JorgeA

Uh-oh -- When even the experts disagree as to what should be done and what the risks involved are, am I glad that I stopped myself before jumping into the abyss! Nonetheless, I have every confidence that you guys will sort this out to a clearcut solution. --JorgeA

puntoMX, Part of what's going on is that I've been learning a lot of new computing stuff in other directions. I'm setting up a home network including PCs from three different Windows versions, which presents some challenges. So another reason to pause here is so that I can focus on that project. I think I do have my share of imagination and creativity , but obviously I haven't yet applied it to electronics. I do intend to come back to this, but first I want to get this other project out of the way -- and especially to learn how to work inside the computer safely. jaclaz has indeed given a lot of help here and in other threads, so if you are reading this: @jaclaz: Thank you. --JorgeA

wsxedcrfv, Thank you! See my question up in the previous post. The 3.11 was my main PC from 1994 till 2002, believe it or not. As late as December '08, when my Win98 tower developed major problems and I had to run out and get the Vista, it got pressed back into service to receive e-mail via dial-up. --JorgeA

Thanks, Kelsenellenelvian. O.K., here goes -- For the first time in many years, since about January I've been getting into the workings of my various PCs. Been learning a lot. I've done things that a year ago I wouldn't have dreamed of trying, like adding memory, installing and partitioning a new hard disk, installing an OS. The current project involves networking several of my computers. I'm getting acquainted with DNS, DHCP, NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and the like. One of the PCs I'm networking is a Windows for Workgroups 3.11 tower. As the most primitive of the computers, it of course presents the biggest challenge and the most esoteric circumstances. (The other PCs are a Vista, a Windows 98 Standard Edition, and a Windows 98 Second Edition.) At this point I've successfully (more or less) managed to put all four machines on a peer-to-peer home network behind a router, to the point where they (mostly) recognize each other and can each accesss the Internet independently. But because the WFWG3.11 PC is so old, I don't have any security software for it, so once I installed NetBEUI on it and before installing TCP/IP, the first thing I did was to scan it for malware off the other PCs. I scanned it with Avast! 4.8, SuperAntiSpyware, and Spybot Search & Destroy. One of them (Avast, IIRC) found 30 Word documents that had been infected way back when, and seemingly took care of them as a second scan didn't find anything. Now, I've only scanned that PC with the Win98 computers. (If there was something really bad on it, I did not want it to affect my main PC, the Vista.) After the scans had run for a while on the 3.11's hard disk via the network, I noticed that the icons on my Win98FE tower's desktop had disappeared. The Quick Launch icons also went away, although the little squares where they sit would still rise if you put the cursor over them. The file and drive icons in Windows Explorer all disappeared, as did the icons that show next to the listings in Start --> Programs. Only the icons in the notification area stayed intact. The next day when I scanned the 3.11 off the Win98SE, the same thing happened to that computer. I had to reboot to get the icons back. The effect on the Win98FE was worse, as Windows Explorer disappeared completely from the Start --> Programs listings. (FWIW, it was open while I was running the scan.) I got it back, but now it sits way at the bottom of the list. After this episode, I scanned both of my Win98 machines with their own security software, and neither one found anything wrong with itself. I also checked them with Norton 360 off the Vista PC, and ran the Eset NOD32 online scanner on them through the Vista (networking IS pretty cool). These programs it didn't find anything bad on them, either. The Vista machine could not (of course) find the 3.11 till I installed TCP/IP on the latter. I had wanted to scan it off the Vista, but not if it's going to mess with my icons! So the question is -- what could account for this weird behavior? Insights, tips, and warnings will be appreciated! --JorgeA

Hello, Is there a place in the MSFN Forum where it might be in order to post a question about Windows for Workgroups 3.11? There doesn't seem to be a section for it, but I don't want to post about WFWG3.11 where that might be frowned upon. Windows 95/98 is the closest I can get to it, so that's why I posted it here as a start. Thank you! --JorgeA

dencorso, Your reply and that of puntoMX convinced me that I constitute an immense risk to the health of my most important computer. There's a lot of new terminology in those posts whose meaning I don't know. This tells me that I have no preparation or understanding to do this project, nor is my mind geared to easily grasp the underlying (mechanical/electrical) concepts. (See my reply to puntoMX.) It's going to take some studying of the concepts and the vocabulary before it's safe for me to actually work on the PC's insides, as opposed to just peeking in. Not that I'm against stretching my mind. Not at all. In recent months I've done things with computers that a year ago I'd never have imagined possible for me -- putting in a new hard disk, partitioning it, installing a new operating system, setting up a home network. With your help and that of the other great folks here, I've been able to do these things. And I'm still working in that direction (see my post in the Win98 section). But getting into testing electrical connections is a whole different animal, and one that I need to get to understand first before playing with it. So let me research this for a bit so that I can come back when it all doesn't look so unfamiliar and dangerous. Thanks very, very much for your help on this, as on so many other issues. I look forward to picking it back up. --JorgeA

puntoMX, Umm, ahh, well -- nope, I don't know how to use a multimeter! I just purchased it on Monday for this project, but it's fast becoming clear to me that I am getting in WAY over my head here. When I was in the 8th grade, we took a series of "aptitude" tests to measure our abilities in a wide range of areas: language, math, logic, mechanical, and so on. While I scored very well in all the "academic" subjects, I finished in the 3rd percentile for mechanical ability. The test consisted of about 400 sets of drawings of cardboard boxes with flaps of various shapes, including one that was put together and four that were disassembled. The task was to look at the disassembled boxes and select the one that, when put together, would look like the whole box nearby. The drawings got more and more complicated as we got further into the test. After doing the first 25 boxes or so, I could no longer make heads or tails out of the drawings. They just didn't make any sense to me. I guessed on about the next 50, and then I decided to use the remaining time on that test to go back to previous tests and finish them (which was permitted). I ended up scoring lower in mechanical ability than 97 percent of all the students who took that test nationwide that year. Prudence is the better part of valor, so I think that the wise thing for me to do at this point is to thank you and dencorso, and step back from this particular project for the time being, while I study the subject. This project concerns my main PC, and given the jungle of wires and cables that I saw in there the other day, I'm not sure that I could put everything back together at the end, even with a schematic. (Remember, drawings don't tell me anything!) At least till I get a better grasp of the concepts involved and the terminology. I'm not rejecting the project -- I just need to think before plunging in! Thanks very much (gracias mil) for the kind offer to help. Hopefully I'll be in a better position to accept it soon. --JorgeA

dencorso, Thanks for the tip. I have a multimeter. Not sure what kind of wire I should be looking to get. In this area I know less than nothing. Should I just buy like a 3-foot Ethernet cable and open it up? FWIW, I do have a steady hand... --JorgeA puntoMX, Great to meet you. Wow, I have a Developer and two Super Moderators helping with this! Who could ask for better than that? But I have a real sense that I'm getting in over my head here. I do have a steady hand, as I said to dencorso, but otherwise when it comes to manual work, I'm all thumbs. --JorgeA

Thanks, dencorso! I'll get back to you to pick up on this when I get the multimeter. (I may order it for cheap, in which case it'll take a few days to arrive in the mail, or I might just run out to the store and get one for more money, but have it right away.) BTW, in case it helps the diagnostics -- tonight I ran a regular backup on the Signature Mini, and left it connected for a couple of hours afterward. When I picked it up to disconnect, the front end near where the AC adapter cable would go (I don't use one) felt VERY hot to the touch. @jaclaz: LOL -- wouldn't that be nice! --JorgeA

Whoa, incredible! I get the feeling that if I shop hard enough, I might find somebody who'll pay ME to accept their multimeter! So, can I get those through Amazon.com, too? --JorgeA

dencorso, Thanks for the endorsement for the Black Armor, I'll get it. The multimeter -- will I need any accessories to go along with it? (Unbelievable price on Amazon, BTW.) When I clicked on the link, Amazon also offered me a clip test lead set, among oher things. Now that we're in a new neighborhood (the hardware forum), I'll walk around and see what there is. For some reason I'd never wandered into this section before. --JorgeA

dencorso, Wow! This gives me the excuse I'd been looking for to get a multimeter. And for sure, I am interested! How would one make available the four potential new USB ports -- would they be attached to a card in an expansion slot that would then present new rear ports? How about a 1TB Seagate WS110 Black Armor external HDD offering full-system automatic continuous backup and bare metal restore? There was a good deal on them. B) It might take me a couple of days to get the multimeter. (My wife already thinks I spend too much on electronics.) What features should I be looking for in the device, and what features will add unnecessarily to the price? Thanks very much, this is getting exciting. One good thing about being out of warranty is that I no longer have to worry about voiding the warranty by making changes to the PC. --JorgeA

dencorso, I opened up the PC case today, and here's what I found, besides a couple of dust bunnies: The six USB headers near the edge of the motherboard are numbered as follows, from left to right as we look at the photo you uploaded -- F_USB5 F_USB6 F_USB3 F_USB4 F_USB2 F_USB1 The four on the left look exactly as they do in the photo. There is nothing connected to them. As for the last two connectors on the right -- like the ones in the picture, they each have two rows of holes for wires, but only the lower row is white, while the upper row is black like the first four USB headers. The upper row of F_USB2 is connected to the Pocket Media Drive, while the lower row connects to the built-in card reader. F_USB1 is connected to the front USB ports, one row for each. The headers for the four USB ports in the rear are covered by a metal bracket, and I can't see what's going on with them. You were right about the red 1394a header -- the wire runs across the motherboard, from the front all the way to the back. The rear 1394 is covered by the same bracket as the rear USB headers. The connector going into F_USB2 was slightly loose; the one for F_USB1 was clearly not pushed all the way in, sitting at a diagonal angle to the plane of the motherboard, almost disconnected. I carefully pushed them both in. Let me know what you glean from all this. It'll be interesting to find out. --JorgeA

jaclaz, In my experience, female intuition can "sniff out" more truth than all our PC system utilities put together... Sometimes I wish I could get into that CPU of hers, and find out just what is going on in there! But then I think, that would remove the mystique. --JorgeA dencorso, Well, am I glad that I posted with this question! That HDD is my main backup drive. In fact, that's where I put the Win98FE tower's data files back when I bought the Vista PC. And now I have multiple sets of Vista backups in there too. The HDD is a 320GB Signature Mini by SimpleTech. In Black Cherry. About a year ago, my front USB ports would suddenly stop working after the computer had been turned on for a while, and the HDD was no longer recognized till I cycled the power. The problem ended when I adjusted the power settings for those ports, under Properties, to never go offline. (I just clicked on all of them, to make sure I got the front ones.) Before I knew that, though, I called SimpleTech's tech support line. Actually ended up calling a couple of times in the space of 2-3 months. Both times I got the same grouchy guy who seemed intent on blaming everything on the PC's "chipset." But then I solved (or masked) the problem by adjusting the power settings, and there were no more issues till this 1.1/2.0 thing. The SigMini does carry a three-year warranty. But the instructions for return are so difficult (see also the "acceptable packaging" page) that it hardly seems worth the trouble. Maybe this will also get me to implement a better backup plan. I never was very happy with their ArcSoft backup program, or Microsoft's for that matter -- there is too little flexibility with respect to the selection of files to back up: No, I do NOT necessarily want to back up EVERY single .doc file on my computer, or EVERY .mp3 file! By making these programs "simple" to use, they end up making them more difficult, IMHO. OTOH, I'm never sure what important file *types* might not be getting backed up because I didn't select them; and if possible I would also like to back up my applications so that I don't have to reinstall everything from scratch in case of a catastrophic HDD failure. Moreover, I'm not comfortable with having the "Factory Image" partition on the same physical internal HDD as my C: drive -- what if the drive itself gets fried, then the "Factory Image" volume also gets fried and I'm SOL. So I'm considering one of those new Seagate HDDs that offers to do a "complete system backup" and to keep everything up to date on a continuous basis. Thank you for following up on my motherboard's specs, the link was very informative! --JorgeA

An old trick of the trade tell her it is a new USB powered aromizer... or a new age ambience enhancer Hmm, maybe I should have tried that, might have made it a lot easier. I should report that it took some persuading, but I finally got permission to plug in the external HDD -- and we got the same old result as on my PC. Ouch!! I'll bet you had to do a lot of penance for that one. I know I would... --JorgeA dencorso, Mystery solved! Amazing detective work, thanks! First thing will be to check out the link you provided. Then I'll open the case tomorrow or Sunday, see how it looks in there, and get back to you. The machine could probably use an internal dusting anyway. --JorgeA

You won't like it. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16534&st=23 jaclaz Uh-oh, I'd better stop asking questions right now! Some secrets are better left undiscovered... --JorgeA dencorso, Wow, thanks for all the details. Now you know what my weekend project will be! Here's what I found for my PC. And, more specifically, there's this. I tried the rapid connect/disconnect procedure. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the same result ("This device can perform faster if..."). I also tried using a different USB cable to connect the external HDD. Borrowed it from one of the USB hubs. Like the drive's original cable, it has a regular Type A USB plug to go into the PC and a mini-B USB plug to go into the HDD. But this time the HDD was not even found by the PC. We'll try plugging in the HDD to a different modern PC, as soon as I convince my wife to allow an alien object to connect to her machine. --JorgeA

dencorso, That was a highly informative paragraph, thank you. Have yet to try the procedure you described involving shutting off the power, but I did match the physical ports to USB 1.1 and 2.0 controllers with the above procedure. I used a SanDisk Cruzer stick as the 2.0 device -- and the external HDD as the 1.1 device (seeing as I didn't have anything else that I knew the computer would consider a 1.1 device). (My keyboard and mouse are PS/2.) I'd actually tried doing this several weeks ago, but what threw me off -- and this is where your description came in to save the day -- is that the hub and port numbers changed (unpredictably, for all I knew) whenever I connected a USB 1.1 vs. a 2.0 device in the very same jack. Knowing that they're designed that way helped me to make sense out of what was going on. So apparently ALL the available physical USB ports on my Vista PC are USB 2.0. Which leads me to wonder if the culprit is in fact the cable to the external HDD, or maybe something having to do with the drive itself? Now, while we await the results of the "connect and disconnect repeatedly" test, I have another question about USB port number assignment: USB View, USBDeview, and SIV all report that my Root Hub 8 (or 7 in the case of SIV, which starts with 0) has a total of 8 ports. Using your mapping procedure, I was able to identify (connect to) 6 of them. Two are in the front, a third one is for the Pocket Media Drive, the fourth is for the built-in card reader, and two more are in the rear (top left, top right). (The bottom left and bottom right USB ports in the rear are associated with Hub 3.) Here's the question: How would one get to use the last two Hub 7 ports? --JorgeA jaclaz, SIV is hands down the most complete system information tool I've ever seen -- tons of inner details about your PC. Thanks for pointing me to it. How DO you find all this neat stuff? --JorgeA

jaclaz, Thanks for the links to these programs. I downloaded SIV; already had USBDeview. (I also have a different one, named USB View.) Of these three programs, SIV gives the most details. But unfortunately none of them really solves the mystery, which is: According to all of them, I have a 4-port USB hub plugged into Port 4 of Hub 2, which is associated with a USB EHCI Host Controller. (SIV reports that I have two EHCI controllers, and six UHCI controllers, which matches what I'd seen before.) That is correct -- I do have a 4-port Dynex hub plugged in there, in the rear of the case. In fact, I also have a media card reader connected to one of the ports of that 4-port hub, into which I have inserted a CompactFlash card yielding 3.99GB of ReadyBoost capacity. So far, so good. Everything suggests that I'm dealing with a USB 2.0 port there. Here's the problem: as an experiment, I shut down the system and unplugged the hub, left nothing in the USB port, and then turned the PC back on. After it finished the startup process, I then plugged in my external HDD to that same physical USB port where the hub had just been -- and I got the "This device can perform faster" message again, as if the same physical USB port that minutes before had been identified as 2.0 were now slower than 2.0. So I stopped the device, unplugged it, then plugged in the 4-port hub with the card reader and the CF card -- and my ReadyBoost came back, with no message about a device being able to perform faster if blah blah blah. Now let me add to the confusion. If I connect the external HDD to the same Dynex hub where the card reader with the CF card is plugged in, the HDD doesn't even get recognized! (The 4-port hub has its own power supply.) But it used to. Could it be the external HDD's USB cable? If so, can I just use any USB cable with the right type of connectors? (I don't want to fry the HDD.) A couple of weeks ago I tried the same experiment with another 4-port hub, and the same thing happened. I'd thought that maybe the cheap hub was messing up, but now it's two from different brands that are behaving the same way. Any ideas? In the meantime, I'll try dencorso's procedure and report on what happens. --JorgeA P.S. It would be nice if there were a program that told you plainly, without a lot of distracting technical detail: "O.K., the top left USB port in the rear of your computer case is USB1.1 and belongs to Hub 2. The top right port is USB2.0 and belongs to Hub 4. The bottom left port is also 2.0 and goes with Hub 1, and the bottom right port is 1.1 and goes with Hub 3." Does anything like that exist?? An even further frustration is that apparently each of these Hubs, Controllers, or whatever, is associated with two or more "ports," for a total (on my computer) of 24 "ports." Yet I only have 6 places on the computer into which I can actually connect a USB device. (There is an integrated card reader, but it only takes up a single port in one Hub.) So how or where do the extra 18 "ports" come into play? How can one make use of them? Thanks dencorso, as I wrote to jaclaz I will try this and report back. --JorgeA

Hello, Some weeks ago I went to plug in my external hard disk for a backup into the place where I normally connect it, and I received a message that I hadn't seen before: "This USB device can perform faster if you connect it to a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port." The odd thing is that this had not happened before. Which leads me to two questions: 1) Why would the computer all of a sudden decide that a USB port that was just fine for a USB 2.0 device, was no longer suitable? 2) When I went into Device Manager to find a USB 2.0 port where I could plug in the HDD, I saw a list of eight "Host Controllers," including two USB2 controllers, and eight "USB Root Hubs." Now, I have six physical places where I can plug in a USB stick. I imagine that my Pocket Media Drive (it's an HP computer) and the built-in Media Reader account for the other two. But the question is, how can I determine which two are USB 2.0, so that I can plug the HDD into them? Is there, or can I draw up, a schematic indicating which physical USB ports correspond to which controllers and root hubs? Thinking about this -- and to make things even more confusing -- I now remember that the external hard drive used to be connected to a USB hub, which was then connected to the back of the computer. This worked great for several months, saving me a front USB port. But then one day the PC started having trouble finding (recognizing) the external HDD *when it was connected to the hub.* Now the PC never does find the HDD when it's connected via the hub, although it does find the drive when it's connected directly by itself -- and other devices do get found when connected to that hub?! This wouldn't be such a big deal, except that now when I do a manual antivirus scan, if the external HDD is plugged in the scan takes like 26 hours to complete!! It used to finish up in a couple of hours up until recently. What the heck?? Any ideas? --JorgeA

jaclaz, Thanks for the good wishes. This has been a very educational experience. What I had in mind when I wrote that the space on the HDD would have remained unused otherwise, is that it would have remained unused had I not done *something* to reclaim it, but thanks to the something I did do (using RFDISK, which worked great) I can now access it. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. And thank YOU and everyone else who participated for being so patient with a relative novice's elementary questions, and so willing to share your expertise. --JorgeA

Hello, I just want to report that I successfully partitioned my Win98SE notebook's new hard disk drive over the weekend, using rloew's RFDISK. Using this utility was likened to getting behind the wheel of a high-end sports car. If so, then I'd say that the driving experience was a bit scary at first, but great fun from start to finish! B) The Build command to create a script file, and the command to read it, worked like a charm and I got to watch the new extended and logical partitions coming into existence. Thanks to RFDISK I have reclaimed almost half of the real estate on my HDD, which would otherwise have lain fallow. Count me as a happy user. --JorgeA

Gib, I guess so! (So far.) Thank you for the link. I will look into it. It's good to know that there are still more AV programs out there that we can use. --JorgeA

Tripredacus, Well, not a silly question at all -- I let it run overnight and it had only moved a further 125 or so files. Since it still had ~32,000 entries left to go, who knows how long it would have taken to get to the end. Half a year?? I finally stopped the scan after it sat on the same number for about two hours this morning. When I scanned the Win98FE as a network drive through the Vista PC, both the N360 scan and the online Eset NOD scanner took "normal" amounts of time, Eset NOD finishing up in less than an hour and a half. The interesting thing about this is that, if I try to run that scanner directly on the Win98FE, it crashes about a third of the way through. --JorgeA

Friends, Those of you who read or helped out with my Spybot question a few months ago -- remember that the problem was that Spybot Search & Destroy would never quite finish the manual scan on my Windows 98 Standard Edition tower, crashing at the very end with an "illegal operation" error message. Well, you might like to know that I networked that Win98FE tower to my Vista machine and ran a Norton 360 scan. (I'm learning a lot about networking.) The scan worked well, and N360 didn't find anything. That's reassuring, but the most interesting thing is that I also tried running a Spybot scan of the Win98 C: drive off my Vista PC -- and when it reaches that drive in the "download directories" setting, it gets REALLY slow. In addition, it's showing me one item to fix: "AdDestination TrojansC-05." (I remember vaguely encountering this years ago; thought that it'd been taken care of long since.) Right now the scan through the network has remained at 1218392/1252915 for about half an hour. Oh wait, as I was typing it finally moved to 1218395, then 97. I'll let you know if it actually finishes the scan. Would be amazing if whatever is causing this, also defeats Spybot from another machine. No one else has found anything to complain about -- not N360 off the Vista, not Avast! 4.8, not SuperAntiSpyware off the Win98 PC. --JorgeA

Good luck to all of us! --JorgeA