Multibooter

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.

Thanks Sfor, but the laptop with this multiple-drive-letter-problem is an old Dell Inspiron 7500, a top model of the year 2000, but its BIOS doesn't support booting from USB, no BIOS USB support. So this can't be the cause.

Thanks herbalist, I remmed out all possible entries, but the multiple-drive-letters still come up. A possibly similar bug with duplicate drive letters is described at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822763/ Regarding autoexec.bat: After each test which produces multiple-drive-letters, I shut down. Maybe 6 or 7 times after these tests, upon cold-booting, System Commander has come up with a message that autoexec.bat (I believe also 1 time config.sys) was modified. I have always selected Skip, meaning wipe out the modified file and replace it with the good file stored by System Commander, but this is suspicious. Maybe the next time I should look at it more closely. Also, at least for the past 2 years, when I wanted to shut down the laptop, an unidentified process was sometimes hanging & prevented the shutdown (thick hourglass). Upon Alt - Ctl -Del a msg comes up "This program is not responding. It may be busy, waiting for a response or it may have stopped running." There is no program name displayed in this window, just the msg. Process Viewer doesn't display any unusual process. After terminating this mysterious process Windows usually shuts down ok. Kaspersky hasn't found anything, and 2-year-old malicius code should be detectable. Trojans want to find a door, and this is a problems at a door (USB port). The last infection I had several years ago was with sp.exe, Trojan.Win32.Spooner.c. The Win98 symptom was that the printer wouldn't work properly, i.e. a problem at a door (parallel port), the trojan trying to get out thru the wrong door. I didn't find anything in google; would you exclude a virus/trojan as a cause of this multiple-drive-letter problem?

Thanks jaclaz, I just tried it, but it didn't fix it. Any other ideas?

First of all, thanks again for your help, dencorso. The mulitple-drive-letter problem occurs only, and only when: 1) the multi-card reader and one or more other Genesys-driven USB mass storage devices (e.g. HDD or DVD-burner) are connected to the computer AND 2) the Genesys-driven USB HDD/CD devices have drive letters assigned BEFORE the multi-card reader. Example: IF: USB HDD/burner (Local Disk/CD) are K,L,M and the multi-card reader is N,O,P,Q (Removable Disk) => multiple drive letter problem IF: multi-card reader is K,L,M,N (Removable Disk) and USB HDD/burner (Local Disk/CD) are O,P,Q => Ok, no problem I have tested 9 possible combinations/base cases, with both multi-card reader and Genesys-driven USB HDD/CD devices, connected already at power-on, to: - the single port of the USB 1.1 controller - ports 1 and 2 of the Belkin USB 2.0 PCCard (i.e. a 2nd USB controller chip) - port 2 of the built-in USB hub (ports2-4) of the card reader (the HDD/CD burner only) In more understandable terms, if the card reader was recognized first, everything was fine, except when both card reader and HDD/burner were connected to the ports of the USB 2.0 PCCard (a 2nd bug?). In all other cases the multiple-drive-letter-problem occurred. I was also able to reproduce the error/ok situations, without the USB 2.0 PCCard inserted in the PCMCIA slot, by: . connecting a Belkin 7-port-hub to the USB 1.1 controller . then manually forcing the drive letter assignment when Win98 was up, by either inserting the multi-card reader or the HDD/burner first This definitely excludes the USB 2.0 controller card as a cause of the problem; and reduces the likelihood that the multiple-drive-letter-problem was caused by the buggy Texas Instruments PCMCIA CardBus controller chip inside the laptop.. Work-arounds I have come up with 3 possible work-arounds. These 3 work-arounds explain ALL possible situations where there was no multiple-drive-letter-problem. Any other connection resulted in a multiple-drive-letter-problem. 1) Piggy-back on built-in USB hub: I connect the Genesys-driven USB HDD/burner to the built-in hub of the multi-card reader. The multiple-drive-letter problem will then never occur, regardless of when the HDD/burner/multi-card reader are connected to the computer (at power-on, or when Win98 is already up). This is apparently because the card slots of the multi-card reader (as port 1??? - but one can copy between cards inserted into the card slots ?!?) are always recognized before the ports of the built-in hub (ports 2-4, as identified with ChipGenius under WinXP). This workaround is preferrable because it doesn't require thinking. 2) Using 2 different USB controllers: The Genesys-driven card reader is connected before power-on to the 1st USB controller recognized (in my case the USB 1.1 controller built into the lap) and the Genesys-driven HDD is connected to the 2nd USB controller (in my case the USB 2.0 Cardbus PCCard). This forces a drive letter assignment first to the card reader (on the first recognized USB controller), then to the HDD. BTW, this work-around shows that it can be useful to have 2 USB controllers (e.g. one on the motherboard, the other as an add-on PCI or Cardbus card) in the computer: you can force a desired drive letter assignment in problem-situations. 3) Manually delayed connection: I connect the USB HDD/burner manually after power-on, when Win98 is up, AFTER the drive letters of the multi-card reader are displayed in My Computer. In other words, I force a desired drive letter assignment by physically connecting the HDD/burner later. In this way it is possible even to connect both multi-card reader and HDD/burner to the USB 2.0 PCCard without the multiple-drive-letter problem. Causes of the problem I have tried out several MS bugfixes, but that didn't help. The cause(s) of the multiple-drive-letter-problem are still unknown, it could still be a bug of the Genesys driver (why does it occur only with Genesys-driven devices, why does nusb work?), a bug of Win98 (Windows has lots of duplicate and multiple drive letter problems), a hardware problem (the laptop has a CardBus controller Texas Instruments PCI-1225 known for its bugs; the problem occured only with a Genesys chip), or an unknown virus. USB multi-card readers are a special type of device with multiple "Removable Disks" in one physical device. Single USB Removable Disks (zip, jaz, LS-120, floppy) may have been well tested under Win98. But the only other multiple Removable Disk device which comes to my mind are SCSI towers with Removable Disks inside. Any ideas about the cause(s) of this problem? Any fixes?

There's also security and privacy in Win95. What made you think there wasn't?On second thoughts I retract my statement. eMule is also available for Win95 http://sourceforge.net/projects/emule/ If eMule runs Ok on Win95, Win95 may possibly be the most secure opsys for running eMule. What is your experience with eMule under Win95?

Yes. An operating system will be used as long as there are applications for it, e.g. games, which are in demand and which run only under this operating system. CP/M and CP/M computers would still be in use today if there were needed applications which run only under CP/M; but I know of none, so the only reason to use/have CP/M is because of nostalgia.Win95 is dead, except for the nostalgic, because it has no unique applications, at least not for me. Win98SE on the other hand has something unique to offer, which no other opsys can: security and privacy for Internet applications, esp. Windows applications like eMule. Win98SE can be viewed as a security add-on to eMule and Internet browsers. Part of the instability of eMule under Win98, for example, may be caused by Win98 not understanding the instructions of undesired intruders, causing a hung system. The spyware of the entertainment industry. etc is probably more XP and Vista compatible and unlikely to have been properly tested on old hardware, on an old opsys made fragile by 100+ Win98 apps: buggedy-bug and then the system hangs. I have heard of one instance where Win98 has been protecting eMule on an old dedicated laptop for the past 30.000 hours. In this sense system crashes and the incompatibility of Win98 may be viewed as something positive. The more compatible you make Win98 with WinXP applications and with new hardware, the less secure your system gets. This is one reason why, for example, one could prefer not to install nusb 3.3, which is a great piece of software: it makes Win98 too compatible with new hardware. Incompatibility may be preferrable if the objective is greater security. Some people wanted to know everything going on in the Internet, so the Internet was tapped. Maybe some other people in the future may want to know, for example, what's stored on all the USB sticks of the world ... Users of Win98SE would be more difficult targets.

Hi dencorso,I have done that, the Best Connectivity USB 2.0 PCCard was nicely recognized by nusb as "NEC uPD720101 USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller" (I was always wondering what chip was inside the card, neither Orangeware nor ChipGenius indicated it, nusb did identify it as a ...101 chip, I wasn't sure whether it was a ...101 or a ...102 chip). Unfortunately, the same multiple-drive-letter-problem. So the USB driver can definitely be excluded as the culprit. Then I tried another USB 2.0 PCCard, an old Belkin card, nicely identified by nusb as "NEC uPD720100A USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller", first under the nusb USB driver, then, after a system restore, under the Orangeware 2.4.1 USB driver. Again, the same multiple-drive-letter-problem in both cases. So the USB 2.0 PC Card can also be excluded as the culprit. Your comment does well indicate that things might have become rocky otherwise. I also removed in Device Manager the built-in USB 1.1 controller. As a consequence the WLAN-stick attached to the USB 1.1 port wanted to be re-installed (incl. the complicated security settings), so this computer was without an Internet connection for a few minutes until I restored the system from backup. I had never de-activated the OrangeWare USB driver before, all SDHC card readers & all other USB devices which I have tried out with nusb were properly installed by nusb, without the prior removal of Orangeware. Why did Maximus Decimus recommend to "2.Remove ALL drivers USB 2.0 controllers."? This has major implications for the whole internet/WLAN setup if connecting via USB. Also with external SCSI Zip and Jaz drives under DOS 6/Win95. The zip/jaz drivers "Iomega SCSI Utilities for DOS" had a duplicate drive letter problem which could be fixed via config.ini, Iomega's more automated zip/jaz drivers "guest.exe" didn't have this duplicate drive letter problem.5 years ago, with CardWare v6.014, a DOS/Windows driver package for the CardBus controller [it didn't work for me; the MS counterpiece is at Device Manager -> PCMCIA socket -> Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller], Guest.exe recognized an external SCSI zip/jaz drive as follows: - ok with an Adaptec 16bit 1460 SlimSCSI card - duplicate drive letters were assigned with an Adaptec 1460B SlimSCSI card - no drive letter was assigned with a 1480 SlimSCSI card BTW the maker of this driver, Apsoft, still exists http://www.tssc.de/ the latest version is CardWare 7.0 for DOS thru Vista I could well imagine that Genesys hasn't tested their driver on a Win98 laptop. I am away until Christmas from my desktop computer and only have my laptop currently, maybe I can then try out whether there is also a multiple-drive-letter-problem when the hama card reader is connected to a desktop, without a CardBus controller. On the laptop I still have driver v4.10.2222 by Microsoft [i.e. Win98SE version] of the Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller, does anybody know where to get a newer version?

SITUATION: An old Inspiron 7500 laptop, with a USB 1.1 port, which is not being used. Inserted into the laptop is a USB 2.0 PCCard with 2 ports. Connected to the USB 2.0 PCCard are: - an external DVD burner which uses the Genesys USB Mass Storage driver v1.63 (drive letter K:) - an SDHC multi-card reader hama 55745 with a built-in 3-port USB hub and 4 slots (drive letters L,M,N,O), using the same Genesys driver. Everything works fine... except: PROBLEM: When I go into Device Manager, and click on Refresh, the external USB burner starts spinning up, then 3 additional drive letters (P,Q,R) appear in My Computer, each one with the same drive name/CD name. Clicking again on Refresh will not increase or decrease the number of drive letters displayed in My Computer. The data of an inserted CD can actually be accessed under K,P,Q and R. After clicking on Refresh: Device Manager -> CD-ROM shows 4x _NEC DVD_RW ND-3570A; Device Manager -> Disk drives shows 4x Generic STORAGE DEVICE; [same as before, 1 for each card reader slot] Device Manager -> Hard disk controllers shows 2x USB Storage Drive; Device Manager -> USB controllers shows 1x Genesys USB Mass Storage Device and 1x USB Optical Device (among other usual entries) When I have connected instead of the external DVD burner an external HDD (which also uses the same Genesys USB Mass Storage driver), together with the hama multi-card reader, the problem occurs again, but worse: The external HDD has 3 partitions; after clicking on Refresh in Device Manager, 9 additional drive letters appear, 3x 3 partitions, altogether 12 drive letters for the HDD. The problem occurs only when the hama multi-card reader is connected with another USB device that uses the same Genesys driver. When I connect the multi-card reader and another external USB HDD, which uses another driver, everything is fine, no multiple-drive-letter-problem. When an external USB burner and an external USB HDD, which both use the same Genesys driver, are connected, no problem either. Only when the hama card reader plus another Genesys-driven USB device are connected. The same problem also occurs with the hama multi-card reader 55350, which is very similar to the 55745, same Genesys driver, same Genesys chip GL819, but no built-in USB hub. So it can't be the built-in hub. The USB 2.0 PCCard uses Orangeware v2.4.1; I tried v2.1, still the same multiple-drive-letter-problem. I noticed the multiple-drive-letter-problem initially when I clicked on the safely-remove-icon of the multi-card reader in the system tray. The 4 drive-letters of the card reader disappeared from My Computer, and in their place 9 new drive letters appeared for the 3 partitions of the connected USB HDD. The search for the possible causes of this problem led me to the Refresh button in Device Manager. I have used Genesys-driven devices for several years without any problems, until I connected this multi-card reader. I have tried different older versions of the driver, but they all have the same multiple-drive-letter-problem (v1.52 of 2002, v1.59, v1.61, and the latest v1.63 of 2005) when the multi-card reader is connected. The multi-card reader displays 4 special icons in My Computer, which in v1.52 of the driver were still single-state, while in v1.59 and higher were 2-state-icons (card inserted/not inserted). The only work-around I currently have is not to use the hama multi-card reader with other Genesys-driven devices. When all USB mass storage devices were driven by nusb 3.3, there was no multiple-drive-letter-problem with the hama multi-card reader. The safely-remove-icon of nusb, however, had 4 menu selection, one for each slot of the card reader, very cumbersome, while the safely-remove-icon of the Gensys driver had a single entry for the 4 slots. I also installed nusb (=updated the system with the newer/other/WinME files contained in nusb), then de-activated nusb (renamed usbstor.inf), then installed the Genesys driver: same multiple-drive-letter-problem. So changing to the system files contained in nusb didn't help either. Is this a bug in the Genesys driver? Is it a bug of Win98? Is it a virus? Is it a hardware problem of the GL819 chip? Can it be fixed? Any ideas? Microsoft has several articles about "multiple drive letters", for Win2k and WinXP, but I didn't find anything for Win98: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/872949 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830752

Hi dencorso,sorry, I don't have a pen drive around, just card readers. Here a couple more instances where the program and the database of ChipGenius might need some fixing: 1) for the emtec SDHC card reader ChipGenius displays Chip Part-Number: AU6335, BUT: - when the enclosure of the emtec SDHC card reader fell off (flimsy construction), I could see printed inside the card reader, on the board, "NT-AU6332" - also: the driver downloaded from emtec is in a directory named AU6332 - BUT on the other hand: the PID detected by Windows/ChipGenius is 6335. 2) The revision number displayed is NOT necessarily that of the attached USB device: for the USB enclosure of an external CD/DVD burner it indicated the revison of the burner inside, not of the enclosure 3) When a USB device is connected to a USB hub, the serial number displayed for the device may sometimes be that of the USB hub. On the positive side, ChipGenius may also be used to correctly label (with a sticker) the port numbers of a USB hub. The port number is indicated by the "&&x" suffix at the end of the displayed serial number when you connect an external USB HDD to that port. Here an example: an Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enlosure with a 750GB Seagate HDD inside (ST375064 0A), connected to a hama-Easy Line 55350 card reader+3-port hub combo: Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(ST375064 0A USB Device) PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702 [is ok, is the info about the Adaptec ACS-100 enclosure) Serial Number: 7&&2A6DA49&&0&&2 Revision: 0811 Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed Chip Vendor: Genesys Chip Part-Number: GL811E The suffix "&&2" of the Serial Number means: attached to Port 2 (counting starts from Port 1) of the hub of the card reader combo. BTW, when connected to port 6 of a Belkin 7-port hub instead, the same device displayed a different serial number: 7&&2A9107BD&&0&&6

Hi dencorso, Thanks for your effort with Dependency Walker regarding ChipGenius. Your guess that this program requires WBEM to run under Win98 was bulls eye. After downloading WBEM = Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) CORE 1.5 (Windows 95/98) from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en and installing it, ChipGenius displayed data under Win98. Win98 also appeared a little crisper with this irreversible update. Unfortunately, the data that ChipGenius produced under Win98 differed (was wrong) when compared to the data produced under WinXP. ChipGenius possibly looks at specific keys in the registry, and what works for the WinXP registry may not work for the Win98 registry. Example 1: (hama card reader 55350) displayed under WinXP: (is correct except for Chip Part-Number) Device Name: ++++[L:][M:][P:][N:]+USB Mass Storage Device(Hama CF Card Reader USB Device)(Ha... PnP Device ID: VID = 0DDA PID = 2005 Serial Number: 000000000036 Revision: 9602/9602/9602/9602 Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed Chip Vendor: (N/A) Chip Part-Number: DLX1611 Example 1: (hama card reader 55350) displayed under Win98 (erroneous) Device Name: ++USB2.0 Card Reader(USB Storage Drive) [only ++ but reader has 4 drive letters; no drive letters;different text] PnP Device ID: VID = 0DDA PID = 2005 Serial Number: 000000000036 Revision: [data missing] Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 Full-Speed (USB1.1) [wrong info, is High-Speed] Chip Vendor: Chip Part-Number: DLX1611(????IC) [even this is different] Example 2: (Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enclosure) displayed under WinXP nearly correctly: Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(ST375064 0A USB Device) [wrong, device has 3 FAT32+1 NTSF primary partitions] PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702 Serial Number: 6&&1CBCC30F&&0&&1 Revision: 0811 Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed Chip Vendor: Genesys Chip Part-Number: GL811E Example 2: (Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enclosure) displayed under Win98: Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(USB Storage Drive) [HDD drive model missing; wrong number of partitions;different text] PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702 Serial Number: 0{B8139C20-CF94-11D5-AEF7-0002B30625C5}&&ROOT_HUB20&&PCI&&VEN_1033&&DEV_00E0&&SUBSYS_29280E55&&REV_04&&022100 [wrong] Revision: [missing] Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 Full-Speed (USB1.1) [wrong] Chip Vendor: Genesys(??) [text differs] Chip Part-Number: GL811E ChipGenius should only be used under Win98 after the underlying causes of the errors above are fixed. Under WinXP ChipGenius runs fine, although the data base could need a little improvement, it contains errors: the hama card reader 55350 has definitely a Genesys GL819 chip inside, not a DLX1611 as reported by ChipGenius. Despite these weaknesses, ChipGenius is a very valuable tool in the Toolbox.

After changing then SN to ...37, the card reader worked fine, ChipGenius recognized the new SN. And when I plugged in a 2nd identical card reader, but with the unchanged SN ...36: everything fine, 4 more drive letters in My Computer, data on both multi-card readers could be accessed fine. BUT: when I tried to copy files from one card reader to the other, copying started Ok, but then stopped and then the system froze, under both Win98 (Genesys driver) & WinXP (MS driver). So you cannot connect 2 identical SDHC card readers to a computer by just changing the USB serial number. Uwe Sieber's article http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html (towards the end) needs an addition in this sense.

Genesys MultiTool The hama USB 2.0 Card Reader 55350 http://www.hama.de/portal/articleId*127947/action*2598 is an SDHC card reader with a flashable ROM and has been added to the list of card readers with a manufacturer-provided Win98 driver. What makes this card reader interesting is that its firmware update comes with a version of Genesys Logic MultiTool v1.4.4.4 http://www.hama.de/webresources/drivers/00...5350_fw9602.zip The Genesys MultiTool needs no installation and runs under Win98. Its Firmware/EEPROM tool allows you to save the card reader ROM as a file and to re-burn the ROM from a saved file. It works, but be careful, the ReadMe First file of the MultiTool was not included and some buttons on the menu are poorly labeled, so that you may wipe out the ROM of your card reader inadvertently. Unfortunately this version of Genesys MultiTool is crippled, you cannot save an EEP file, which contains the Vendor ID, Product ID and USB serial number, it's greyed out; the button Dump EEP Data works. If one could modify the USB serial number, for example, one could have 2 of these card readers connected to the computer at the same time. The Genesys MultiTool also contains a Format tool, which allows you to format CF, SM, SD & MS formats under Win98 with this card reader (and most likely on all other card readers with the Genesys chip GL819 and GL819-E), probably according to standard specifications since it comes from a chip manufacturer. I have test-formatted on this card reader a 1 GB SD card (class 2) with Genesys MultiTool, Panasonic SDFormatter, HP Format Tool and WinXP Explorer. Copying 197 jpg files, altogether 122MB, onto these SD cards took the following time if formatted by: Panasonic SDFormatter: 49 secs Genesys MultiTool 51 secs HP Formatter: 67 secs WinXP Explorer format: 63 secs I haven't tried out formatting SDHC cards, only an SD card, with the Genesys MultiTool yet. MultiTool.exe has a modification date of 16-Feb-2006, so it should format SDHC according to specifications. The Genesys MultiTool looks like a piece of software written by the chip manufacturer Genesys for internal use; it contains another tool "Read/Write test for Mass Production". Does anybody know more about this MultiTool? Any suggestions for fiddling around with this card reader ROM? Hex Workshop, for example, displays the following string at the end of the ROM file saved to disk: !@.......H.a.m.a...C.a.r.d. .R.e.a.d.e.r. ...0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.3.6.CF SM SD MS .............................. BTW 000000000036 is the USB serial number of this card reader, maybe there is no need for the greyed out function after all

I stay away from general updates. Don't touch a working system. Le mieux c'est l'ennemi du bien. Updates which I can understand, YES, to solve a specific problem. But updates against problems which I don't have? This is just asking for trouble. And regarding trust: I believe this is a forum of decent people - but one cannot look into the heart of somebody else.

What kind of video problems?

It's the 81.89 driver, get rid of it. v77.72 should work fine for you. The last version of many programs is often an unfinished piece of junk, full of bugs which nobody cared to fix anymore. If you combine such a last version with hardware which was not designed for/tested with Win98, you usually get nowhere:

Near-Substitute for a Safely-Remove-Utility under Win98 For WinXP there are several third-party utilities, e.g. USB Safely Remove http://safelyremove.com/fullFeaturesList.htm which in another product description had listed WinME as system requirement (could it run under Win98 with upgraded DLLs?) - but for Win98 I couldn't find anything. Maybe programming this is easier under WinXP, where a 3rd part utility is much less needed: "I don't think the code can work or can be ported on Windows 9x" http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/usbej...Quick&fr=26 (with code and demo for download). There is a near-substitute for a Safely-Remove-Utility under Win98: the disk flusher Sync v2.2 by Mark Russinovich of SysInternals http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897438.aspx With the parameter -r it flushes the disk cache of fixed and removable media. I have been using the shortcut D:\sync.exe -r under Win98 before physically removing the emtec card reader, it works fine with both single and multi-partition SDHC cards. I am not using the -e parameter because this would eject any floppy disks, CDs and virtual CDs/DVDs mounted on a virtual drive with Alcohol, and my drive letters change too much for entering them as parameters. When I had another card reader connected, the MSI, and physically unplugged the card reader without having used the safely-remove-utility of the MSI card reader, but after having double-clicked on the Sync disk flusher, the same old warning message came up: "Unsafe Removal of Device: You have unplugged or ejected a device without stopping it which can cause your computer to crash and loose valuable data. Please use the hotplug icon in the status bar to safely stop devices before unplugging them." Since the disk cache was flushed and the computer didn't hang, I assume that this message can be safely ignored. Sync v2.2 has been added to the Toolbox Win98-compatible Emtec SDHC card readers K100, K101, K200 The emtec driver can be downloaded from http://www.emtec-international.com/en/driv...p;ss_gamme=K101 The emtec card readers have the Vendor ID VID = 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] and the Product ID PID = 6335 A card reader with the same VID & PID is also sold as Transcend TS-RDS2. Its manufacturer-provided Win98 driver can be downloaded from http://www.transcendusa.com/Support/DLCent...DLKeyWd=TS-RDS2 As expected, the Win98 driver from Transcend works fine with the emtec card reader, its setup.exe is much larger (14.8 vs 10.0MB) than the driver provided by emtec, and appears superior: - it has 2-state icons in My Computer, which are red when an SDHC card is inserted, and a grey "-" sign when there is no SDHC card - it does not have a safely-remove-utility in the system tray either, but when you physically unplug the card reader a msg pops up for about one second: "Multimedia Card Reader: Driver unloading, please wait" and then disappears. The emtec driver, on the other hand, does not display any message. I assume that emtec/Transcend have not included a safely-remove-utility because their driver does not need one. I have extensively tested the physical unplugging and then re-inserting of the emtec card reader, with single und multi-partition SDHC cards inserted, there was no negative impact on the system. But to be on the safe side I would recommend to double-click on the shortcut to the Sync disk flusher before physically removing the card reader, to be really sure that there is no data loss on the SDHC card.

I have restructured/updated the first page of this topic and moved less important information onto this page here Other card readers with manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers which are not included in the List of Top Card Readers (on front page) - CnMemory All-in-one Card Reader Pop-Art http://www.cnmemory.de/seite_84ger-0-a0.html Pros: uses up only one drive letter, and has multiple slots; it can be rotated to fit into cramped space at the USB connectors; the RTS5158 chip inside has been identified by HJ Reggel as a current Top Performer (see Reggel's list, in Tool Box). Cons: I didn't like the enclosure of the card reader, it's too big and too heavy for being connected directly to the USB connector of the computer; if it had come in a small box to be connected by cable, I would have put it into the List of Top Card Readers. - emtec SD card reader K100 VID 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] PID 6335 SN 058F011111B1 http://www.emtec-international.com/en/driv...p;ss_gamme=K101 (sold together with a slow (class-2) 1 or 2GB SD card). The Wìn98 driver of emtec does not install a safely-remove-utility into the system tray so you should use it with the disk flusher Sync 2.2 (see Toolbox) Reason for removal from top list: very slow chip, has half the write-speed of the top readers; no safely-remove-utility - emtec micro-SD card reader K200 VID 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] PID 6335 SN 058F011111B1 Not listed on their website, sold together with a slow (class-2) 1GB micro-SD card plus an SD-Adapter. The Win98 driver on their website is the same as for the model K100 above, listed at their website as K101. Only complaints: the micro-SDHC card sticks out of the card reader, the card reader does not serve as a protective box of the micro-SDHC card. Also: no safely-remove-utility is installed in the system tray, so you should use it with the disk flusher Sync 2.2 (see Toolbox). Reason for removal from top list: very slow chip; no safely-remove-utility; no status light to know whether the system is still writing to card NOTE: you cannot have the emtec SD & micro-SD readers (K100 & K200) plugged in at the same time. Both readers have the same Vendor ID, Product ID and USB serial number, as checked with ListUsbDrives v1.7.8 (see Toolbox for SDHC cards), and therefore look identical to Windows, even if they look physically quite different. - hama 55350 (multi-card reader) VID 0DDA [=hama] PID 2005 SN 000000000036 http://www.hama.de/portal/articleId*127947/action*2598 Is similar to the hama Easy Line 55745 in the Top list. If you use are Genesys-driven USB mass storage devices, this card reader is problematic because of the multiple-drive-letter problem: without a built-in USB hub there is only a complicated workaround. One feature makes this multi-card reader interesting: It has a flashable ROM plus software to flash the ROM, which lets the technically inclined experiment with the ROM. Careful when buying, there are 2 models with the same number 55350, but with a different chip inside. The manufacturer-provided Win98 driver only works for the model which has on the reader and on the box the SN 02822630600; the Win98 driver doesNOT work with the other model with the SN 32822630800 on the box (These SNs are NOT the USB SN). SDHC card readers which do NOT have working manufacturer-provided drivers for Win98SE The card readers listed here work with SDHC cards (i.e. >= 4GB). All of them ran fine with the generic nusb33 driver, but nusb is more for advanced users. - hama 55310 V3 http://www.hama.de/portal/searchSelectedPr.../bySearch*55310 (on box: for Win98) - ednet Multi Card Reader USB 2.0, 30 In 1 (on box: for Win98) - Praktica Mini Card Drive II - Kingston microSD card reader, which comes with a 4 GB microSDHC card plus 2 adapters (SD, miniSD), so tiny that it even fits into the USB slot besides big fat sticks, also for your key chain SD card readers which do NOT have working manufacturer-provided drivers for Win98SE and do NOT work with SDHC card The following card reader does NOT have a working Win98 driver and does NOT work with SDHC cards (only with SD cards <2GB). It ran fine with the nusb33 driver: - T-Flash microSD reader in the box of the R4-III DS http://www.r4dsl.net Items removed from the Toolbox