Prozactive

I think LoneCrusader means include Win95 in the title. And I certainly didn't mean to hijack this thread, even though I don't think I did. It's not that big a deal to me actually, but it was the main reason I decided to update IO.SYS, in the hopes that it would fix the bug. My experience parallels LoneCrusader's except it almost always occurs especially if you eject a previously mounted disc. Windows Explorer will then consistently display duplicate disc names. A much more aggravating problem is that Windows Explorer tends to hard freeze and lock up quite regularly after initial loading, but that is definitely a topic for another thread.

Thanks for the reply jds, but i guess I wasn't clear. I meant CD and DVD drives, not a combo drive. Any disc (CD or DVD) tends to show up twice in Windows Explorer for some reason.

Thanks again dencorso! I see that Opera 11.60 was recently released. Anyone try it yet? I have come across one particularly annoying bug in Opera 11.52. For some reason, the PgDn key doesn't properly page down one page at a time. Opera 11.52 tends to skip down much more than a page. I think the PgUp key tends to work better overall but it still may have similar quirky behavior. I don't recall this occurring at all with Opera 10.63.

I see that the discussion in this thread spawned a renewed discussion in the NTFS for DOS/Win9x thread. I should probably address any more detailed comments in that thread but yeah, several years ago I tried the Sysinternals NTFS for Win98 utility and it was a disaster. My memory's quite blurry but as I recall, I was eventually able to see and access NTFS partitions with some quirky behavior, but the showstopper was numerous repeated BSoDs mostly involving the FDD. I finally gave up and uninstalled it to regain system stability. I also didn't have much confidence in data integrity to/from NTFS partitions with it. I recall looking at the Paragon version but I don't think it was freeware at the time and I didn't try it. Like I said, I strongly prefer NTFS for its robustness but I also want to have full read/write access from Win98 with 100% confidence in data integrity. Thanks CharlotteTheHarlot for your thorough detailed advice and info as always. I was aware of Karen's Replicator backup utility and had checked it out some time ago but never DL'ed and used it. I may give it a test drive soon. It wasn't clear from the documentation whether it works in Win98 but I assume it does. Also, I've been out of the market a while and wasn't aware of the recent spike in HDD prices you mentioned. It seemed like HDD prices were on their usual downward trajectory. That sucks, and I'll have to keep a closer eye on things. @SAE140: Your thread title was indeed accurate but "misleading" in the sense that it was more about the rationale for needing more IDE ports with the HDDs and data access/backup, or at least the subsequent discussion. I also wasn't aware that 3.5" HDDs used that little power but there's still the issue of heat generation and cabling mess, not to mention wear and tear on the HDDs.

Thanks for all the great info. I'll have to take some time to think through it and decide on my strategy. One issue that was mentioned earlier was the use of NTFS. While I strongly prefer NTFS, I usually go with FAT32 so that data can be read in Win98, as I've had zero luck with those NTFS utilities that supposedly allow read/write access from DOS/Win9x.

Thanks Mr. Loew. There are no drivers in my CONFIG.SYS file. it's not a showstopper but it is somewhat annoying.

Thanks dencorso. I've heard of that program but have never used it. I'll check it out, even though it kinda sounds like pr0n. And by the term "root folders", I presume one means folders residing in the root directory. I'm still trying to think through how to handle the numerous partitions contained in the HDDs.

Well, I finally updated IO.SYS on my desktop PC using the same procedure (from DOS) without loading the 311561USA8.EXE update beforehand and everything seems to work fine, at least so far. I didn't get the immediate Windows registry error that I did on my laptop for some reason, which is quite puzzling. I understand the "bit rot" concept but I really don't think that's the situation with my laptop. I routinely run System File Checker, registry scans, and numerous other system utilities to ensure things are in order. Of course, that's no guarantee but I feel quite confident about the OS integrity overall. I was hoping the updated IO.SYS would solve the annoying bug in Windows Explorer of having multiple entries for discs mounted in my CD/DVD drives but that's not the case, as those multiple entries still occur. And yes, the original Win98SE IO.SYS has a file size of 222,390 bytes while the updated IO.SYS installed by the 311561USA8.EXE update is 222,670 bytes.

@CharlotteTheHarlot: What replicator or sync'er would you recommend? Thanks for the advice.. looks like a great idea. I finally got around to reading this thread as the title is quite misleading, and I'm in a similar situation as the OP, having accumulated numerous HDDs over the years with a lot of old archived data I'd like to consolidate and organize better. The HDDs are all partitioned with different partition sizes and attributes and I never quite figured out how to sort through all the issues involved.

This seems strange. I'm pretty sure I've done this (with my version of phelum's patches) without any dramas. Did you immediately reboot after changing 'IO.SYS' (just in case some copy of 'IO.SYS' in memory gets reloaded and then code addresses have changed, or some such confusion)? Yes I was quite surprised too. It seems quite definitive though, at least on my laptop. I booted up into DOS from a boot diskette, renamed and replaced IO.SYS with the latest patched version from rloew via dencorso's patch file (had to change file attributes for IO.SYS with the ATTRIB command to do so), then immediately rebooted into Win98 whereupon I got the previously cited Windows system registry error. Restoring IO.SYS to the original Win98SE (23-Apr-99) version immediately eliminated the error, as did running the 311561USA8.EXE update *before* manually updating IO.SYS. I assumed that the 311561USA8.EXE update must've made some required registry changes to accommodate the new IO.SYS it installed. EDIT: I should also note that the same Windows system registry error also recurred after the automatic DOS-based registry checker fixed some registry error(s) after the first mandatory reboot. And again, the file sizes of IO.SYS are different between the two versions. I plan to repeat this update process with my desktop PC soon and I'll report back if there are any differences. Over the years, there *have* been some differences in how things work between the two systems even though they both run Win98SE and are configured very similarly. I assumed they were probably due to hardware differences.

Thanks jaclaz, rloew, and egrabrych. Just for technical education, how would you accomplish that (copying IO.SYS to a specific cluster(s)/location on the HDD)? And now that you mention it, I do recall reading that Wikipedia article a long time ago.

You pulled this thread out of the dusty vaults! Well that's a long complex topic that's been extensively discussed both in this forum and in Radified forums, but off the top of my head, it's been fairly well established anecdotally that Norton Ghost 2003 has around a 1 TiB maximum HDD size limit. There are a lot of technical factors and caveats that go into that, much too long to concisely explain here. Your best bet is to search this forum and Radified forums for this topic. But yes, 500 GB should be well within the capability of Norton Ghost 2003. I strongly suspect your issue has to do with the fact that it's a SATA HDD, something I don't have any experience with. You obviously need to make sure your DOS drivers are compatible with SATA HDDs, and I don't know if the native Iomega drivers supplied with Ghost 2003 are compatible.

@egrabrych: Yes of course, one should install the correct language version of the KB311561 update. My apologies for being US-centric. I don't understand your last paragraph at all, however. Do you mean that the old and updated versions of IO.SYS has to physically occupy the exact same location on the HDD? I don't think that's the case AFAIK, as I'm pretty sure my updated IO.SYS did not exactly replace the older file's location. I must be misunderstanding you.

No problem. After reading your reply (and rloew's, which I missed before my initial response), I could finally see how my statements were misleading. Yes, I thought I could go straight from the original 23 Apr 1999 version of IO.SYS to the latest patched version from rloew but that's apparently not the case. It's a prerequisite to install the 311561USA8.EXE update first to update IO.SYS to that version before the new patched version is manually installed. I assumed that the 311561USA8.EXE update made some required registry changes during installation. Also, the file size of IO.SYS is different for the two versions (original vs. 311561USA8.EXE updated).

herbalist has had many long discussions about the use of SSM. I'll try to find the references.

No, you misunderstood or I didn't explain it clearly. I did indeed patch the winboot.98s file extracted from the 311561USA8.EXE update, then I replaced my original IO.SYS from DOS, renaming the older file with another extension. Ah, I see. It was misleading of me to say I "patched" IO.SYS. I should've said I updated IO.SYS by patching winboot.98s per your instructions. Hopefully this cleared things up.

I patched IO.SYS per dencorso's instructions then updated my system from DOS, but upon reboot I got a persistent Windows registry error message: Windows encountered an error accessing the system registry. Windows will restart and repair the registry for you. The system would reboot, run a DOS registry checker app and fix some registry error, then boot up to the desktop where the same registry error would occur again. I finally gave up and restored the original IO.SYS which resolved the problem. I suspect I need to run the Microsoft 311561USA8.EXE update first before updating to the latest version of IO.SYS as I still have the original 23 April 1999 version on my system. I'll report back if that solves (or does not solve) the problem. UPDATE: Installing the 311561USA8.EXE update seems to have resolved the problem.

It seems to vary based on the version of Opera. The current version 11.52 puts its cache/temp files in: \Windows\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\cache\sesn The previous version 10.63 had them in: \Windows\Application Data\Opera\Opera\cache\sesn The prefs/config data (history, bookmarks, etc.) remain in: \Windows\Application Data\Opera\Opera for both 11.52 and 10.63. Opera 9.64 had its prefs/config data and cache/temp files in yet different folders located within \Windows\Application Data\Opera\Opera as I recall. HTH. Thanks for all the effort moving and consolidating all of the Opera-related posts in this new comprehensive Opera thread.

We're in full concurrence then. One of the first things I always do too is to set WinXP to the Classic start menu/theme. I can't stand its default cartoonish look and feel with the rounded buttons, etc. I don't disable taskbar grouping of course so I have no idea how to do that.

Well, to each his own. Obviously we all have different tastes and preferences, but as I stated earlier, the taskbar grouping feature in WinXP is by far the thing I like the most and I would absolutely love to have it in Win98. Unfortunately, it's apparently not an easy feature to add as it may be embedded in the core OS programming, so to speak. BTW, in my web searches I've seen numerous discussions of some registry changes that will disable taskbar grouping in WinXP if that's your preference. And thanks loblo for your feedback but that doesn't look like it'll help solve the crowded illegible Win98 taskbar issue for me.

Thanks for your prompt reply, dencorso. That's what I meant by the earlier discussion being very confusing in terms of versions and changes made in IO.SYS.

Thanks dencorso and PROBLEMCHYLD. Just to make sure I fully understand, so the IO.SYS contained in U98SESP3 with the referenced CRC32 and MD5 hashes is the latest version that rloew just posted? I'm comfortable using a hex editor but I'm not familiar with the BDIFF utility and dump syntax that rloew posted.

Ah. Thanks rloew. It wasn't clear that you had to hex edit it yourself. I understand now.

Where do you get this latest patch? I've somewhat followed this long convoluted technical discussion and I must say it's very confusing.

Does anyone know a utility or way to make Windows 98 group similar taskbar buttons like Windows XP? That is probably the main (only?) thing I like about WinXP and my biggest gripe about Win98. When I have lots of tasks/apps open, Win98 continues to add buttons to the taskbar and shrinking their width to the point where I can't read their labels anymore. It's extremely aggravating. I love the way WinXP groups similar tasks in one button (e.g., multiple Notepad windows) where you can click the single button and select the specific window you want. I've searched this forum and Googled it but haven't been able to find any utility or method for doing it in Win98 so I thought I'd ask here.