Multibooter

Yes. I create with WinRAR a single rar file from these two Win98 folders, to make sure that no files inside \Windows\ and \Program Files\ were somehow changed since making the backup. This also maintains the original folder dates when I restore the backup. If you have enough space on your HDD, however, using just file copy to create a backup folder on a different partition is Ok. Yes. If your stick came with some reformatting software for Win2k, I would use that instead of Windows Format. SDHC cards (which differ from regular USB sticks), for example, are not properly formatted with Windows Format. Yes. That's what I have on my system with nusb.I have also used nusb without any problem with a patched version of \Windows\SYSTEM\VMM32\Ios.vxd. Installing the old Micro Solutions Backpack parallel-port floppy disk drive under Win98 requires patching ios.vxd with iosfix.exe plus manually adding a line in \Windows\ios.ini in section [safeList], otherwise I would get at boot-time an error while initializing IOS: "Windows Protection Fault". nusb seems to be able to digest quite a few changes - provided you installed nusb properly. I have my own little method of installing and using nusb, which has worked for me so far: 1) I first create a directory, e.g. \nusb33\ and put nusb33e.exe into it 2) I extract all files in nusb33e.exe into \nusb33\ 3) I run (double-click) nusb33e.exe to install nusb 4) after nusb has been installed and when I connect a new USB device: - when the Add New Hardware Wizard comes up and asks to Specify a Location: - if it is a device for which I want to install nusb, I indicate the path to \nusb\ - if it is a device for which I want to install a manufacturer-provided driver, I indicate the path to that driver, not to \nusb\ Currently I am not using any manufacturer-provided USB mass storage drivers, only nusb, because nusb seems to be the best driver. Here one example of the superiority of nusb: Recently I installed a Kingwin EZ-Dock EZD-2535 SATA HDD docking station under Win98, with a manufacturer-provided driver (I always test a new Win98 device with its manufacturer-provided driver first, before re-installing it, under nusb, after a system restore). With a new 2.5" 500GB Hitachi SATA HDD inside the docking station, Beyond Compare eventually froze when accessing the HDD in the docking station. ScanDisk with the Thorough (=surface test) option also froze after an hour or two, no msg, big puzzle. When I eventually used the docking station under nusb, ScanDisk displayed: "Failed to read data from the disk, sector...." plus identified the bad sectors when it was done, without freezing. I immediatley returned the 500GB Hitachi HDD and got a working replacement, thanks to nusb. The manufacturer-provided driver of the EZ-Dock docking station was probably never tested by the manufacturer how it works with defective hardware. When buying USB hardware, I try to get hardware with a manufacturer-provided Win98 driver, so that I actually have 2 different drivers, for testing in case of problems. Here another example which shows that nusb is more resilient to error conditions than manufacturer-provided USB drivers: When you pull-out, without safely-remove, a USB mass storage device driven by nusb, then re-insert it, and then run ScanDisk or NDD, they are likely to work Ok; when you repeat the same under a manufacturer-provided driver, ScanDisk or NDD are likely to freeze. Dave, I'm writing all this about nusb, to encourage you with nusb - when you get it to work, it's great!

A USB stick with 2 partitions may not be that simple. What happens if you insert a USB stick which has only 1 partition, or another USB drive with only 1 partition? (external USB HDD, camera, etc?) I just want to make sure that the problem is not related to/caused by partitioning.

Maybe Dave should, before he starts up Win98, edit under Win2k the file \Windows\Scanreg.ini and change the value of MaxBackupCopies. The default is MaxBackupCopies=5 [=make backups once a day, for a maximum of 5 days]. Maybe by setting "MaxBackupCopies=10" he won't loose his oldest backup when he starts up Win98. The maximum value of MaxBackupCopies is 99. I would restore the 4 backup files not under DOS with ScanReg, but under WinXP with a simple extract, then file copy (about Win2k I am not sure, I don't know whether Dave can access ok the Win98 partition). But ScanReg under DOS is a little cleaner, file copying under WinXP changes access dates, which may not be good prior to making a partition image. If Dave doesn't find an rb*.cab file dated prior to the installation of nusb, maybe he should, before any further fiddling, make an image of the Win98 partition, maybe an old rb*.cab file can be recovered lateron. A recovered rb*.cab file is most likely good if it tests and extracts ok under WinRAR (a "recovered" file is often different from the original file). Given Dave's experience I have just set MaxBackupCopies=10 in my system. This will add about 10MB to my \WINDOWS\ directory (5x2MB), 5 backups look too little to me. BTW, my oldest backup file is rb004.cab, the most recent backup file is rb005.cab. I have no idea why the naming of the backup files on my system is out of whack.

What about trying to restore an old registry backup in \Windows\Sysbckup\ ? My Windows98 has several files like rb000.cab of the last 5 days. Maybe Dave should back these files up also, before they get replaced. Dave posted his problem 4 days ago on 20-Oct-2009. My oldest backup file rb004.cab has currently a modification date of 20-Oct-2009, so there might be a chance that he still has a pre-nusb version, if he makes a backup of these files under Win2k before starting Win98 tomorrow. I would also check with data recovery software for any old deleted files rb*.cab. I am content with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard v4.3.6 under WinXP (it doesn't run under Win98, but Win2k is supposedly ok)

Dave's system and nusb will then most likely work, but what about his external devices? I have a lot of external devices for my laptop which are entered under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum. Re-installing the software and drivers for my external devices would be quite time-consuming (PCCards [sCSI, USB 2.0, Ethernet], USB devices [Printer, scanner, USB DSL-modem using NDISWAN], parallel port devices [iomega zip, Jaz Traveller parallel-to-SCSI converter, Micro Solutions floppy disk drive, parallel port printers] and SCSI devices [iomega Jaz/zip]). Dave is lucky if he doesn't have that many external devices.If Dave's computer works with an old serial mouse, then the corruption of his system may be limited to USB/SCSI. Hopefully Dave can solve his problem, but if nothing should work, Dave has then a 3rd alternative: installing a clean 2nd Win98 opsys with nusb, and continue using his original Win98 opsys for everything which does not involve USB.

Your system corruption seems to possibly include now a 3rd USB device, the USB mouse. What happens if you use an old serial mouse? dencorso's suggestion is the right way to go. @dencorso: Did you mean HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum ? Or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USBSTOR ? On the other hand, wiping out all the hardware currently installed may be useful house-cleaning. I have never done that yet on my system, I am not sure what the impact on other software installed in my system would be, e.g.:- Alcohol with a virtual drive which creates an entry "VAX347S SCSI Controller" in Device Manager - Acronis True Image, which has an entry in Device Manager under Acronis Device - the printing software cum driver of my HP2605dn Color LaserJet, which renames the whole USB category in Device Manager to "HPP EWS" Dave's system looks like in trouble and a complete hardware-oriented house-cleaning is a thorough step most likely obviating the need to re-install Win98. @dencorso, Please apologize my constant comments here. This topic is very important, it might even be renamed to "How to repair a failed nusb installation".

Do you use a USB mouse or a USB keyboard? I don't know how to uninstall nusb on my system. Renaming Usbstor.inf and usbstor.pnf only de-activates nusb. The entry in Add/Remove "Remove Unofficial Universal USB 2.0 Stack" is not a complete uninstall of nusb. In order to make an uninstall of nusb, I make a complete system restore (including dlls, \INF\ etc) to a state prior to the installation of nusb, which is quite easy on my system. The author of nusb should add a text like "Before installing nusb, you MUST make a complete system backup" on the first installation window of nusb. During my fiddling around with nusb I made maybe 50 complete system restores @ 10 minutes, with the method described above. I am also using my own little method for installing nusb.Again, nusb is an excellent piece of software once you get it going correctly and I have switched over from manufacturer-provided drivers to nusb.

You have just detected the 1st corruption on another USB device. I suspect that there may be more problems hiding. Does ScanDisk or NDD work Ok on all of your USB mass storage devices, especially after safely-removing the USB devices (via the system tray icon) and then reconnecting them? Do 2 USB mass storage devices connected at the same time work properly? Before fiddling around any more you might also create a restore point (see below). Here 2 easy tricks:1) download the Genesys USB driver from http://www.hama.de/webresources/drivers/00...350_win98me.exe and install it; it can be uninstalled easily again via Add/Remove. This driver has helped me to "break the neck" of nusb when I was fiddling around with nusb. (If you lateron decide to re-install nusb again, uninstall the Genesys driver via Add/Remove before installing nusb) 2) if this doesn't help, then rename \Windows\INF\USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.PNF to anything, e.g. to: Usbstor.inf.deactivated & usbstor.PNF.deactivated. Then uninstall and re-install the manufacturer-provided driver of your USB pendrive. I use the following method to create a restore point under Win98: I go into another Windows operating system (e.g. WinXP) on my computer and rar up \Program Files\ and \Windows\ of the Win98 system into a single .rar file. When I want to restore Win98, I again go into WinXP, delete \Program Files\ and \Windows\ on the Win98 partition and then unrar the .rar file there, re-creating \Program Files\ and \Windows\. To create a restore point takes about 30 minutes on my old 750MHz laptop, to restore Win98 takes less than 10 minutes. When I install new software I try not to install it to the default \Program Files\xxx\, but to E:\xxx\, this keeps \Program Files\ small for faster system backups and restores. If the 2 tricks above don't work, I don't know of a quick and easy fix.@dencorso: I guess we posted at about the same time. I would still try the trick with the installation of the genesys driver first, even if it doesn't solve the underlying corruption problem. Your suggestion about a clean installation of nusb addresses the underlying corruption which Dave will eventually have to fix. Since it looks like Dave doesn't have a recent backup, his best long-term choice is to follow your suggestions and make a clean installation of nusb.

Hi Dave, as I had suspected in my first reply: Try to click on the Refresh button in Device Manager, maybe the drives will then show up in My Computer. If that doesn't help, make a system restore, try to uninstall the old cardreader driver + any other USB stuff, then install nusb + see whether it works.On my system an old and forgotten USB driver of an external Micro Solutions DVD burner, discarded long ago, had caused problems. I also suspect that an old forgotten utility called "Iomega Backup", for Iomega Jaz drives (SCSI), might have caused strange problems on my system when nusb was installed without removing this utility beforehand. Maybe not only old drivers and devices, but also unruly applications may possibly interfere with nusb. I also removed SCSI drivers and devices; I got rid of the driver etc of an old Umax Astra 1200S SCSI scanner, for example, which I had disposed of years ago, and which had no uninstall routine in Add/Remove. In order to uninstall that Win95-era scanner, one would have to connect the scanner to the computer, and then uninstall it via the Control Panel, but this is kind of hard to do without the scanner. A little while back I had a multiple-drive-letter problem, with several drive letters appearing in My Computer and referring to the same device, e.g. 8 drive letters instead of 4. Maybe your problem is related, only a little different, i.e. zero drive letters instead of 4. My multiple-drive-letter problem was never resolved, until I restored the system to a state of 18 months earlier. Recently I somehow got another multiple-drive-letter problem out of the blue, when I used 2 Iomega SCSI Jaz drives, one connected to the parallel port via an Iomega Jaz Traveller cable (=a SCSI-to-Parallel converter), the other connected to a CardBus slot of my old laptop via an old Adaptec SCSI 1460A PCMCIA card. I didn't try to find the cause of the multiple-drive-letter problem (i.e. 3 jaz drive icons in My Computer instead of 2), I just made a system restore, but even that didn't resolve the multiple-drive-letter problem, I suspect that the driver of the Iomega Jaz device wrote something somewhere in the jaz drive. After some fiddling around, this multiple-drive-letter problem was gone, but I have no idea why. Iomega has stated somewhere on their website that there is a multiple-drive-letter problem with their Jaz drives.

Hi Dave, this means that your card reader requires a driver for Win98, but the manufacturer does not provide one, i.e. the card reader will most likely not work under Win98 unless you have nusb 3.3 properly installed, with no stuff interfering with nusb. Since nusb didn't work for you, it looks to me like you have somehow corrupted your Win98 system during your attempts to get the USB card reader going. nusb 3.3 is a marvellous program and it is extremely unlikely that your new card-reader will not work with it, provided you do a lot of time-consuming footwork before installing it. WinME has a built-in USB driver, but not Win98SE. 1) If you can, restore your system to a point BEFORE you started fiddling around with the card reader and nusb. Your system has most likely become a little corrupted and all your other USB and SCSI devices may be impacted. nusb is not just a little driver, it's a major system update which is very hard to reverse, so a system restore is the easiest solution.2) To save you a lot of time: Return the card reader and get one which lists Win98SE on its system requirements AND which has a driver CD in the packaging. Quite frequently Win98 drivers from a website don't work with a card reader because the card reader has a new chip inside. There should be still some Win98 compatible card readers on the market, just look for them. 3) If you freshly install Win98SE, nusb 3.3 is the easiest and best choice. On a Win98SE system with a lot of stuff on it already, and many devices already detected, a manufacturer-provided driver is the easiest choice, nusb requires a lot of uninstalls prior to installation. 4) I am using nusb 3.3 on my main Win98 computer, and am very content with it. I have switched over from manufacturer-provided drivers to nusb about 6 months ago, but this was a VERY time-consuming project because I have over 150 software packages installed on my Win98 machine, with maybe 30-40 different external hardware devices.

Hi jaclaz, very interesting to see that this Win98 slip-streaming project died about 6 months after Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 98.

I am using WinRAR to create archives, I have no experience with makecab. When I repeat the archive creation selecting a folder of files, WinRAR produces 2 identical .rar files. When I repeat the archive creation selecting a folder plus files, WinRAR produces 2 different .rar files, possibly because Windows changes the file access date when I select a file for inclusion in the .rar archive. I have been amazed to see that when I burn with Nero a CD from an .iso file created by UltraISO, and then make again an iso image with UltraISO of the CD just burnt by Nero, the resulting iso file will be larger than the original iso file, but the files in both iso images are identical. Pretty soon WinXP will be a legacy operating system, just like Win98. And legacy operating systems have something in common: It takes a lot of effort and special tools to get them to work on new hardware.The installation of WinXP on an Asus Netbook, which has no floppy drive A:, has shown me that installing WinXP on new hardware starts to get as difficult as installing Win98 on new hardware. Without a tool like nLite I would not have been able to install WinXP on the Asus 1000HE netbook with an AHCI BIOS setting. In 2-3 years from now I expect that it will be just as difficult to find WinXP-compatible hardware, WinXP drivers and WinXP-compatible software, as it now for Win98. If you plan to stay with WinXP, you might look at the Win98 forum http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=8 to get a glimpse of the problems the few remaining Win98 users are currently facing.

I have recently come across another old program which had also raised a red flag with me, TeleDisk (see http://www.msfn.org/board/2-t136856.html posting #15, TeleDisk can create images of DOS and CP/M floppy disks under Win98 [TeleDisk v2.23 also works Ok under WinXP if you select as Diskette Controller Interface "BIOS" instead of "Direct"]): When I repeated with TeleDisk to make a disk image of the same floppy, the resulting disk image differed a little from the previous disk image, even the file size of the created image file differed. Making 3 images of the same floppy disk resulted in 3 different image files, but the floppies re-created from these differing image files were identical.The floppy disk images usually just differed by a few bytes in the header, the data area looked identical. At the time I thought that they might have different encoded time stamps in the header and I did not pursue the issue further because the reputable hpmuseum site was using TeleDisk to archive their old CP/M floppies, e.g. http://hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?sw=243 with a downloadable file in .td0 (=TeleDisk) format. Your guess about non-lossy file compressors may be the correct explanation of the different image files produced by TeleDisk, because TeleDisk can optionally create compressed floppy disk images. cabarc, pkzip, TeleDisk and nLite seem to have something in common: identical input produces different output. A subsequent step, however, can produce again identical repeatable output. In the case of nLite, two seemingly different slip-streamed CDs (created with identical input) should create two identical Windows installations ... or maybe not? It is probably easier to identify errors when identical input creates identical output. If identical input does not create identical output, eventually you get a pile of bugs, like Windows. And with every major new release, with new features, the number of bugs increases exponentially.

I use Win98 95% of my time, and WinXP maybe 5%. The main advantage of Win98 is its security from malware and government and industry spyware. I have been treading in dark waters, with a dedicated emule computer downloading under Win98 24 hrs/day, for the past 5 years. I only run on-demand scans, mainly of new downloads, encountering about 300-500 viruses, trojans etc per month. The last infection of my system was in January 2004, the last system-wide scan maybe a year ago.msfn.org has the best Win98 forum in the internet at http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=8 Here a "little" challenge: How about installing and creating a functioning Win98 on your current physical machine (i.e. not in a virtual machine)

Hi John, Thanks for your thoughts, but the CDs were burned under nLite with the lowest burning speed (8x) and with Verify selected, and I strongly doubt that it is a writing speed problem. Since the slip-streamed CDs displayed this "CD/DVD Read Error!" under Win98, but not under WinXP, I would speculate that the burning module of nLite burns a CD which is not quite compatible with Win98. UltraISO v9.3.3.2685 under Win98 could not create an ISO image of the CD produced by nLite [->Tools ->Make CD/DVD Image], but ->File ->Open CD/DVD worked Ok under Win98, without an error msg. Since UltraISO under Win98 displays the error msg "CD/DVD Read Error!" when 100% of the nLite CD has been read, it might be something in the trailer which UltraISO cannot swallow under Win98, maybe it has something do with a slightly different treatment of file names or codepages under Win98. Have you tried to create under Win98 an ISO image of an nLite CD? I would venture to say that the output of the burning module of nLite has not been fully tested under Win98. Does nLite actually run under Win98SE if .NET Framework 2.0 is installed?In any case, if it is confirmed, this is a really minor bug, and of interest probably only to the few remaining users of Win98. I was mainly interested in finding the reason for the different files, and dencorso has found the right explanation. The burning problem only led me to the puzzle of the different files.

Thanks dencorso. You solved the puzzle of the different files. When I extracted 6 of the different .CA_, .IN_, .SY and .TX_ files on 2 CDs, the resulting extracted files were identical.

I have created with Direct Burn+verify under nLite v1.4.9.1 a WinXP Home Edition SP3 installation CD which contains the AHCI driver. The CD worked fine installing WinXP SP3 on an Asus Eee 1000HE netbook. WinXP now runs fine on the 1000HE under both AHCI and IDE modes. After installing WinXP I wanted to archive this CD by creating an ISO image of it with UltraISO v9.3.3.2685 under Win98SE, which is my main operating system on my main computer. At 100% complete, the iso-creation failed with the error msg: "CD/DVD Read Error!". I therefore repeated the creation and burning of the slip-streamed CD with a different CD-burner, starting with a freshly copied directory containing the original and unmodified WinXP installation CD. Again I got this "CD/DVD Read Error!" when I tried to make an ISO image of the 2nd slip-streamed CD. Older UltraISO v7.6.5.1225 under WinXP, however, created an Ok iso file from the slip-streamed CDs, without this error msg. UltraISO v9.3.3.2685 has worked very reliably for me under Win98SE. I strongly suspect that nLite does NOT burn CDs correctly. I then repeated the creation of this slip-streamed CD, and selected in nLite "Create Image" instead of "Direct Burn". I subsequently burnt a CD with Nero from this .iso image, and Nero produced a good CD, of which UltraISO could in turn make a good .iso image. So Nero burnt a good CD, but not nLite. During that fiddling around I had actually created 4 slip-streamed CDs, which were supposedly identical. But when I compared the 6407 files on each CD with Beyond Compare/Hex Viewer, between 8 to 19 files on each CD were different, mainly just a few bytes, in IN_ and DL_ files. These were not bad burns because the files on the 4 CDs were identical to the files in the corresponding 4 working directories on the HDD used by nLite. In computing, identical input should produce identical repeatable output, or a red flag comes up. WinXP installed fine with the 1st CD, but I have 3 more CDs, all different. Which one is a good one, with no surprises down the road, or are they all bad? Which one shall I archive? Why do some files in the working directories differ, given identical input?

I just looked at the French and German web shops of Kaspersky, and they still sell v6 license keys, in contrast to the US web shop: http://www.kaspersky.com/de/license_renewal http://www.kaspersky.com/fr/license_renewal These license keys probably work only with the French or German versions 6, but this makes me speculate that Kaspersky Internet Security may remain updateable under Win98 until the end of 2010 at least.

There are still plenty of retail boxes of Kaspersky Internet Security 6 at ebay. Only the license key inside the retail box is of interest. The software to be installed should not be the stuff on the CD in the box, but v6.0.2.621 which updates Ok under Win98SE. Unfortunately, when one tries to download the previously downloadable v6.0.2.621 from http://usa.kaspersky.com/support/208279811...port/208279811/ only a msg: forbidden is displayed. In December 2008 I was informed that generally the not-yet-used licence keys DO expire after a certain point, since v6.0 hasn't been sold in stores for a while. I had nevertheless purchased at that time several retail boxes of v6, but my gut feeling is that pretty soon Kaspersky will also walk away from Win98. Kaspersky Internet Security v6 came on the market in 2006, so given the 3-year-warranty period required by law in Europe, one could speculate that their Win98 support is going to end in 2009. I am using Kaspersky only as an on-demand scanner, mainly for eMule downloads under Win98. When Kaspersky Internet Security does stop updating under Win98, I will have to do the on-demand scanning under WinXP. On-line scanning is not feasible, given the amount of downloads to be scanned.

Kasperky Internet Security v6.0.2.621 still updates fine under Win98, I just updated the signatures.During updating I recently got the msg "File black.lst is missing or corrupted. Please run Updater to fix the problem." and KIS stopped working. It was the 2nd time that I got this msg during the last 8 months, even if I am using a valid key from a purchased retail box. Somehow their blacklisting procedure is buggy. It's unlikely that it is a Win98-specific problem since there are many messages at forum.kaspersky.com about black.lst. The problem of the missing or corrupted file black.lst gets solved by -> Uninstall KIS -> Repair, this sets the signatures back, then -> run Updater again, KIS will be updated Ok.

2 programs I have used for archiving my old CP/M floppies, Uniform and 22Disk, together with a 20-year-old MicroSolutions UniDOS CP/M CoProcessor Card were just sold at ebay for $185. The price jumped from $81 to $185 in the last few seconds, by the bidding of 3 experienced bidders with over 600 feedbacks. Over 400 pageviews of the item, I have never seen a UniDOS CP/M CoProcessor Card offered at ebay before.

FileMerlin v8.0 can read/convert .docx files under Win98. Quick View Plus v10 can also view/print/convert .docx files under Windows 95/98, but the installation for Win9x is very sophisticated and enlightening. Instructions could be found on the mule.

Data recovery: "There is no floppy in the drive" I just recovered and archived a floppy which most copying/imaging programs couldn't handle: Windows Explorer: "The disk in A: is not formatted" WinImage: "There is no floppy in the drive" GRDuw: "Unrecognized Media" DCF: "Address Mark not found - track 0" SH-Copy Star: "Error while analyzing the disk" VGA-Copy: "Diskette nicht lesbar" [=Diskette not readable] DskImage could only produce a useless image file, with no files visible in it; it displayed "12 sectors were unrecoverable" (all on track 0) The solution was TeleDisk v2.23. I made a .td0 image of the floppy. When TeleDisk reported that sectors 1+2 of track 0 were bad, I just pressed Enter. Then I restored the .td0 image file to a preformatted floppy, and voilá, Windows Explorer displayed all the files of the bad floppy. The files had the same size and creation date as those on a similar original floppy, but many files had different content. ScanDisk gave the error message "This drive contains one or more backup copies of the file allocation table", I selected repair, and then the files were identical to the corresponding files on that similar original floppy. I could also create a readable copy from this bad original floppy with Anadisk v2.10 (May 1995), but after repairing the file system with ScanDisk, 1 resulting file was different from the other similar original floppy. So TeleDisk v2.23 (Sept.1996) seems to make more accurate copies/repairs than Anadisk, at least in this case.

Data recovery: Floppy with bad sectors in the data area (i.e. not on track 0) I have just finished recovering 2 bad floppies with an LS-120 floppy drive and DskImage in a Win98 DOS window.. One floppy eventually was read correctly after placing it in the freezer for about 5 minutes. The freezer really helped. The other bad 1.44MB floppy had initially 15 bad sectors in the data area. I had to create 33 floppy images with DskImage until I got 2 images where DskImage did not report any errors. After each image made I slapped the floppy about 10 times with full force against my thighs, and this treatment apparently caused DskImage to encounter fewer and fewer bad sectors. DSKIMAGE_RETRIES was set to the maximum of 10. After 10 images I put the floppy into the freezer for 10 minutes, this again reduced the number of bad sectors immediately. After another 10 more images I gave the floppy a break for 8 hours, then continued, a little break did help. DskImage is an unstoppable copier, in contrast to GRDuw, which fails/aborts frequently with the message: "unrecoverable disk error". The 2 image files with no bad sectors were amazingly a little different from each other on the last track, may be a bug in DskImage which reported "no sectors were unrecoverable" or because that last track was "empty", outside the data area. The 2 nearly-identical image files produced both good files. ScanDisk reported a damaged folder and found lost file fragments. The original floppy was a little damaged in the process, I had to remove the metall slider. Before the harsh treatment of the floppy xxcopy16 was able to file-copy many files Ok, with their original filenames and file dates. After the harsh treatment xxcopy didn't see 20% of the files anymore on the original floppy. In any case, the data on this bad floppy was completely recovered, and the lost fragments recovered by ScanDisk were identical (+ some junk at the end) to corresponding files obtained initially by xxcopy. I archived the files obtained with xxcopy because they had good file names and file dates.

Warning about files extracted with WinImage from floppy disk images When you have a floppy with file system errors (FAT copies are not the same, lost clusters, cross-linked files, etc) and make an image of it, the floppy disk image will also contain these file system errors. Some files extracted lateron with WinImage v8.1 from such a bad floppy disk image may be corrupt and differ from the files on the original floppy. The files copied from the original floppy with xxcopy and the /v2 parameter for byte-by-byte verification may differ from the files extracted by WinImage -> Image -> Extract. Sometimes WinImage flags during the extraction that a file is different from the original one with the error message "Error writing file xxx", but NOT always. If you are certain that the original floppy had no file system errors, then you are fine, the files extracted from the image are identical to the original files. If you did not check the original floppy with ScanDisk or NDD for file system errors prior to making the image, then you cannot be certain that the files extracted by WinImage v8.1 are identical to the original files. To identify floppy images with file system errors, one could extract the floppy image to a floppy, and then run ScanDisk on this floppy. ScanDisk can then usually repair the files, so that they will be identical to those file-copied with xxcopy. Whenever ScanDisk reports errors or GRDuw displays read error messages during the creation of an image file, I add BAD to the filename of the floppy image file, e.g. xxxxBAD.dcf so that I remember later that some files extracted from the image by WinImage may not be identical to the original files.