[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

Well I suppose it's time to get back to the problem at hand, because now it's more complicated.

A few minutes ago, I copied all of the data (excluding one folder) from my flash drive to a Windows XP machine so I could burn it to a CD or put it back on the drive once this problem is fixed.

The folder I excluded contained a small handful of files from an openSUSE 11 Linux installation. There were a couple of graphics, about 3 screenshots, one text document, a backup of bookmarks.html from Firefox, and about six configuration files (customizing KDE, auto login, etc). I planned to copy these files to a temporary folder on a linux machine and then put them back on the drive when fixed. Now all but two of the files on the flash drive have disappeared. I did not even access this folder when I was copying the others to XP, so I know I did not accidentally delete them.

Is there a way to recover them? And whether there is or not, this drive is destined for a repartition and reformat!

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

I have done some further testing and code analysis, and determined that there are multiple problems with trying to support files larger than 4GB in Windows 9X besides the FileSystem. Installing a new FileSystem will not solve these problems since the FileSystem will never even see File Offsets greater that 4GB.

Well it doesn't look too promising, does it?

the Windows 9X Version

Is it possible a later version of these functions could be implemented with KernelEx or a similar compatiblity-layer type application, thereby bypassing the need to patch a bunch of different software?

Just trying to think logically, I have no coding or programming experience, so if I say something stupid please bear with me.

[Windows 98 Live Cd Project (Update)]

Hello BeatZero, always glad to see new members in the Windows 98 community.

I've not had an opportunity to look at your project yet, but I find it very interesting, and I hope you get it perfected. I actually did some reading up on Windows 98 Live CD's a few weeks ago, but I haven't had the time to even attempt it yet and I have no experience with such things. Here's a link to a couple of the pages I looked at, you may have already seen them or they may not help you, but they're relevant to the topic at hand so they may help someone else.

Win98LiveCD1

[link removed]

I was thinking about trying my hand at making my own Win98 Live DVD. I know someone's going to ask "why DVD" so I'll go ahead and explain. The size of the image/install doesn't matter to me, in fact, I'd rather have the entire system, with as many drivers, updates, tools & applications as possible. I'd prefer to have a full featured system ready to do anything I want whenever I load it up (like KNOPPIX, etc). (I know this would not be a good setup for older systems, but most of my hardware is Pentium 4 Northwood or Prescott ready)

But anyhow, best of luck, and welcome!

[Flash Drives Wearing Out ?]

@LoneCrusader

Remember, you asked for it :

Most (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

You are WRONG.

Ext2 is NOT journaled:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2

Ext3 can be read as "journaled Ext2":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

jaclaz

Ah, stupid of me. I already knew that ext3 was journaled, and when I was posting that I looked too quickly at the beginning of that ext2 Wikipedia page and saw "journaling file system" and then didn't read the rest. My apologies dencorso.

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

I assume you are referring to your question about FileSystems that only Dencorso has replied to so far.

I have thought about Patching the FAT32 FileSystem to support >4GB files but have not run yet run the tests or done the analysis to see if it is feasible.

Yep, that's the question. Patching the FAT32 filesystem sounds like a good idea if it's possible, however I can see how this might be a somewhat awkward process if one had to install the patched VFAT.VXD on each and every machine (And this would no doubt include 2K/XP/Vista/Win7 machines as well I assume) that he wanted to be able to write a 4GB+ file to or use a FAT32 formatted flash disk in for said purpose.

Is there a possiblility of writing a Windows 98 driver for exFAT? I have seen it mentioned on here before, not sure of the legalities involved, but provided it's not illegal I think it would be a very useful utility.

EDIT: Never mind, I see on Wikipedia that Microsoft is still charging a licensing fee for exFAT implementations.

[Flash Drives Wearing Out ?]

ext2 (or ext2fs, one of the linux fs) is another possibility

Most (someone correct me if I'm wrong) Linux file systems are journaling file systems - including ext2, so that would just lead back to the same problem as NTFS in this situation.

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

The Geometry of 32 Heads and 63 Sectors is not unusual for USB Flash Drives. I have seen 16 Heads as well.

The most important fix for this Pendrive is changing the Partition ID, at offset 1C2H, from 1BH to 0CH.

To avoid potential partitioning problems in the future, the CHS entries should be corrected.

The CHS End Cylinder High 2 Bits and Sector, at offset 1C4H, should be changed from 3FH to 0FFH.

The CHS End Cylinder Low Byte, at offset 1C5H, should be changed from 8CH to 0FFH

Whenever I'm finished with my flash drive at college this week I think I may just reformat it, from what you all are telling me it seems to have some bizarre settings.

@rloew - While you're here I'd appreciate your input on the question I asked jaclaz in the other thread.

[Flash Drives Wearing Out ?]

Also read these, about the opportunity of NOT using NTFS (or other semi-journaled or journaled filesystem on Flash devices):

http://www.msfn.org/board/help-remove-file...84-page-17.html

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-stick-dead-t137512-page-6.html

jaclaz

I read over those threads, good useful info!

I have a question though - is there a non-journaling file system that can be used to format a flash disk that can support files larger than 4GB, and still be read by Windows 98? I saw someone mention/suggest formatting disks with UDF in another thread, but I am unfamiliar with it.

It would be handy to have such a filesystem, that way it would be possible to save a DVD image on a flash drive (even if you were only going to actually USE it on an XP/NTFS system) but still have access to any other smaller files on the flash disk in Windows 98.

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

Ok Guys, thanks for all your help so far.

I'm going to be needing my flash drive at college the next couple of days, and it's all a WinXP environment there, so I'm not going to run any more experiments just yet. As soon as that's over, Ill resume the quest to figure out what's going on with it.

@jaclaz

I have a question that's semi-related to this, but probably more appropriate in this thread. Will post there.

Flash Drives Wearing Out ?

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

Use HDhacker on your XP or dd from Linux and post in a .zip file a binary dump of your MBR and PBR (in hdhacker respectively first sector of PhysicalDrive and first sector of LogicalDrive)

jaclaz

Ok, I used HDHacker and got the Logical Drive no problem. (Text output had Kingston in it). The Physical Drive output I'm not 100% sure of, I couldn't select it by drive letter or type, just had numbers 0-9. Numbers 0, 1, 2 returned a sector output. The first one (0) was obviously my primary hdd because i saw some text in the output that obviously was my boot loader. The second (1) I assumed to be my second hdd, and the third (2) output must be the flash drive. Hope this is what you needed.

MBRPBR.zip

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

Ok, tried the KB240075 UHCD.SYS hotfix, didn't change anything.

Here's the readout from ChipGenius:

Device Name: +[G:]+USB Mass Storage Device(Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 USB Device)

PnP Device ID: VID = 0951 PID = 1603

Serial Number: 000AEB91BD07F980A50F09D5

Revision: 1.00

Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 Full-Speed (USB1.1)

Chip Vendor: skymedi(??)

Chip Part-Number: SK6281/SK6211

Product Vendor: Kingston

Product Model: DataTraveler 2.0

Tools on Web: http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=4345

While in XP to run ChipGenius, I verified again that the drive was read/writable in XP, no data loss or problems of any kind.

I remember when I first put the new blank drive in Win 98, it showed up with 14.(xxx something) GB free, so I assumed there wouldn't be any problems, guess I was wrong.

[Strange Problems with Pendrives]

I'm having a strange problem with one of my flash drives.

Running Win98SE, NUSB 3.3 installed. (also verified this same error on 2 other computers running NUSB)

I have 2 flash drives, one is 256mb and the other is a new Kingston 16gb Data Traveler.

When I first installed NUSB, they both worked fine, and I could read/write to/from both of them. A few days ago, I tried to use the 16gb disk and it is recognized properly as a disk drive, but when I click on it in Windows Explorer it says

"The disk in drive G is not formatted. Would you like to format it?"

The other (256mb) flash disk is not affected. The 16gb disk shows up fine in Windows XP and in openSUSE 11, is read/writable and shows as being formatted with FAT32.

Any ideas on why this disk is suddenly not recognized properly by Win98?

On a last note, I did notice that the 16gb disk now has over 2gb of data on it. Could this be causing some sort of error based on the 2gb file size limit (the data is NOT in one file though) ?? I know that the size of DVDs are incorrectly reported as 1.99GB, but all of their data still shows up and is accessible. Thought this info might be of assistance.

[Firefox 2.0.0.20 Error on MySpace (SOLVED)]

Thanks bristols, the User Agent Switcher solved the problem

Setting the User Agent to:

"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14"

solves the problem if anyone else runs into this. I emailed MySpace support about it whenever it first happened, (wasn't expecting much, haha) and of course they were extremely helpful , here's the garbage they sent me:

Hello,

Thanks for contacting MySpace.

MySpace has done some updates and serves many advanced features which require a more modern browser. For that reason, you are asked to update your browser. This is a technical issue on your end, not on our site. Computer related tech issues cannot be supported through MySpace. We recommend reviewing the tech manual regarding your operating system. If that doesn't work, you might want to speak with a computer technician. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

The MySpace Support team

Quite ridiculous since as I mentioned before, the page loads perfectly in IE6, which is certainly much more outdated than Firefox 2.

@rainyd - You must be using KernelEx to have Flash Player 10, I'm just running straight 98SE w/ RAM Patch.

[Firefox 2.0.0.20 Error on MySpace (SOLVED)]

Tried to go to MySpace this evening, and got this error:

Running 98SE, Firefox 2.0.0.20, IE6 SP1 installed, Flash Player 9. No mods except rloew's RAM patch.

What's idiotic about this, is that MySpace will load in IE6!!!

Saw an earlier topic about spoofing the User Agent to make sites display in IE6, is there a way to use the same principle to have Firefox report a newer version?

[Compatible Hardware with Windows 9x]

I have developed a Patch that should allow the use of 512MB Graphics Cards with Windows 9X.

I do not have a Card to test.

If anyone has a 512MB Graphics Card and a Windows 9X driver for it, and is interested in doing some testing, contact me at rloew@hotmail.com

I would be interested, but I also don't have a 512MB card. I might look into buying one if I can find one that I like. I prefer ATI cards, does anyone know of an ATI 512MB AGP card that has 98 drivers? I am already using the Catalyst 6.2 driver pack with my 9800 XT, and if I go into my adapter driver settings and view all hardware, the newest card listed is the x800 XT Platinum Edition which only came in 256MB versions.

[slipstreaming updates/drivers into 98 SE setup CD]

Look in the "Important / "Stickified" / Pinned Windows 98/98 SP1/98 SE/ME Topics" thread and go down to "Comprehensive Packs" and take a look at soporific's Auto Patcher and Unattended Boot CD. I have not used either of these myself, but I remember reading about them and it sounds like it might be what you're looking for.

[Compatible Hardware with Windows 9x]

(Repeat of a post made in another topic, but I felt it was relevant here as well as this is a compatibility thread.)

About processors, I've just installed a W95b on a 1400MHz PIIIs 80GB without any patch. This confirms once again that the 350MHz refer to Amd processors.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I recently installed 95C on a P4 2.0GHz machine and had to use the amdk6upd patch. Probably even the Intel processors at some point above the processor you used hit a limit where the patch is needed.

[Mobility Radeon 9200 on Win95c?]

I too looked (no too long) for W95b drivers for a Radeon 9600xt. Seems that Ati released Radeon drivers beginning with W98.

I know for a fact that there are Win95 Drivers for a 128MB Radeon 8500 - I have the disk and have installed them recently. As far as Radeons after that, I am almost certain there are vxd drivers for them, but I can't remember right at the moment.

[Windows 95 or Windows 98 SE?]

If I remember well, the 350MHz limit is for Amd processors only, and a patch exists anyway. I've just installed W95b on a 1400MHz PIII without any patch, by the absolutely standard method.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I recently installed 95C on a P4 2.0GHz machine and had to use the amdk6upd patch. Probably even the Intel processors at some point above the processor you used hit a limit where the patch is needed.

[Windows 95 or Windows 98 SE?]

System specs: 256 MB RAM(133MHz), Intel Pentium III 1 GHz and I don't know about the other, but I think I am going for Windows 98 SE as if I am correct Windows 95 may be unstable with 350Mhz+ processors??

There is a patch that corrects this error in 95. However, with a 1GHz processor and 256 RAM, 98SE will run fine. It's really up to you to decide whether or not you need the newer software & hardware support that 98SE can give you.

[Multi-Cores & Timings - Are they driver related or system?]

Ahh... I can make my first post in a thread that I know something about.. heh.

Windows 95 does have problems with many CPU's higher than 350 MHz. (Windows Protection Error in IOS.VXD) However, Microsoft and AMD issued a fix for this (amdk6upd.exe - remember when K6-2 Super Socket 7's were the screaming processor? lol ) This patch fixes the problem with processors up to 2.1 GHz, where a second problem occurs. (Windows Protection Error in NDIS.VXD) I spent many hours trying to get around this problem. This problem also affects 98FE, and M$ issued a hotfix for 98FE. The hotfix will not work on Windows 95.. I tried pulling files out of it and installing them manually, etc etc, it did not work.

Here's what happens: 95 will install properly, then on the reboot you will get the first (IOS) error. After patching this error, you will get the second one (NDIS). I tried copying versions of ndis.vxd from the 98FE hotfix and from 98SE and putting them into 95, but this was unsuccessful. Being exasperated at this point, I just went and deleted ndis.vxd and then it gave another error concerning nwredir.vxd so I deleted it as well. Then - lo and behold, it said those two files were missing, press a key to continue.. and 95 loaded up. Only one more error message was displayed, "The NetWare compatible shell is unavailable." then, 95 went happily about its business. All this was done on a 3.06 GHz P4 HT machine.

So - other than networking functions, 95 will run on processors faster than 2.1GHz. Getting there is rough, and the lack of networking (dial up, broadband, etc) effectively kills a lot of usefulness; but it CAN be done. (I'll bet Rudolph Loew could fix it )

As far as I know, Windows 98 SE does not have a limit on the speed of processor it can use (or at least it hasn't been hit yet).