Multibooter

I have made the following test of RegCompact v1.0 #5 [MD5 5749...]: 1) Under Win98SE, with a never compressed registry: I exported with Regedit the whole registry as a .reg file 2) I ran RegCompact and Win98 shut down 3) instead of re-booting into Win98SE I booted into WinXP 4) under WinXP I saved the 2 Rcxxxx.tmp files and Wininit.ini created by RegCompact under Win98, as well as the Win98 user.dat and system.dat files (as backups) 5) I rebooted into Win98SE Under Win98SE I ran Beyond Compare v3.3.4 and made a Registry Compare of the active registry under Win98SE (i.e. the compressed registry files created by RegCompact v1.0) and the exported .reg file created in step 1 above (i.e. the exported Win98 registry before running RegCompact). The purpose of this comparison was to check whether the content of the compressed registry was identical to the content of the registry before compression. Here the results: 1) It looks like the content of the compressed system.dat/user.dat and of the pre-compression system.dat/user.dat is identical, except for a few differences which still require investigation. If a registry expert repeats a similar experiment, maybe these differences can be explained. The problem is that Beyond Compare can compare a live registry against an exported .reg file, but not against a system.dat or user.dat file. 2) Regedit seems to have an issue when it exports data as a .reg file: The characters "0A" [=LF] and "0D" [=CR] seem to get converted to something else, at least as displayed by Beyond Compare. The original key value is probably not the same anymore when such an exported registry file is imported. The registry keys of some software packages (e.g. by Iomega, Emailchemy) contain program descriptions containing Linefeeds for nicer display, which seem to get converted when exporting as a .reg file.

Hi CharlotteTheHarlot, I have made a preliminary test of RegCompact v1.0 #5 [MD5 5749...] on my 11-year-old laptop under Win98SE. I installed Win98SE on this laptop 9 years ago, no re-installation of Win98, and there are about 100+ apps installed under Win98. I do not use software to clean up the registry, or software to compact the registry, but I keep my system clean by creating clean restore points and then re-install new useful apps on a previous clean restore point, building in this way the next clean restore point. I never had any problem with the registry becoming bloated. Before running RegCompact 1.0 system.dat was 8904kB and user.dat was 1192kB. After running RegCompact they were 8860kB and 976kB respectively, i.e. a decrease of about 2.6% in size. Running RegCompact was easy and did not cause any damage. What are the benefits of running RegCompact? 1) After running RegCompact my 11-year-old laptop appeared to be a little bit faster and crisper, for example when running Norton Disk Doctor, opening Explorer windows or loading MS Word. 2) Are there any other benefits or uses of RegCompact? Here an excerpt from Jerry Honeycutt's book about the Win98 registry: "Registry Checker [scanreg] has an undocumented feature [/opt switch, only under DOS] that allows you to optimize the Registry. Registry Checker compresses the Registry whenever it detects that it has over 500KB of dead space"

I have no idea which program created the .bin file. UltraISO displays nothing in the field "Application" under Properties -> Label tab. Isobuster is quite reliable. Isobuster v2.5.0.0, when extracting the 2 bad .avi files from Track 01 -> ISO9660 [also via Joliet], generates error messages like: "Unreadable sector. Sector 127836 couldn't be read. Error: 05/64/01. Retry, Ignore this sector or Quit" -> Ignore DOS and WinXP. Also a Farsi-patched WinXP, with a lot of non-Western code pages. No idea what the Isobuster error message "Error: 05/64/01" means, maybe a non-Western date. My Linux laptop is currently packed away. The physical media can be excluded, the .bin file has been physically saved on a USB HDD, the original CD is not available. jaclaz, this tip was jackpot When I mounted the .bin/.cue to a virtual drive of Alcohol v1.9.8.7612, Unstoppable Copier created a bad .avi file #2, which DivXRepair v1.0.1 was able to repair by reducing the size of the bad .avi file from 740 to 644 frames (90 bad frames found, Bad frames intervals from 225 to 240 and from 241 to 316. The not-yet-repaired .avi file #2, created from the Alcohol virtual drive, ran Ok in VideoLAN v1.0.3 under WinXP, but caused VirtualDub to crash. Unstoppable Copier did not find any corrupt bytes when copying the bad .avi file #2 from an UltraISO virtual drive, but the file created in this way could not be repaired with DivxRepair. To repeat: mounting a bad .bin file on different virtual drive software (e.g. Alcohol vs UltraISO) produces different results. The bad .avi file #1, extracted with UltraISO from the .bin file and then repaired with DivxRepair, however, was much better than the file repaired file obtained by using Unstoppable Copier and the Alcohol drive. Only 2/989 frames were lost in the repaired UltraISO file, while in the repaired Unstoppable Copier/Alcohol file 85/989 frames were lost. I am still looking for a way to repair the bad .avi file #2 with fewer lost frames. I rejected Digital Video Repair v2.2.3, it wants to install some adware and my firewall blocked it. The website states: "Digital Video Repair come bundled with RelevantKnowledge research tool to help us keep these software titles free". I had actually tried to repair this bad .avi file#2 about 2 years ago, and I had tried out many tools then, including Digital Video Repair v1.02. Here my notes regarding Digital Video Repair v1.02 and this bad .avi file #2: "v1.02 just truncates it after the 1st major error - but you can at least see 1/3 of [the bad .avi #2]. Careful: later versions contain adware"

Hi jaclaz, The unrepaired .avi #1 plays Ok in VirtualDub v1.9.11, the bad .avi #2 crashes VirtualDub with the message "VirtualDub Program Failure. Oops --- VirtualDub has crashed... An out-of bounds memory access (access violation) occurred in module 'ir32_32'... while decompressing video frame 242..." BTW, DivXRepair v1.0.1, which could repair the bad .avi #1, is based on VirtualDub v1.4.2 and when DivXRepair crashes on the 2nd bad .avi file, a window "VirtualDub Program Failure. Crash Reason: Access violation" comes up. I have to correct my previous posting #42. The CD image file is not a .iso file, but a .bin file. When I extracted the .bin file with UltraISO v9.3.6.2750 there was no error message. When I extracted under Win98SE the same .bin file with Isobuster v2.5.0.0, however, Isobuster displayed CRC errors: - for the bad .avi #1 sectors 127836-127838 could not be read (altogether 3 bad sectors) - for the bad .avi #2: sectors 164657-164662 and 165033-165036 could not be read (altogether 10 bad sectors) So Isobuster seems to be a very good tool for testing the integrity of .bin files, probably also of other CD image file types. The 2 bad .avi files extracted with UltraISO were better than those extracted by Isobuster, however. The bad .avi #1 extracted with UltraISO could be repaired with DivXRepair, but not the bad .avi #1 extracted with Isobuster.

I am currently trying to repair a .iso CD image which contains program files and short .avi files. The underlying CD apparently had bad sectors, so that 2 .avi files are corrupt and hang the VideoLAN player. The .iso file itself seems to be Ok. I have tried to repair the 2 corrupt .avi files, so that I can re-inject the repaired .avi files into the .iso image file. DivXRepair v1.0.1 of 6-Mar-2003 http://divxrepair.sourceforge.net/ was able to repair one of the two files, so that it plays Ok with VideoLAN, with cracking sounds where the bad stuff was, and VideoLAN does not crash anymore. DivXRepair could not repair the 2nd .avi file, and crashed while trying to repair it. DivFix++ v0.34 was also able to repair the 1st file, but not the second file. ASF-AVI-RM-WMV-Repair v1.82 did something useful to the 2nd file: although the repaired file caused VideoLAN to crash, the sound continued playing apparently Ok. Any suggestions for a better repair tool for .avi files?

Hi dencorso, Sorry for the mix up. I had copied VRFYPE (27Jul2012) to the folder containing the various files RegCompact_x.exe, and then ran VRFYPE without a file parameter <filespec>, like "*.*": > vryfype or >vrfype /a This resulted in no files being listed, the same for running > vrfype *.* without indicating an option parameter </option> When running VRFYPE with both parameters entered, everything was Ok: vrfype *.* /a Maybe in the next version of of VRFYPE you could use "/a" as default parameter if no </option> parameter was entered, and "*.*" if no <filespec> parameter was entered. BTW the parameter "/s" [for checking all sub-folders] is still on my wish list down the line, even if there is a workaround, as you suggested in , but adding such a /s switch looks like a major undertaking. VRFYPE is an excellent program, with many potential uses. Here the screen output by VRFYPE (27Jul2012), sent to a text file vrfype.txt, when entering in a Win98SE DOS window: >vrfype *.* /a >vrfype.txt VrfyPE v1.0 Freeware by dencorso, 2012 .\RegCompact_2.exe => Cheksums: Header = 00000000 Real = 000132DC Zero in header! .\RegCompact_3.exe => Cheksums: Header = 00000000 Real = 000162F4 Zero in header! .\RegCompact_4.exe => Cheksums: Header = 00000000 Real = 0001BCD9 Zero in header! .\RegCompact_unpacked_6.exe => Cheksums: Header = 00000000 Real = 0001887F Zero in header! .\RegCompact_7.exe => Cheksums: Header = 00000000 Real = 00014227 Zero in header! .\VRFYPE.EXE => Cheksums: Header = 0000431C Real = 0000431C BTW, when ">vrfype *.* /a >vrfype.txt" is run in a WinXP command prompt window, an identical .txt file is generated, except that the last line has the file extension in small letters: .\VRFYPE.exe => Cheksums: Header = 0000431C Real = 0000431C

I have checked files #2,3,4,6 and 7 with dencorso's VRFYPE of 24-Jun-2012 (old version) All files have the same header checksum 00000000, so in the case of RegCompact.exe VRFYPE (old version) cannot be used to identify a PE file as patched @dencorso: Your new version of VRFYPE of 26-Jul-2012 with the switch /0 or /z displays only "No files found!" for files #2,3,4,6 and 7. If you find the time to fiddle around with VRFYPE, could you increment the version number?

Hi CharlotteTheHarlot, 1) I checked the 6th file RegCompact.exe (at the bottom of your list, with MD5 fa3f9649f5f5f74b7036a48bcf205d42) with MiTeC EXE Explorer, it has a time stamp of 1-Dec-2000 9:33:06AM, very similar to the file modification date indicated for the 5th file. The time stamp by MiTeC EXE Explorer is more helpful than the file modification date for categorizing the various versions of RegCompact.exe. MiTeC EXE Explorer displays for file #6 in the Strings tab several error messages which were localized into Italian. I would speculate that file #6 is only a modification with a hex editor of file #5, not a new compilation. 2) The Readme.txt files accompanying the file #3 (modif.date 28-Oct-2000) and file #4 (modif.date 18-Nov-2000) have 2 main differences, possibly helpful for identifying version differences: a ) added to Readme.txt of file #4: "Command Line Arguments ======= ==== ========= If you execute RegCompact with the /NOGUI command line argument it will automatically compact the registry hives and reboot the system with no user interaction." b ) removed from Readme.txt of file #4: "Installation ============ Run the RegCompact1.0.exe installation program inside the zip archive you downloaded. It will install the program to the location you select. Please note no uninstall feature is included, as all you need to do is delete RegCompact's program folder to uninstall it." 3) I have come across a 7th version on the mule, it has MD5 3D5DF950B2DCAE3B886C4FC625A4F512, also 73728 bytes, file modification date October 04, 2001, 3:52:02 AM, and a time stamp with MiTeC of 17-Oct-2000 2:39:29 PM, i.e. the identical time stamp of your file #2. This 7th version is a derivative of the file #2, with some error messages patched with non-Western characters. The accompanying .txt file is also in non-Western characters, perhaps Russian. 4) Which version to use? I have no idea what the impact would be of running under US Windows 9x a program patched for a different Windows localization/codepage, and would stay away from the Italian/Russian? localized versions. This would leave file #4 (modif.date 2000-11-18) as best version, as long as no download location can be found for file #5 (modif.date 2000-12-01). RegCompact v1.0 looks like an interesting program, but I haven't tried it out yet, I am waiting for more reports about the experience other users had with it.

Hi jds, I would speculate that the frequency of false positives depends on what one is scanning. Most of the stuff I am scanning comes from the mule and often contains patches etc. Some of these little files are apparently created by software with which also malware may be produced. Some antivirus programs tend to identify all files created by such software as malware, even if the files are good and clean. False positives might lead one to delete files which are actually good. I have come across a rare false positive by Kaspersky Anti-Virus for one series of little files, which was incorrectly identified as a trojan "packed win32.black.a". About 5-20% of the downloads with the mule are infected, as identified by Kaspersky. Avast flags more - but it is practically impossible to know whether these files flagged by Avast, and not by Kaspersky, are really infected or just false positives. About 2 years ago, after the terrible infection with the Tenga exe infector, I had installed Avast under WinXP and Kaspersky under Win98, for double-checking. After a while I stopped using Avast because of the (probably) false positives. virustotal is impractical for checking large quantities of files. I make a pre-check of the stuff from the mule as follows:1) I open archive files (e.g. .rar) with WinRAR. Maybe 5% don't open (corrupt archives or the file extension was changed from e.g. .avi to .rar). I then look at the modification dates of the files in the archive. If the file modification dates differ substantially, e.g. by several years, then some recent malware may have been injected and the archive is suspicious. If the archive contains just a few files, including a .dat and a .exe file, it is in most cases malware. 2) nfodiz is a most useful program for pre-checking downloads containing an .nfo file. After opening an archive in WinRAR I just double-click on the .nfo file in the WinRAR window. If nfodiz displays a nice-looking nfo, and the modification dates of the other files in the archive are close to the modification date of the .nfo file (and close to the date often displayed in the .nfo window), there is a good chance that the archive is Ok. If nfodiz displays jibberish, then the archive is infected and can be deleted. The description page of nfodiz is http://web.archive.org/web/20050205083144/http://www.softpile.com/Development/Distribution/Review_03050_index.html nfodiz can be downloaded from http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.brigada.ro/downloads/nfodiz_setup.exe 3) downloaded .exe files I drag onto the desktop icon of MiTeC EXE Explorer. If the .exe file is supposed to be old software, but has a much more recent timestamp, the .exe is most likely infected. These 3 steps identify about 60% of the infected files. About 50% of the files identified in these 3 steps are not flagged by Kaspersky, although eventually Kaspersky will identify many as infected, with subsequent signature updates. This is not a critique of Kaspersky, there are just too many new malware programs.

For the moment, Avast 4.8 is still the best complete solution, IMHO.Hi jds,I beg to disagree. Avast, in contrast to KAV6, generates a lot of false positives, and quite a few of my downloads were erroneously flagged by Avast as infected. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 generates rarely false positives. I have used Avast in 2010, and rejected it because of the false positives. To me, a false positive is more annoying than an infected file not flagged. I have not experienced a stability issue with KAV6 under Win98, but I use KAV6 only as an on-demand scanner. During the last 6 months, however, KAV6 does occasionally crash upon loading, but only under WinXP SP2 (not under Win98SE), and only on my 11-year-old Inspiron laptop (512MB RAM), not on my dual core desktop (2GB RAM). WinXP seems to work Ok after such a crash, but I do reboot then. Decreased signature count I have just updated the signatures of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6, the signature count on 6-Sep-2012 was 7.772.298. The last time I ran the signature update from the Kaspersky server (under Win98, of course), was on 18-Jul-2012 with a signature count of 8.585.549 signatures. No idea why the signatures decreased by 800.000 over the last 6 weeks. I hope this decreased signature count is not a sign of a possibly approaching end-of-updates for v6.0.2.621, perhaps on 1-Oct-2012. Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621 after it reaches its end-of-updates I am archiving the Kaspersky Update folder after each successful signature update. In this way Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621 can be re-installed with a reasonable signature count: After adding a license key with an expiration date after the last update, KAV6 can be updated from the Kaspersky Update folder. Without a signature update, KAV6 would be useless, only about 500.000 signatures, of Dec-2007, are installed after a fresh installation. The size of the rared-up Kaspersky Update folder is currently about 250MB. I am very eager to see whether the signatures of Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621 can be updated after 1-Oct-2012.

Hi krebizfan, Welcome to the Win98 forum and thanks for the link. Eventually I intend to do some more testing of 1.2MB floppy disks in various LS-120 drives. Some initial comments, about 1.2MB 3.5" floppies in LS-120 drives under WinXP, are in postings #68-69

Thanks rloew. Perhaps this plug adapter in the shrink-wrapped box was included by mistake, by people packing the boxes at Digital Research. Digital Research was also selling regular 1.44MB floppy drives http://web.archive.org/web/19981206130558/http://www.dr-tech.com/products.html . Or Digital Research had purchased power adapter plus plug adapter together, as pictured in Jaclaz's link http://www.rrdatatelecom.com/cgi-bin/rrdata/L1065 and hadn't bothered to take out the plug adapter. The Digital Research box also came with a Molex to small connector power adapter, as shown in the picture there. BTW, I have tried to put an SDHC card into the connector of an old 5.25" floppy drive cable, as pictured in http://www.scienceprog.com/sd-mmc-card-fits-in-floppy-connector/ but the SDHC card was too thick and didn't fit. I haven't tried it yet with an SD card.

Hi jaclaz, This link "SD MMC card fits in floppy connector" is an interesting find, to connect SD or MMC cards to an old 5.25" floppy cable (to the floppy drive controller? or to a different controller?), after doing "some rewiring of cable". The questions are: 1) does the bottom side of the plug adapter shown in posting #103 represent some re-wiring? 2) could a re-wiring of the pins convert this Mitsubishi LS-120 drive functionally into a regular floppy drive? BTW, the excellent "Installation And User's Guide" of the Digital Research Technologies drive (=Mitsubushi drive) states on p.1: "The LS-120 is designed to read, write and format 720-kilobyte, 1.2-megabyte, 1.44-megabyte, and 120-megabyte disks". I do not recall having seen the 1.2MB capacity mentioned in the documentation of LS-120 drives by Matsus***a/Panasonic. Maybe this 1.2MB capacity, usually associated with 5.25" floppy disks drives, is relevant for finding out the purpose of the included plug adapter, whose top side looks like the connector of a 5.25" floppy drive.

mistaken posting - will be updated

I was just looking for an explanation for why a company would possibly re-start the production of an old motherboard, not make it available at major dealers in North America, but still advertise it as "NEW" at their website. Maybe it was just an erroneous posting at their website. Any other ideas?Maybe a less vulnerable OS, like OpenBDS, does not fulfil certain requirements. In the case of IraX, for example, the right-to-left writing system may be a difficulty, also the wide-spread use of Windows software. A change from one OS family to another would pose a major challenge to any organization, so a change for certain departments only could be imaginable. Such a response could be imagined after the StuYnet attack. The recent Shamoon virus supposedly also works under Win9x http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/331033 One could also imagine demand by Western government agencies for Win9x motherboards for developing Win9x-compatible malware.

The Mitsubishi LS-120 drive, which came with the plug adapter, does not have a 2nd 34-pin connector, only a 40-pin IDE connector. I checked some old 5.25" floppy drives. The connectors on these 5.25" floppy drives have on the back side metal strips for all 17 uneven pins 1 to 33. The plug adapter, in contrast, has on the back side only metal strips for pins 1 and 33, there are no metal strips for uneven pins 3 to 31 (see middle picture in posting #103 above). I am not sure whether this difference is relevant since all uneven pins 1 to 33 for standard floppy disk drive connectors are Ground. In any case, with this plug adapter, of the ground pins only pin 1 has a connection to the 40-pin IDE connector, and pin 33 connects to pin 1. Did the plug adapters you have seen have 17 metal strips on each side, or was their back side like the plug adapter here, with only 2 metal strips?

Hi rloew, This plug adapter has been sitting in a box for over a year, and I haven't dared to try it out, yet. My gut feeling says there is a 50% chance that I would get a burnt out motherboard, a damaged LS-120 drive and a burnt out plug adapter. The irreplaceable component would be the burnt out plug adapter, I haven't seen such a plug adapter before. There must have been a reason why this plug adapter was included in the box with the LS-120 drive. Any ideas about how to connect the plug adapter, at my risk, is appreciated. I would speculate that this plug adapter could perhaps make this specific LS-120 drive model function like a normal 720KB/1.2MB/1.44MB floppy drive, without the ability of reading/writing/formatting 120MB diskettes. I would further speculate that this plug adapter works only with the LS-120 drives by Mitsubishi, and not with the drives by Matsus***a/Panasonic.

There is a red "NEW" marking for this motherboard at http://www.asrock.com/mb/index.aspBut Frys doesn't list it, and Newegg.com lists it as "Out of stock" http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=ASRock+775i65G&x=0&y=0 On the last capture by the web archive on 18-Jul-2011 http://web.archive.org/web/20110718022752/http://www.asrock.com/mb/index.asp this motherboard is not listed, so this Win98-compatible motherboard seems to have been added since then, i.e. it may indeed be a new addition to the products offered by ASRock. Newegg and Amazon don't seem to offer this motherboard as a new product even if they are listed among the dealers of ASRock http://www.asrock.com/general/buy.asp?cat=American. I would speculate that some government agencies in non-Western countries are purchasing these Win98 motherboards, to be less vulnerable to Western malware attacks. If this is true, one could speculate further that eventually new malware for the Win9x platform will be developed by Western agencies.

Hi naaloh,This is a very good question: "Why was the IDE interface, and not the floppy drive interface, used for superfloppies/LS-120 drives?" Any insights? It is indeed strange that the LS-120 drives, as supposed successors of the floppy disk drives, did not connect to the 34-pin floppy drive cable from the motherboard, but to the 40-pin IDE cable.None of my 34-pin floppy drive cables fit onto the 40-pin IDE connector at the back of the LS-120 drive, because of the protrusion ("cable key") in the center and a protrusion at the side of the floppy drive cable. So the 40-pin IDE connectors were made in such a way that an IDE drive could not be connected with a 34-pin floppy drive cable to the floppy drive controller. But wait: In a shrink-wrapped box of an LS-120 drive by Digital Research Technologies, containing an IDE LS-120 drive by Mitsubishi Electric, Model MF357G-2111UAL, manufactured Feb.1998, there was a strange little plug adapter in the box, with no explanation. This adapter has on one side a female 34-pin connector [to the LS-120 drive?], and on the other side an old male 34-pin connector, as for 5.25" floppy drives. By means of the plug adapter the LS-120 drive, with its 40-pin IDE connector, can be connected to an old-style floppy drive cable (5.25" Drive B connector type), for those who like risky experiments. The 34-pin plug adapter does not have a "cable key" protrusion, so I don't know where to connect it on the 40-pin IDE connector of the LS-120 drive. I was afraid of damaging both the LS-120 drive and the motherboard when connecting the LS-120 drive via this plug adapter to the floppy drive controller on the motherboard. This plug adapter may reflect attempts to connect an LS-120 drive to the floppy drive controller. I am attaching 3 pictures of this wondrous plug adapter from the Digital Research box. The back of the plug adapter shows a custom connection. Any suggestions?

Hi naaloh,Interfaces of LS-120 drives The LS-120 drives come in enclosures with parallel (=LPT1), USB and PCMCIA interfaces, depending on the model. I have not seen any LS-120 drives with a SCSI interface, although there were internal and external SCSI models, e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/19980207104856/http://www.winstation.com/scsils.html and http://web.archive.org/web/20011218095613/http://www.winstation.com/Superdisk.htm (also SCSI LS-240 drives). The early Winstation models apparently had a Mitsubishi drive inside, not a Matsus***a/Panasonic drive, http://web.archive.org/web/19990421233257/http://www.winstation.com/removable.html "IDE SuperDisk Drive & IDE Zip Drive are not compatible in the same system" according to http://web.archive.org/web/19990430030706/http://www.winstation.com/ssdspec.html The bare ATAPI LS-120 drive connects inside a desktop computer, or inside an IDE/PATA enclosure, like a regular bare HDD, except that the internal LS-120 drives have a small 4-pin power connector (like for 3.5" floppy drives). You need a short adapter cable to convert the big 4-pin Molex power connector to a small 4-pin floppy power connector, these adapter cables eventually will become scarce, Fry's, for example, doesn't have them anymore, but they are still plentiful at ebay. The only external enclosure I know of, with a fitting opening for the ATAPI LS-120 drive inside, so that diskettes can be inserted, is model ME-720, by e.g. Bytecc, also no-name. The ME-720 comes with various interfaces (USB, Firewire, USB+Firewire, eSATA). The Firewire interface was probably never tested by the manufacturers of the LS-120 drives and by developers of software for LS-120 drives. I have not been able to get the Matsus***a SuperDisk Utility (29-Nov-2001) [for formatting LS-120 diskettes, download link https://p3.support.panasonic.co.jp/p3/EokpControl;jsessionid=2765AFBF30224277FD16BC06EDA6D5DC.sc-ap16-1?&sid=835039aeb6f2601eb4c14f25979c1c0f&event=AE0001&fid=17647 ] , to work with LS-120 drives in the ME-720 enclosure, connected via USB, only with the original drives by Imation [can also re-format degaussed LS-120 diskettes) and by Que! [the LS-240 drive by Que! cannot re-format degaussed LS-120 diskettes since it cannot full/quick format with the SuperDisk Format Utility when NoCheck is set to 01]. The Matsus***a SuperDisk Utility (29-Nov-2001) seems to have a very special handling of VIDs/PIDs, and I have not yet found a way for the Matsus***a SuperDisk Utility (29-Nov-2001) to accept the VID/PID of the USB-bridge inside the ME-720 enclosure. Switchfk.ini in data1.cab in the installer LK-RF240UZ.EXE seems to allow custom VID/PIDs, but I couldn't get it to work with the ME-720 enclosure. There are also slim LS-120/240 ATAPI drives for laptops, the slim LS-120 drive modules for my 11-year-old Inspiron 7500 laptop work fine. I was never able to get slim LS-120/240 drives for other laptop makes to work with slim drive to IDE 40-pin adapters, esp. the IBM LS-240 drives, which seem to be custom-made. During one experiment, smoke came from such a slim drive to IDE adapter, the adapter itself was burnt, the LS-240 laptop drive definitely dead and the AC power supply damaged.

Magic with LS-120 drives connected via Firewire 1. GRDuw v4.1.17 [Win98] I just used GRDuw v4.1.17 under Win98SE to format a regular 1.44MB floppy. The LS-120 drive connected via Firewire is displayed by GRDuw as "REMOVABLE HD". I put a 1.44MB floppy disk into the LS-120 drive, and selected 1.44MB , the formatting was Ok. Then I selected 720kB and repeated the formatting - without taping a hole: the 1.44MB was formatted Ok to 720kB! 2. Hard Disk Low Level Format Tool v2.36 [WinXP] A regular 1.44MB floppy disk in the LS-120 drive is displayed in the program's window. An attempt to low-level format the 1.44MB floppy disk fails with the error message: "Cannot access this device. This device cannot be accessed because it iss smaller than 65535 sectors."

NO, it is NOT. I agree Below is what MBRWizard displays about a regular 1.44MB blank floppy disk in an LS-120 drive connected via Firewire: MBRWizard Suite, v. 4.0.0.135 Details for Disk 1: Prolific PL3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00) IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device Date Saved: 7/31/2012 Disk Information -------------------------------------------------------- Model Prolific PL3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00) IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device MBR/GPT: MBR Physical Size: 1,474,560 Formatted size: 1.41MiB Sector Count: 2,880 Signature: 73696420 Interface: SBP2 Connection: Removable Total Partitions: 4 Primary Partitions: 4 Logical Partitions: 0 Primary Partition #1 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 53 (DSKMGR) Active (boot): No (20) Start Sector (LBA): 538989391 Total Sectors (LBA): 1398362912 Starting CHS: 345 32 19 Ending CHS: 324 77 19 Size (in bytes): 715961810944 Volume Label: Primary Partition #2 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 6B (UNKNWN) Active (boot): No (61) Start Sector (LBA): 1330184202 Total Sectors (LBA): 538976288 Starting CHS: 288 110 57 Ending CHS: 269 101 57 Size (in bytes): 275955859456 Volume Label: Primary Partition #3 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 49 (UNKNWN) Active (boot): Yes (80) Start Sector (LBA): 1394627663 Total Sectors (LBA): 21337 Starting CHS: 87 1 0 Ending CHS: 335 78 2 Size (in bytes): 10924544 Volume Label: Primary Partition #4 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 20 (UNKNWN) Active (boot): No (20) Start Sector (LBA): 1919950958 Total Sectors (LBA): 544437093 Starting CHS: 356 97 46 Ending CHS: 357 116 40 Size (in bytes): 278751791616 Volume Label: I am attaching the MBR of the virgin maxell 120MB LS-120 diskette, created by HDHacker v1.4 from the LS-120 diskette in an LS-120 drive connected via Firewire. BTW, a LS-120 drive connected via Firewire + the Hitachi Filter Driver could perhaps make a regular 1.44MB floppy disk into a Local Disk under WinXP, there seems to be a lot of room for experimentation with LS-120 drives connected via Firewire. MBR_HardDisk1_LS-120_virgin_120MB.rar

LS-120 drives connected via Firewire Under WinXP, when an LS-120 drive is connected via USB, My Computer displays the drive as "3 1/2 Floppy (B:)", Type: "3 1/2-Inch Floppy Disk". When the same drive is connected via Firewire, however, My Computer displays the LS-120 drive as "Removable Disk (M:[for example])", File System: FAT, Type: "Removable Disk". Some software does not work with the Type: "Floppy Disk", but works with the Type "Removable Disk". By connecting an LS-120 drive via Firewire, a whole new set of software tools becomes available with the LS-120 drive. MBRWizard, for example, does not display an LS-120 drive in its menu selection "Select a Hard Disk" when the LS-120 drive is connected via USB. When the LS-120 drive is connected via Firewire, however, MBRWizard does display the LS-120 drive in its menu selection "Select a Hard Disk". In another topic the formatting of a Caleb UHD144 drive seems to be a little puzzling, so I am posting here how MBRWizard sees an LS-120 diskette when connected via Firewire. There may be similarities between an "LS-120" drive and a Caleb drive, the Caleb drive is displayed in Device Manager as "Caleb LS-120". As far as I know, LS-120 drives have not been sold with a Firewire interface. MBRWizard Suite, v. 4.0.0.135 Details for Disk 1: Prolific PL3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00) IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device Date Saved: 7/31/2012 Disk Information -------------------------------------------------------- Model Prolific PL3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00) IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device MBR/GPT: MBR Physical Size: 126,222,336 Formatted size: 120.38MiB Sector Count: 246,528 Signature: 6F727265 Interface: SBP2 Connection: Removable Total Partitions: 4 Primary Partitions: 4 Logical Partitions: 0 Primary Partition #1 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 79 (UNKNWN) Active (boot): No (72) Start Sector (LBA): 538988361 Total Sectors (LBA): 538976288 Starting CHS: 356 101 33 Ending CHS: 0 13 10 Size (in bytes): 275955859456 Volume Label: Primary Partition #2 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 53 (DSKMGR) Active (boot): No (53) Start Sector (LBA): 1394614304 Total Sectors (LBA): 21337 Starting CHS: 333 89 19 Ending CHS: 339 68 15 Size (in bytes): 10924544 Volume Label: Primary Partition #3 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 6C (UNKNWN) Active (boot): No (a) Start Sector (LBA): 1684955424 Total Sectors (LBA): 1701998624 Starting CHS: 368 82 37 Ending CHS: 357 97 35 Size (in bytes): 871423295488 Volume Label: Primary Partition #4 -------------------------------------------------------- Type: 6E (UNKNWN) Active (boot): No (73) Start Sector (LBA): 1998616933 Total Sectors (LBA): 544105832 Starting CHS: 97 115 32 Ending CHS: 107 121 32 Size (in bytes): 278582185984 Volume Label: The LS-120 diskette was a new "Windows/MS-DOS Formatted" diskette, fresh out of the box. 4 primary partitions? Is this information provided by MBRWizard correct?

Great I have tested up to now only without any switches, e.g. >VRFYPE *.dll Here some comments: 1) all files which generated the message "Chksums do not match" with the previous version of VRFYPE, were displayed Ok, i.e. out of a test collection of 1595 good and bad dlls, all 25 dlls, which were reported before as having non-zero AND non-matching checksums, were listed 2) in this test collection there were quite a few files which had the file extension .dll, but contained just zeroes. These files were bad dlls, but not listed since VRFYPE is about checksums. 3) Initially I was looking for an integrity checker of dlls. Maybe this objective is too difficult or even impossible, so I am reformulating my question: Is there software which can identify (some) bad dlls? The new version of VRFYPE does flag very nicely Portable Executable dlls which have non-zero AND non-matching checksums. 4) I copied the new version of VRFYPE to \WINDOWSXP\SYSTEM32\ of a Farsi modification of WinXP, and ran VRFYPE without any switches. 3 files were flagged: rasapi32.dll, msxml.dll and kbdfa.dll. kbdfa.dll is the Farsi Keyboard Layout. kbda2.dll, for example, which is the Arabic_2 Keyboard Layout, did not generate a checksum error. kbdfa.dll may have been patched with no harmful intention, and I do not suspect a targeted modification to facilitate stuff like Stuxnet. No idea whether a non-matching checksum of a country-specific keyboard file could be used as a malware trigger to select targets in a hypothetical cyber war. It would be interesting to check whether VRFYPE can flag infected .dlls or .exes. VRFYPE as a tool to identify infections by not yet identified malware? VRFYPE as a tool to clean up after an infection? 5) VRFYPE seems to be able to identify some .exe etc files which were patched, etc. An inventory of patched applications? Maybe VRFYPE can help distinguish original files from patched files, if there is no digital signature. 6) The 25 .dll files flagged by VRFYPE (and the bad .dlls containing just zeroes) did not display a Version tab in their Property sheets, and when hovering over them in an Explorer window, no version information was displayed. 7) A switch to also check sub-directories would be quite useful A little program which has great potential

Hi jaclaz, Great to have you on board. I have attached the MBR saved by HDHacker v1.4, of a (most likely) virgin, never used caleb diskette. Again, one of my objectives is to convert an Imation LS-120 120MB diskette into a caleb 144MB diskette. caleb diskettes are very hard to find nowadays. MBR_HardDisk1_caleb_diskette_nr_4.rar