Multibooter

Before you get going make a good backup of your system (at least of \Windows\ and \Program Files\) and keep it for 3 months. This is a system update, not just a driver installation, without a backup it is difficult to go back where your system was before the installation of nusb.I am using a USB WLAN stick, and followed the instructions and uninstalled Orangeware. BTW could someone explain how exactly Orangeware can be uninstalled? I just renamed all files/directories of Orangeware and removed USB controllers from Device Manager, but are there still entries related to Orangeware left behind in the registry? Is there an uninstaller for Orangeware? After removing Orangeware I got scared, when the Internet and local network access were gone, so I quickly restored my system backup. nusb 3.3 worked fine on my machine WITHOUT uninstalling the Orangeware USB controller and hub driver. You should uninstall, however, all your USB mass storage device drivers (e.g. ext.HDD, ext.CD/DVD, other sticks/ card readers, camera, mp3 player) before installing nusb.

Hi Rick, Perhaps you had already a generic USB driver like nusb 3.3 installed. A previous installation of nusb 3.3, for example, adds the key [HKLM]\Enum\USBREADER to the registry. Also, the picture http://www.sakar.com/p-1966.aspx?categoryid=141 does not show that the reader is SDHC compatible (cards >=4GB). Another description at http://www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com/catalog/69/5394/ doesn't show SDHC compatibility either, although some devices not described as SDHC-compatible may contain firmware/newer chips which work with SDHC cards. The multi-card reader by MSI can also read SIM cards, is SDHC-compatible and uses up only 1 drive letter.

Thanks dencorso, I'll check it out, maybe it helps to increase eMule uptime also with my hardware.

Very good research jaclaz Interesting case. The download page of the chipset driver http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss...ocid=MIGR-50636 says Win98, but then a footnote to all the models, dated March 8, 2005, says: "(*1) Only Microsoft Windows 2000/XP are supported". I would give it a try according to step 4/4B in ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/oss305ww.txt Maybe it works and IBM just didn't want to support an opsys which it had not pre-installed.

ebay didn't come up with anything useful for the search string "thinkpad R51 98", so probably this laptop is not compatible with Win98. I remember getting the same error message when I tried to install Win98 on a new Quad Core desktop, which the ebay seller had advertised as compatible with Win98. I returned it after fiddling around with it for a day.

I would rather rephrase it to "... programs that aren't very thoughtful about them [resource-usage issues, i.e. inefficient programming] CRASH and HANG Win98 more than the others.To the list I would also add Norton SystemWorks (but not Norton Disk Doctor standalone, which is excellent). My uninstall notes had the comment: "the system [Win98] seems much crisper without it". Symantec gave up Win98 long before Microsoft: NSW2006, out in 2005, did not support Win98 anymore. The more lines of code there are in a program, the more bugs it may have. This could explain why big fat, inefficient programs would cause eMule to crash more often. Maybe just coincidence: Firefox v2.0.0.17 setup.exe: 5.908kB, Opera v9.60 setup.exe 4.922kB. When running Opera together with eMule, Win98 will usually not hang, in contrast to Firefox.

Yes, eMule is fully compatible with Win98. The right setup though is tricky (router, Control Panel -> Network settings, firewall settings, not getting low IDs). For good performance, running eMule on a dedicated computer helps, even if it's an old box, also 512MB of RAM, and a direct cable connection to your router (no WLAN, if you have an old router/WLAN-card).eMule is actually my tool of choice to identfy the Win98 compatibility of OTHER programs: if, after running another program, eMule crashes within the next 2 hours, it means to me that this OTHER program has serious Win98 compatibility issues. Good examples are Acrobat 5 or Firefox 2. With eMule you can also predict whether Win98 support of a piece of software is about to stop: if eMule hangs or crashes quickly with another program, it may indicate that this other program had too many Win98 bugs for their programmers to handle, so they just give up, no more new release for Win98. Good examples are again Acrobat 5 and Firefox 2

Here are 2 example links to Solid State Disks (SSD), with 6 slots for SDHC cards (4-32GBs): http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/spei...s/index_en.html http://www.markstechnologynews.com/2008/08...w-cost-ssd.html These devices seem to function like an multi-card reader which can read 6 SDHC cards simultaneously and has disk-spanning firmware and a SATA interface. Hopefully an external device, with switchable USB interface and a Win98 driver, will eventually become available. This Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter for 4 Compact Flash cards claims compatibility with Win98: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Buil...rds-69054.shtml I have built myself a somewhat comparable device, using a Belkin 7-port USB hub plus various SDHC card readers connected to it. This arrangement works fine under Win98. Another self-built device, a hama 55745 multi-card reader with 3 built-in USB ports and 3 single-card readers plugged into it, has been working fine for me under Win98, as a download station for eMule with altogether 4 SDHC cards. My build-your-own devices connect via USB, the devices listed above require eSATA. Also, my 4 card readers have different drive letters, just like partitions of a HDD, there is no drive-spanning. The main advantage of the SDHC cards over a HDD is their fast access speed, about 25x faster than a HDD. HDDs, however, have a much higher read/write speed than SDHC cards. Here a very good benchmark: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1096 The fast access speed of SDHC cards may be useful for applications like eMule, which has many threads reading and writing simultaneously at slow speeds all over the hard disk, but it doesn't read/write very much data per second. Other applications which might benefit from SDHC cards may possibly be identified by asking: Which of my applications performs substantially faster when the HDD is well defragmentated? Has anybody in the forum experience with Solid State Disks (SSD) or drive-spanning under Win98?

On my old laptop with over 100 apps, installed during the past 7 years, the Win98 registry has 9MB as an exported .reg; System.dat is 6.3MB, User.dat 1.1MB. I usually don't fiddle around with the registry, so I am amazed that it is so much smaller than yours. Besides that Kodak stuff, did you identify any other hogs?

The v82.69 driver has also caused problems with my ViewSonic 1600x1200 monitor when connected via DVI, it often/randomly remained black while booting. I had no DVI problems with the driver v77.72. The shutdown and DVI problems were the reasons I rejected any version for Win98 above v77.72

I speculate that the underlying cause may be the GeForce 82.69 driver you were using; maybe Opera will not crash with v77.72.

1) Use Driver Cleaner v1.5 to uninstall a previous installation of the NVIDIA GeForce driver (Add/Remove doesn't work for this driver)2) extract 77.72_win9x_english.exe (or 77.72_win9x_international.exe) to a driver directory. 3) add 3 lines to update the original v77.72 .inf files, for the bfg GeForce 7800 GS card: nvagp.inf (=English version) or nvaml.inf (Multi-language version) - comment line near beginning ;updated for bfg GeForce 7800 GS card - before the last line in section [strings]: NVIDIA&DEV_00F5.DeviceDesc="NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS" - at end of[Mfg] section: %NVIDIA&DEV_00F5.DeviceDesc% = NV30, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00F5 4) From that driver directory install the GeForce v77.72 driver via Device Manager, NOT via Setup.exe I has worked fine for this specific card; whether it works for other 7000 cards, I don't know. To find the device id strings for other cards, you should look at the .inf in the extracted latest version driver files for WinXP. After installation of the card I manually created a modified NVTweaks.reg, based on Nv8269.txt, the docu file of Tweaked Unofficial NVIDIA Display Driver 82.69, which I downloaded from http://www.mdgx.com/files/nv8269.php Good luck.

SDHC card readers under Linux Here a little-OT note for those who multi-boot into Win98, WinXP and Linux: The Paragon Partion Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD boots into Linux 2.6.18.2-34-paragon. This version of Linux, unlike Win98SE, did not need special drivers for my USB mass storage devices, incl. SDHC cards and external USB HDDs. The bootable CD handled properly under Linux a quite complicated hardware configuration. The following devices were connected to a Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop of the year 2000, which had no BIOS settings for USB devices, all at the same time: - an MSI card reader connected to the internal USB 1.1 port - a USB 2.0 PCCard inserted into the PCMCIA slot - a Wintech (=Genesys chip) single-card reader, connected to Port 1 of the PCCard - a hama multi-card reader 55745 with a built-in 3-port-USB hub, connected to port 2 of the PCCard; an SD card with 3 partitions (FAT-16, FAT32 and NTSF) was inserted - a switchable Thermaltake Combo USB/SATA HDD enclosure, connected to the built-in hub of the hama multi-card reader; the Thermaltake had a 750GB SATA HDD inside So SDHC card readers seem to work under newer Linux without a manufacturer-provided driver, even if the box usually does not list Linux among compatible operating systems.

First of all, I have to correct my previous posting: Replacing cfgmg32.dll with the newer WinME version does NOT fix/change the device detection sequence of devices connected to USB 2.0 PCCards. The error in my previous posting was due to my having used in the first series of experiments the hama mult-card reader 55745, which has a built-in 3-port hub, and in the second series of experiments the hama multi-card reader 55350, which doesn't have a built-in hub. When using the multi-card reader WITHOUT the built-in hub on port 1 of the PCCard, and the single-card reader on port2, then there is no multiple drive letter problem. When, however, using the multi-card reader WITH the built-in hub in port 1, instead of the one without the built-in hub, then there is a multiple-drive-letter-problem. So this "2nd bug" has something to do with the handling of USB hubs. I have corrected my postings accordingly. @dencorso: I have manually deleted the 3 entries in HKLM\Enum\SCSI\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\ of the phoney drive letters (SCSILUN 1,2 and 3). Upon rebooting I got again multiple drive letters by clicking Device Manager -> Refresh, and the previously deleted entries were back again in the registry. It didn't make any difference, the multiple-drive-letters came back. There is only 1 entry for the single-card reader, no multiple entries. Here is the key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB\VID_05E3&PID_0723\000000009451] "Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00 "HardwareID"="USB\\VID_05E3&PID_0723&REV_9451,USB\\VID_05E3&PID_0723" "CompatibleIDs"="USB\\CLASS_08&SUBCLASS_06&PROT_50,USB\\CLASS_08&SUBCLASS_06,USB\\CLASS_08" "DeviceDesc"="Wintech2 Card Reader" "Class"="USB" "Driver"="USB\\0012" "Mfg"="General" "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" "ConfigFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00 "Serial"=hex:22,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "SymbolicName"="\\DosDevices\\0000000000000022#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}" I was wrong about cfgmgr32.dll, nevertheless I also tried ntldll.dll of WinME, but still the same multiple-drive-letter-problem as before. I don't have USBNTMAP.SYS under Win98SE, since nusb is not installed.I guess this multiple-drive-letter problem will remain unresolved. Manufacturer-provided drivers vs nusb The main reason I dug so deep into the Genesys driver was to become more knowledgeable about the quality of manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers vs nusb for SDHC card readers. A work-around was found for this special multiple-drive-letter problem, so using manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers for SDHC card readers is still my preference, mainly because: - there is no need to uninstall drivers for all existing mass storage devices, drivers which have worked well in the past ("don't touch a working system", just for getting a card reader to work) - there is no need to re-detect your USB mass storage devices and customize again their settings (disable auto-run, assign drive letters, etc.) - the Genesys driver has nice 2-state-icons for removable media devices, which indicate whether media is inserted or not. 2-state-icons are particularly useful with multi-card readers. - you can customize the menu entry, with a meaningful name, of each device displayed by the safely-remove-icon (via the device list in the .inf file of the device) But nusb has many appealing features: - it works fine with devices for which there is no manufacturer-provided Win98 driver (i.e. no headache "Where can I buy a device with a Win98 driver") - a single safely-remove-icon in the system tray for all USB mass storage devices - no messing around with various drivers - a safely-remove-utility that works well - only one program monitoring usb (systray.exe) I don't like the either-or situation of nusb; I would like to keep my old working drivers AND use nusb for some new hardware, at my choice. If only nusb could be made to co-exist with other drivers, without requiring their previous uninstall!

It looks like Windows 98/Me support has been discontinued for Shareaza as of 1-Oct-2008 http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/ Last version for Win98/ME seems to be v2.3.1.0 http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/?id=download Is v2.3.1.0 the best version for Win98?

Hi chromatic47, Sorry I can't help you any more. I gave up on the newer GeForce drivers after I got the bfg 7800 cards working with the older driver. I actually called up customer service/technical department of bfg in April 2008, asking about the shutdown and monitor problems under Win98, especially since Win98 was printed as system requirement on the box and GeForce v82.16 was on the accompanying CD as driver for Win98. They offered a refund right way, so they must have known. I said: "Hey, I don't want a refund, I want a working card." But they couldn't come up with a solution. 2 weeks later I received a letter from bfg with a RMA number (=Return Material Authorization), for getting a refund, even if I hadn't asked for one. I didn't return the cards, I liked them (except for the noise), they work fine with the older driver.

My comment was about my configuration with the 7800 card; with the PNY GeForce FX 5200 card versions > 77.72 worked fine on my configuration, if I remember right.I'll be back at my desktop in December/January. The selections Shut down, Restart and Restart in MS-DOS mode in the Shut Down Windows menu were ok; I don't know about the Standby selection since I don't use it. Also a very nasty monitor-on/off problem of a ViewSonic VP2030b connected via DVI-D was resolved by reverting to the older driver v77.72 (The monitor would sometimes remain black until Win98 comes up - but how could I use the System Commander boot manager or change the BIOS settings on a black screen? There was no such problem when the monitor was connected at the VGA connector, but the VP2030b has a very poor display quality when connected via the VGA connector)

There are no shutdown problems with GeForce v77.72. Shutdown problems exist in all later versions and were apparently never corrected.

It can be found, but most likely wouldn't help. Drvoff.exz is part of DoubleDisk 2.6 (1992), I wouldn't install it, it probably does strange things to the disk drive, and I don't know how to extract the .exz without installing it. The Read.me however has an interesting comment: "Since DoubleDisk enables you to attach ANY drive letter to the Extended-Disk [i.e. the special thing created by DoubleDisk], a situation might occur where a "gap" of unused drive letters will be created between the last physical drive that is in use in your system and the Extended Disks' drive letters attached. For example, assume that your system is equipped with physical drives A: B: C:D: E:, and you created two Extended Drives to which you have attached the H: and K: drive letters respectively. Note that in this case the drive letters F: G: I: J: are present but cannot be accessed (any access to these drive letters would end up receiving the error message: "Not Ready Error..."). These drives are called PHANTOM DRIVES, and MS-DOS recognizes them as existing drives. [There even is a registry key with the name 'Phantom', see code example above] Some software products (in particular Microsoft's Windows) scan all of the existing drives in the system (as reported by MS-DOS) regardless of the fact that the drive may be a PHANTOM DRIVE, thus producing the "Not Ready..." error message for any PHANTOM DRIVE repeatedly." I have set drives V and W as virtual drives with Alcohol, with usually unused letters before. But the multiple-drive-letters of the phoney drives go until Z: Could the multiple-drive-letter-problem be a DOS problem?

Hi dencorso, Thanks for directing my attention to the registry. The phoney drives are not under HKLM\Enum\USB, but under HKLM\Enum\SCSI Please let me know, after you have read this posting, whether it still brings something to continue experimenting and to delete the phoney SCSI entries. I have repeated the steps which bring about the multiple-drive-letter situation. After each step I rebooted (except after step 5) and took a snapshot of the registry (exporting all keys to a .reg file). Instead of the hama 55745 multi-card reader as before, I have used the hama multi-card reader 55350 (without a 3-port-hub, same Genesys GL819 chip). As 2nd Genesys-driven device I have used a WinTech single card reader (VID=05E3, PID=0723), which after step 6 appears with phoney multiple drive letters. I have taken the following .reg registry snapshots: 1After restoring W98_08Nov08.reg (no Genesys driver installed, no USB card reader devices detected, no nusb, with orangeware, USB 2.0 PCCard installed) 2After installing Genesys driver.reg 3After detecting multi-card reader 55350.reg 4After detecting singl-card reader Wintech (multi reader not yet connected).reg 5After connecting also the multi-card reader.reg (i.e. AFTER the single-card reader, to create multiple-drive-letters) 6After causing multiple drive letters with Refresh.reg 7After rebooting just with multi-card reader connected.reg 8After rebooting just with the single-card reader connected.reg 9After rebooting with no card reader connected.reg and for comparing Genesys vs nusb: (after restoring W98_08Nov08, installing nusb 3.3, and detection of both card readers) 10With nusb after multi and single card reader detected.reg With Beyond Compare -..-> Compare in Viewer -> View differences I identified the differences between the registry snapshots. Here some of my findings, but I am not a registry expert: A) Comparing the registries before and after clicking on the Refresh button in Device Manager (i.e. when there were no multiple drive letters to just after the display of multiple drive letters) (.reg file 5 vs .reg file 6): The following 3 values were added for the 3 phoney drives to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ASD\Prob\{CF2524C0-29AE-11CF-97EA-00AA0034319D}] and [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ASD\Prob\{9B4E7760-3196-11CF-97EA-00AA0034319D}] "SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945101"=hex:00 "SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945102"=hex:00 "SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945103"=hex:00 The following 6 keys were added for the 3 additional phoney drives: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\DiskDrive\0045] "NoSetupUI"="1" "InfPath"="DISKDRV.INF" "InfSection"="GenDiskInstall" "ProviderName"="(Standard disk drives)" "DriverDate"=" 4-23-1999" "DriverDesc"="Disk drive" "MatchingDeviceId"="GenDisk" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\DiskDrive\0046] "NoSetupUI"="1" "InfPath"="DISKDRV.INF" "InfSection"="GenDiskInstall" "ProviderName"="(Standard disk drives)" "DriverDate"=" 4-23-1999" "DriverDesc"="Disk drive" "MatchingDeviceId"="GenDisk" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\DiskDrive\0047] "NoSetupUI"="1" "InfPath"="DISKDRV.INF" "InfSection"="GenDiskInstall" "ProviderName"="(Standard disk drives)" "DriverDate"=" 4-23-1999" "DriverDesc"="Disk drive" "MatchingDeviceId"="GenDisk" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945101] "Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00 "SCSITargetID"="0" "SCSILUN"="1" "RevisionLevel"="9451" "ProductId"="STORAGE DEVICE " "Manufacturer"="Generic " "DeviceType"=hex:00 "Int13"=hex:01 "PModeInt13"=hex:01 "Removable"=hex:01 "CurrentDriveLetterAssignment"="P" "HardwareID"="GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9,GenDisk,SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9" "Class"="DiskDrive" "ClassGUID"="{4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}" "Driver"="DiskDrive\\0045" "Mfg"="(Standard disk drives)" "DeviceDesc"="Generic STORAGE DEVICE " "ConfigFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945102] "Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00 "SCSITargetID"="0" "SCSILUN"="2" "RevisionLevel"="9451" "ProductId"="STORAGE DEVICE " "Manufacturer"="Generic " "DeviceType"=hex:00 "Int13"=hex:01 "PModeInt13"=hex:01 "Removable"=hex:01 "CurrentDriveLetterAssignment"="Q" "HardwareID"="GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9,GenDisk,SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9" "Class"="DiskDrive" "ClassGUID"="{4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}" "Driver"="DiskDrive\\0046" "Mfg"="(Standard disk drives)" "DeviceDesc"="Generic STORAGE DEVICE " "ConfigFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_05E3&PID_0723&00000000945103] "Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00 "SCSITargetID"="0" "SCSILUN"="3" "RevisionLevel"="9451" "ProductId"="STORAGE DEVICE " "Manufacturer"="Generic " "DeviceType"=hex:00 "Int13"=hex:01 "PModeInt13"=hex:01 "Removable"=hex:01 "CurrentDriveLetterAssignment"="R" "HardwareID"="GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9,GenDisk,SCSI\\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9" "Class"="DiskDrive" "ClassGUID"="{4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}" "Driver"="DiskDrive\\0047" "Mfg"="(Standard disk drives)" "DeviceDesc"="Generic STORAGE DEVICE " "ConfigFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00 2) When the single-card reader was detected by Windows (comparing snapshot 3 vs 4), the following interesting keys were added: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\7B] "HardWareKey"="USB\\VID_0DDA&PID_2005\\000000000036" "DevNode"=dword:0000007b [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\7C] "HardWareKey"="SCSI\\HAMA____CF__CARD_READER_9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_0DDA&PID_2005&00000000003600" "DevNode"=dword:0000007c [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\7D] "HardWareKey"="SCSI\\HAMA____SM__CARD_READER_9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_0DDA&PID_2005&00000000003601" "DevNode"=dword:0000007d [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\7E] "HardWareKey"="SCSI\\HAMA____SD__CARD_READER_9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_0DDA&PID_2005&00000000003602" "DevNode"=dword:0000007e [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\7F] "HardWareKey"="SCSI\\HAMA____MS__CARD_READER_9\\USBSTOR&DISK&0000USB&VID_0DDA&PID_2005&00000000003603" "DevNode"=dword:0000007f [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\cfgmgr32\Phantom\80] "HardWareKey"="USBSTOR\\DISK\\0000USB&VID_0DDA&PID_2005&000000000036" "DevNode"=dword:00000080 I still have all the registry snapshots. Any suggestions?

If I remember right, you have to install CardWizard 95 (for Win95) or CardWizard Pro (for Win 3.x and DOS 6), otherwise the laptop won't recognize PCMCIA cards under these operating systems. This old laptop probably will not work with more recent Cardbus cards. CardWizard may be on the driver CD of the laptop; it may also be on floppies which came with PCMCIA cards such as the Adaptec SCSI PCMCIA card.

Nothing happens. I don't use Doubledisk or disk compression either, System Commander would have problems with it. Thanks for pointing to some similar situations, this is not just a problem of multiple-drive-letters: when I click on a phoney drive letter, I don't get an error msg as reply, but I get full access to a disk. This is a phantom-drive-problem. For each real partition I get three more phoney but accessible partitions. Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 can manipulate SDHC cards (="Removable Disk"). It sees the real disk and the 3 phoney ones. Paragon Partition Manager also contains its own utility to check the file system integrity, the phoney drive is ok. I modified with the Disk Editor of Paragon Partition Manager 1 byte of the phoney drive K: . I then went with the Disk Editor to the real drive K: , the modified byte was displayed there also. Device Manager -> Disk drives -> "Generic STORAGE DEVICE" (8 are displayed, selecting the one for phoney drive P:) -> Properties -> Settings shows the identical Firmware revision 9451 as the real drive K: and has the following items selected: Disconnect, Sync Data Transfer, Removable, Int 13 unit. Current drive letter assignment is P: (greyed out) I have been wondering why the real drive K: is displayed 4 times in My Computer. Initially I thought it was because this multi-card reader had 4 slots for 4 different types of cards. But then the limitation of max.4 primary partitions per HDD device occurred to me. The menu selection of USBMonit.exe, the safely-remove-utility in the system tray, displays for the multi-card reader a single menu selection with 4 drive letters (or with about 10 drive letters when this problem occurs), just like for a hard disk with multiple partitions. nusb, which works ok, displays 4 menu selection, one for each drive letter/slot/device. Also, a very similar multi-card reader model, the hama 55350 (the older version with the same GL819 Genesys chip, the newer version comes with a USBest chip UT335), comes without a built-in USB 3-port-hub; it has an additional 5th slot for inserting a micro-SDHC card, but this 5th slot is a "phantom" of the slot for the SDHC card. You can copy between all 5 slots, except that you cannot copy between the SDHC and micro-SDHC slots. If you have both an SDHC and a micro-SDHC card inserted at the same time, Win98 hangs. Any further ideas about this multiple-drive-letter, or rather multiple-phantom-drive problem? Addendum: The real and the 3 phantom drives have target ID=0. The Logical unit of the real drive K: =0, the phantom drives P,Q,R, have the LUNs 1, 2 and 3. Also, I can remove the phantom drives in Device Manager - but they don't disappear from My Computer, not even after a View -> Refresh or a Device Manager -> Refresh. Even after Alt - Ctl -Del -> Explorer -> End Task the phantom drives will not disappear from My Computer. After double-clicking in My Computer on such a phantom drive, which should not be there anymore, the access light of the SDHC card reader blinks once and an Explorer window for the drive opens.

Hi jaclaz, it's magic. I went into a DOS window (not full-size), formatted the phoney drive P: ok, the light of the single-SDHC card reader was flashing during format so it really did something. After formatting I made a dir of the phoney drive P: msg: file not found, 1,018,822,656 bytes free. Then I changed under dos to real drive K: - the files are still there, a .txt listed correctly. Windows Explorer shows an empty window for P: , no more files. In the window of real drive K: still the old files - all accessible, a .txt listed ok Here the text displayed in the DOS window when I formatted the phoney drive: P>Format P: WARNING, ALL DATA ON DISK DRIVE P: WILL BE LOST! Proceed with Format (Y/N)?y Checking existing disk format Formatting 971,87.. (could not read my notes) Format complete Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?afterfmt 1,018,822,656 bytes total disk space available on disk 16.364 bytes in each allocation unit 62.184 allocation units available on disk Volume serial number is 114F-1B09 when I gave it a dir K: (the real drive), everything was still there, K: had the "volume serial number is B7BF-ADBA" A chkdsk of the real drive K: and the phoney drive P: was Ok. Norton Disk Doctor under Windows found K: and P: ok Is it maybe all in cache somewhere? The system is stable, I am posting this while the DOS window with the phoney drive is still minimized. P.S. 5 minutes later: I just went into a full-size dos window, where both drives were shown as empty, both had the same volume name AFTERFMT and the same volume serial number 114F-1B09. Volume P: had 1,018,822,656 bytes free Volume K: had 1,016,217,600 bytes free Under Windows, the windows of K: and P: have become empty, no more files listed. Under Windows, Norton Disk Doctor found no errors on either drive - so why the different amount of free space?

Playing with phoney drives These phoney drives are starting to get interesting, on an SDHC card it is possible to play with them, without risking damage to the HDD. It is possible to move files from the real drive K: , for example, to the phoney drive P: , so that Windows Explorer displays different files in its windows for K: and P: Even Beyond Compare, which doesn't go thru Explorer, lets you move stuff from a real drive to a phoney drive, and vice versa. After having made K: different from P:, Norton Disk Doctor still finds no error in the FAT of both drives, so possibly the phoney drive contains its own FAT. Win98 is stable with these phoney drives: I am connected to msfn.org writing these lines while 3 phoney drives are displayed in My Computer. By the way, the icons of the phoney drives displayed in My Computer are regular Removable Disk icons, while the icon of the real drive is displayed with a 2-state-icon (card inserted/no card). This is possibly not a bug in Windows Explorer, maybe something deeper. Maybe that's something for the kernel experts... The phoney drives are gone when I reboot. Norton Disk Doctor finds then lost clusters. P.S. 5 minutes later: I retract my statement about stability. While I was on the internet and the phoney drives were displayed in My Computer, I removed the SDHC card; the 2-state-icon changed ok from red to grey. Then I re-inserted the SDHC card, the 2-state-icon turn red Ok, but then the system froze. Upon reboot there were no lost clusters on the SDHC, everything was deleted from the SDHC card, except for an empty directory. Good that it was only an SDHC card with junk on it. Any other ideas about the multiple-drive-letter-problem?

But it's still better to have the same drive with two different letter assigned than having two same letters.... Thanks for helping. I have added another work-around above, which may be useful with drive letter assignment in general.BTW, there a 4 different drive letters displayed, e.g. K,R,U,Z and they all refer to the same partition K: of the HDD. Win98 assigns as many drive letters as it can, until it runs out of drive letters, but it doesn't hang. Norton Disk Doctor doesn't find any errors in these phoney multiple drive letters/partitions. Device Manager -> Disk drives: displays also these phoney drive letters, as 3 additional entries "Generic STORAGE DEVICE". Getting closer to the solution? Yesterday I found another single-card reader which uses the same Genesys driver as the multi-card reader, with amazing results: 1 ) There is NO multiple-drive-letter problem using this single-card reader together with the Genesys-driven HDD/DVD-burner. Therefore the multiple-drive-letter-problem is most likely caused by the incorrect handling of the 4 card slots in the multi-card reader, i.e. 4 card slots in ONE physical device. nusb, which does not have the multiple-drive-letter problem, treats each slot of the multiple-card reader as a separate physical device: its safely-remove-icon in the System Tray [misnamed as systray.exe] has 4 menu selections, one for each slot [something like: "Stop USB Disk K:", "Stop USB Disk L:", etc], so one has to repeat the safely-remove-procedure 4 times in order to safely disconnect the multi-card reader. That is, for example, even if you don't own a CF card, you still have to remove the CF-reader every time you want to safely remove the multi-card reader, kind of a nuisance, but no multiple-drive-letter problem. The Genesys driver, on the other hand, displays a single device for removal in its safely-remove-utility USBMonit.exe: "Stop Genesys USB Mass Storage Device K,L,M,O". After the multi-drive-letter problem occurred, USBMonit.exe displays something like "Stop Genesys USB Mass Storage Device K,L,M,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,X,Y,Z" [V,W, I have reserved for the virtual drives of Alcohol] 2 ) When both the single-card reader AND the multi-card-reader are connected at the same time, I get the same multiple-drive-letters for the single-card reader [=Removable Disk] as for the ext.HDD [="Local Disk"] or the external burner [="CD"], depending on the way I connected the single-card reader. The same work-arounds as described above apply to this single-card reader. No more active Win98 support by Genesys? I have found somewhere in the Internet a more recent version of the Genesys Win98 driver (March 2007), indicating Genesys Logic is possibly aware of this multiple-drive-letter-problem. They found the easiest workaround: the lines in geneuide.inf, which load the safely-remove-utility initiating the whole multiple-drive-letter problem --- are commented out. No more safe removal, no more multiple drive letters under Win98. Until somebody like Multibooter clicks on Device Manager -> Refresh ... Also, to my amazement the Product IDs of my ext.HDD and ext.burner enclosures, which caused all this head-ache [VID_05E3&PID_0701 and VID_05E3&PID_0702], were not included in geneuide.inf anymore, either. But maybe they didn't know that connecting a single-card reader, with a Genesys chip inside, to a Genesys multi-card reader causes the same multiple-drive-letter problem.