybe there is an issue if 2 identical floppy drives are connected at the same time. Under USB, for example, having 2 devices connected at the same time with the same VID/PID is problematic. Does HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\FLOP display anything unusual? The BIOS of my Asus P5PE-VM (dual core) motherboard unfortunately permits only 1 floppy drive, while the BIOS of a quite similar motherboard P5P800-VM (not dual core) permits 2 floppy drives. I am missing the 2nd floppy drive, I wished I had your problem BTW, did you check that the connectors of the floppy cable are inserted in the correct orientation (red markings on floppy ribbon cable are at PIN 1). When problems looked really tricky to me, then very often the cause was defective hardware. Under DOS, can both floppy drives A: and B: full-format a floppy disk? Can you copy files from one floppy drive to the other?

22GB lost free space is a lot. I didn't know that ScanDisk under DOS can fix a 700GB FAT32 partition, but again, I have little experience with 700GB FAT32 partitions and don't use FAT32 partitions larger than 192GB. It would be interesting to hear about your experience with huge FAT32 partitions.

The old version of Space Control (for Windows 98/98SE) v1.0.1.5 (20 March 2001, shareware) can be downloaded from http://web.archive.org/web/20040402043846/http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/spacecon.htm The description file of the software http://web.archive.org/web/20040402043846/http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/spacecon98.txt may perhaps provide additional info.I am not sure whether SpaceCon would be useful to me personally, and I have never tried the software, I don't need settings for Low Disk Space Warnings. I have come across the Low Disk Space Warning only when the mule had filled up the data partition on my HDD, and with UDF-formatted HDDs under WinXP. The mule can handle disk-full situations fine, some downloads in progress just get paused/stopped and can be resumed when sufficient space is available again. I never had an issue because of low disk space (e.g. 10kB free space on a partition), the (data) partition which gets filled up is not the Windows partition. This low-disk-space situation may actually be an argument in favor of having a separate data partition: the data partition may become full, but Win98 keeps on working fine. I have not yet tried to run Win98 with only 10kB of free space on the Windows partition. The Low Disk Space message could be viewed a misnomer, a "Low Partition Space" message would be more accurate, there may be still plenty of disk space on other partitions of the disk. Addendum: The download page http://web.archive.org/web/20040402043846/http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/spacecon.htm contains links to 2 different versions: v1.0.1.5 (20Mar2001): http://web.archive.org/web/20040402043846/http://www.jddesign.freeserve.co.uk/spacecon98.exe v2.1.0.0 (timestamp 1Jan2004): http://web.archive.org/web/20040402043846/http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/spacecon.msi SPACECON.HLP contained in spacecon.msi (extracted with UniExtract) displays: "Space Patrol is the successor to our earlier Windows 98 specific Space Control program. While Space Control allowed you to configure the low-disk space notification facilities in Windows 98, Microsoft discontinued this programmatic interface in later operating systems (even Windows ME)"

Hi Nomen,I would create an image backup of the HDD, before fiddling around any further. On my external HDDs I am using 192GB FAT32 partitions, on internal HDDs much smaller FAT32 partitions. My first guess would be that your problem is caused by a partition too large for Win98, without using special patches. 1) Does the "disk full" message still come up under Win98 if you set the HDD to Removable (Device Manager: -> select the HDD -> Properties -> Settings tab -> select Removable) and then reboot? On my old Inspiron 7500 laptop, when I use a 2nd internal PATA/IDE HDD formatted to UDF v1.02, Win98 assigns a drive letter and can read data from the UDF HDD if the HDD was set to Removable. Without special software, Win98 can only read from the UDF-formatted HDD, but cannot write to it. The UDF-formatted HDD is displayed in My Computer as "Used Space: 74.5GB, Free Space: 0 bytes", without displaying a Low Disk Space Warning. Under WinXP SP2, however, the same UDF-formatted internal HDD continously displays an annoying Low Disk Space Warning. Under WinXP I had used TweakUI v2.10 [ -> Taskbar and Start menu -> de-select: Warn when low on disk space] to turn off the Low Disk Space Warning]. TweakUI 2.10 is preferrable to a registry patch because TweakUI 2.10 displays conveniently whether the warning is on or off. TweakUI v1.33, the last version for Win98, does not have a selection to turn the Low Disk Space Warning on or off. 2) Does the "disk full" message come up under Win98 if your SATA HDD is inserted in a USB docking station or in an external USB enclosure? Under WinXP a UDF-formatted HDD (i.e. with Free Space: 0 bytes) generates a Low Disk Space Warning if connected internally, but not when connected via USB. I agree. Maybe last call before data loss on the 700GB HDD.

The exe-infector virus Tenga also modified/marked 2 bytes near the beginning of Tenga-infected .exe files. Tenga-infected files could be identified by these 2 modified bytes and by the current file modification date. "New Executable files (Win 3.1)" were not infected by Tenga, only PE files.If you add a switch to verify files in subfolders, VRFYPE could be used to check large HDDs for possibly unidentified remnants of this exe-infector, which were not identified by Kaspersky. Eventually you may look beyond checksums, but a project of a more-or-less known magnitude may then turn into an open-ended major project.With mp3s, for example, MP3Test http://www.shivi.de/MP3Test.html does a lot of processing on each individual file; the MP3Viewer in Beyond Compare compares tag information; and EncSpot also does a lot of processing, trying to identify the encoder, number of frames, etc. With picture files, the Picture Viewer of Beyond Compare 3, for example, helps to identify corrupt picture files by displaying images and their viewed differences next to each other for individual visual inspection.

The bad CD contained 44 .DL_ files containing the following 44 files, which were not checked by VRFYPE: Modification date, bytes, file name and New Executable (Win3.1) version: 07/21/2001 02:30 PM 69,584 avicap.dll 07/21/2001 02:30 PM 109,456 avifile.dll 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 32,816 commdlg.dll 08/17/2001 12:20 PM 30,160 compobj.dll Linker v5.3 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 27,200 ctl3dv2.dll 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 39,424 ddeml.dll 07/17/2004 11:36 AM 4,656 ds16gt.dll 07/21/2001 07:04 PM 3,440,660 gm.dls NOTE: is a .DLS file, not a .DLL file, even if extracted from GM.DL_ 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 9,936 lzexpand.dll Linker v5.2 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 8,192 mciole16.dll 08/03/2004 10:51 PM 68,768 mmsystem.dll 07/21/2001 02:30 PM 61,168 msacm.dll 07/21/2001 02:30 PM 126,912 msvideo.dll 07/21/2001 02:29 PM 34,816 mwci.dll Linker v6.1 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 108,464 netapi.dll Linker v5.3 07/17/2004 11:36 AM 26,224 odbc16gt.dll 08/17/2001 12:21 PM 39,744 ole2.dll Linker v5.3 07/21/2001 06:35 PM 169,520 ole2disp.dll 07/21/2001 06:36 PM 153,008 ole2nls.dll 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 82,944 olecli.dll Linker v5.1 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 24,064 olesvr.dll 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 46,592 pmspl.dll Linker v5.1 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 5,120 shell.dll 08/17/2001 12:20 PM 4,208 storage.dll 08/17/2001 01:25 PM 19,200 tapi.dll 08/17/2001 01:36 PM 13,888 toolhelp.dll 07/21/2001 07:45 PM 94,784 twain.dll 07/21/2001 06:36 PM 177,856 typelib.dll 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 9,008 ver.dll Linker v5.2 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 363,520 w3svc.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 32,768 wabfind.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 49,152 wdigest.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/17/2001 10:36 PM 40,448 webhits.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 135,680 webvw.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 463,360 wiadefui.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 589,312 wiashext.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/17/2001 01:37 PM 9,216 wifeman.dll 07/21/2001 02:15 PM 13,312 win87em.dll Linker v5.3 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 32,768 winipsec.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 176,128 winmm.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 08/04/2004 12:56 AM 99,328 winscard.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 03/17/2007 04:45 PM 292,864 winsrv.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 01/17/2007 09:26 PM 314,880 wmpdxm.dll empty file, contains only zeroes 07/21/2001 06:38 PM 10,080 xcci20.dll The bad CD was a specially modified WinXP SP2 CD, so not corrupt versions of the above files could probably be obtained also from a regular WinXP SP2 CD. gm.dls, extracted from gm.dl_, is not a .dll file, so there are not 44, but only 43 dll files in the folder which VRFYPE did not check. This shows how important it is to indicate in the summary how many dll files VRFYPE checked. 31 out of the 43 DLL files were New Executable (Win 3.1), as indicated by MiTeC EXE Explorer, all using Linker version 5.6 unless noted otherwise above. BTW, MiTec released a new version v1.3.0 of MiTeC EXE Explorer on 8-Jun-2012 http://www.mitec.cz/exe.html 12 out of the 43 DLL files not flagged by VRFYPE were corrupt: they were empty and had only zeroes in them (e.g. wiashext.dll had 589.312 bytes of zeroes), i.e. VRFYPE did not report corrupt files which had just a .dll extension, but were filled with zeroes. When 7-zip extracted, for example, winipsec.dl_ it displayed :"Data error in 'winipsec.dll'. File is broken." and the file winipsec.dll was created by 7-zip with zeroes as placeholders. UniExtract v1.6.1.61 (gora mod, build 1377 of 3Jun2012) extracts from the bad winipsec.dl_ an identical winipsec.dll filled with zeroes, but without displaying an error message. If a dll file is of a type which VRFYPE cannot check, VRFYPE should display a message like "Not PE type". Ideally, however, a CHECKDLL should be able to check New Executables also, but this could be a major project. I am not sure whether there are similarities between checking mp3s and checking dlls. EncSpot v2.2 beta 2, for example, http://web.archive.org/web/20070708091424/http://www.guerillasoft.co.uk/encspot/encspotpro2.2beta2.zip can look into the content of an mp3 file and identify the Encoder, bitrate, etc and is most of the time (maybe 90%) correct, at least with older mp3s http://web.archive.org/web/20080218014539/http://www.guerillasoft.co.uk/encspot/index.html

Hi dencorso, I first may have to possibly correct myself regarding UltaISO/WinISO creating files with zero-filled holes when creating an .iso from a CD with bad sectors. When I tried with UltraISO to recreate an .iso from the same bad CD as used before in my posting #1, but this time with a different burner, an Asus BW-12B1ST blu-ray burner, UltraISO terminated with a message that it encountered a bad sector. If I remember right, I had used a Pioneer BDR-203 blu-ray burner for the result in posting #1, so possibly the .iso with the zero-filled holes may have been caused by the hardware/firmware of the Pioneer. I currently don't have the Pioneer available, so unfortunately I cannot confirm this. In any case I recreated with the Asus BW-12B1ST blu-ray burner a .iso of the CD with the bad sectors by selecting in UltraISO -> Tools -> Make CD/DVD Image -> select Skip Bad Sectors. The burner was reading the bad CD for about 7 hours, until the .iso image was finished. I subsequently copied 135 .dll files from this .iso containing files with "holes" to a separate folder and then checked these 135 files with VRFYPE. VRFYPE correctly identified 134 DLLs as Ok, and correctly identified a single DLL as bad, with the message "Chksums do not match". Comparing with Beyond Compare the files of the mounted bad .iso against the good reconstructed .iso gave the same results: The zero-filled "hole" in the identidied bad DLL was displayed by the Hex Viewer of Beyond Compare. So VRFYPE did correctly flag the single bad .dll I subsequently made a second test of VRFYPE. I copied all 1651 .DL_ files from the bad iso to a separate folder and then extracted these .DL_ files (they are CAB archives) with 7-zip into another folder, giving 1596 .dll files. 7-zip gave a lot of error messages during the extraction, probably also for the 55 missing dll files. The folder with the 1596 dll files extracted from the .DL_ files then served as a test collection for testing VRFYPE. When I ran VRFYPE, about 200 .dlls were flagged as bad (i.e. non-zero Chksums did not match), and about 1400 were flagged as Ok (non-zero Chksums are the same). Because a lot of messages are generated by VRFYPE, I have sent the screen output to a file and then printed it: VRFYPE *.dll > summary.txt Here some suggestions for adding some finishing touches to VRFYPE: 1) By default (i.e. when no parameters are entered) VRFYPE could be a utility to flag errors, i.e. only display messages when the Header checksum is not zero and differs from the Real checksum, e.g. \WINNTBBU.DLL Checksums: Header: 12345678 Calculated: 23456789 ERROR BAD FILE 2) a parameter /Z(ERO) could display only messages for files with a zero header 3) a parameter /V(ERBOSE) could display messages for all files, as currently in v1.0 4) messages could be briefer, so that they don't wrap around to another screen line in case of long paths 5) A summary could be displayed, xxx files checked, yyy files had zero headers, zzz bad files (with non-matching, non-zero headers). There may be a bug in VRFYPE: running the check on the 1596 dlls, 339MB, took about 1 second, but when I sent the screen output to a .txt file, Textpad counted only 1556 lines minus 4 lines for the title, i.e. no message line was contained in the output text file for 1596-1552 = 44 files. No idea whether there is a bug or some other error. I noticed one peculiarity about VRFYPE: I ran VRFYPE on my dual core desktop, both under Win98 and under WinXP. The desktop has a bfg 7800 GS graphics card, which starts to whistle when the power supply doesn't provide enough current (this whistling problem was solved on another identical desktop by replacing a 450 Watts power supply with an 800-Watts power supply, but on the desktop used for testing VRFYPE I still have a 550-Watts power supply, which hasn't had this issue before). When I ran VRFYPE on the 1596 dlls, while a lot of other stuff was running, the bfg7800 GS card whistled for a fraction of a second, indicating perhaps that the CPU drew a lot of current.

Hi dencorso, Great job! During a preliminary check with VRFYPE of the DLLs on a MS WinXP and a MS Win98SE installation CD, I identified DLLs where the checksums don't match. Unfortunately, I have already deleted all the bad DLLs and the bad .iso mentioned in my posting #1, since I have re-created a good .iso from the CD in the mean time. I still have the original bad CD, and I'll try to re-create a bad .iso with bad dlls from the CD, so that I have some material (i.e. bad DLLs) for further testing of VRFYPE. It should be possible to create a tool to check the integrity of DLLs. For mp3s, for example, I am using 3 tools to check out mp3s: - MP3Test - EncSpot, which displays ther encoding used in the mp3 - mp3 Viewer in Beyond Compare, to compare similar mp3s, identifying mp3s which have identical content, but different headers

Thanks loblo, I'll check it out with the next uploaded screen shot. Tools Included with the Microsoft Windows 98 Resource Kit KB247024 Rev1.3 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/247024 of 25-Jan-2007 seems to list the applets included in the Win98 Resource Kit Tools of the older v98.0.1.118 (Book CD). The listing includes FileWise.exe, which is not contained in the newer v98.0.1.119 (FTP site). The KB listing does not include CFGBACK.EXE of the Beta1 CD. KB247024 Rev1.3 does not mention that there are several versions of the Microsoft Windows 98 Resource Kit. BTW, the Beta1 CD includes in \FILE\ a DOS file copy utility CP.EXE v5.0.1708.1, 46864 bytes, modified 16-Nov-1997, which is not listed in WIN98RK.HLP of the Beta1 CD.

RK98BOOK.CHM, the actual eBook I am attaching a screen shot, showing a comparison of the 2 versions of the eBook RK98BOOK.CHM, which I apparently didn't upload with my posting #48 OT: Uploaded screenshots I am archiving and then deleting some of the screenshots etc which I have uploaded here, I am running out of space for new uploads @submix8c: I just saved your screenshot in posting #63 , before you delete it, it's a gif with 90KB, you must be running out of upload space too. Sometimes gifs are smaller, sometimes jpgs. I usually have the compression factor of uploaded jpgs set to 50% in Paint Shop Pro 7, so a screenshot of about the same quality would use only 60KB upload space, which is still a lot somehow. After I made a screen shot or scan with Paint Shop for uploading to msfn.org, I: - sometimes reduce the image size - then reduce the colors to 256 - then save a copy of both as gif and jpg_50% - then upload the smaller of the two. But I am still running out of space Perhaps you could have reduced the size of the 90KB gif uploaded to about 30-40KB, with the indicated sequence.