JorgeA

Thanks, dencorso, I will! --JorgeA

dencorso, Sorry to change the subject, but --- that's a COOL rolling emoticon you got there! When I went to reply to your post, I saw where you got it from. How does one insert it in a post? --JorgeA

frogman, I registered Avast! 4.8 on a Win98SE computer the other day, and I got a license expiration date of 01 June 2011. I did this in mid-June, so I can't be sure if the system defaults to the first of the current month or if that means that everybody's 4.8 licenses die as of that date. I suspect it's the former, which would be a good thing. This is all much better than I had come to understand -- which is that Alwil was going to stop issuing definitions updates for Avast! 4.8 at the end of 2010. I was prepared to see an expiration date sometime in December '10. Hope this helps. --JorgeA

Hello, I've recently learned of another current antivirus/antimalware product that works on Windows 98 computers: http://download.drweb.com/?lng=en If you click on the arrows for either "Dr. Web anti-virus for Windows," or "Dr. Web Security Space," you'll see that there are options to select versions for Win9x/ME/NT4. I'd never heard of this program before, but it seems to have done fairly decently (I didn't say perfectly!) on a suite of tests: http://www.anti-malware-test.com/?q=taxonomy/term/14 There is also a free, apparently much simpler, version, but I haven't verified that it works on Win98: http://www.freedrweb.com/ For those of us who may reach back even a little bit further than Windows 98, they also offer a scanner for MS-DOS and even OS/2: http://products.drweb.com/console/ Have you heard of Dr. Web? The cynic in me insists that this is too good to be true. What do you think? --JorgeA

jaclaz, That's a nice analogy you draw there, to various types of cars. (And that's a GORGEOUS one that you mentioned at the end.) To continue the analogy, here's what I'm thinking. An auto is sometimes an "aspirational" purchase, reflecting the owner's view of where he would like to be. So I just might go for the super-duper wheels, RFDISK. B) Let's just say that driving it will be part of the learning/experimentation process. --JorgeA

The Program is not the easiest to use. It is intended for Power users and has no GUI. Read the MANUAL.TXT File in the Demo to get an idea of it's complexity. You can run the Demo on your existing Hard Drive without any risk by using the Debug Option. I am currently finishing up a Major Upgrade that will support Hard Drives larger than 2TiB. rloew, Thanks for the description. I'm certainly comfortable with command-line computing (see my long post to jaclaz), as long as I know what I'm doing. A demo should help a lot in that regard. This might be like asking the Greeks what they think of Turks, but -- what do you think of the Ranish Partition Manager in comparison? I see that that's a popular solution for partitioning needs. --JorgeA

jaclaz, Well, that's a pretty good argument for avoiding a second primary partition. Who needs that headache? Suppose that I do create an extended+logical partition. In case I need to boot with a DOS (7.10) diskette for some reason, will it know what's going on with the HDD, or will the new structure confuse it? --JorgeA

rloew, I like the flexibility that you describe for RFDISK. Based on what you know about the level of expertise I have shown in this thread, do you think that I could probably use it to set up the extended+logical partition without messing up royally? --JorgeA

jaclaz, That was interesting. I'm open to doing it either way. Whether I go with two primary partitions, or one primary + one extended partition -- will either choice present a problem to DOS? Sometimes I find that I have to use a DOS floppy, to boot or just to copy files, so I'd like to use the choice that won't confuse DOS. Now if they are equally confusing to DOS, or neither one is a problem, then I'll have to decide based on some other factor. dencorso believes that the two alternatives are fairly equivalent, unless I want to multiboot, in which case two primary partitions would allow me that flexibility. Yeah, at this point I *am* learning and experimenting. Considering where I was when I started, setting up two primary partitions (or even one primary and one extended) definitely counts as "experimenting" for me! Of which roughly 976 NOT accessible with a drive letter... Oh yeah, there IS that little detail, isn't there. But you know what I mean -- I'm discovering all sorts of neat stuff here. Anyway, I think I read somewhere that it's possible to assign drives beyond Z: somehow. Did I misread that, or was that just plain wrong? Well, what can I say. When PCs first came out, I was really into them. Really enjoyed tinkering with MS-DOS and seeing what one could do with it. When GUIs started appearing (Apple, Windows 1.0), I disdained them: my attitude was that it "dumbed down" the computing experience. I much preferred text-based computing to using hieroglyphics. But then Windows 3.1 took over the world, and I had to keep pace or lose most of my customers, who wanted to send and receive projects via e-mail and were using newer word processing applications. (WordStar, R.I.P.) But tinkering with the workings of the computer seemed to become that much harder because of the added layer from the GUI. For 15-20 years, I approached the computer as a sort of "black box" that did magic tricks; I wasn't interested in how it worked anymore. I used to say that "the degree of complexity had exceeded my level of interest." It's really been only in the last 18 months that my "computing fever" has come back, ever since my Win98 tower got sick and I had to rush out and get a new PC. Had to learn a lot about what's happened since Windows 98, but also I was curious to find out just what the heck happened to the old computer. (My leading theory now is that it simply needed some serious dusting inside. Funny -- if I'd been diligent about cleaning the inside of the case all along, I'd probably still be chugging along on my Win98.) To make an already long story short, as I became dimly aware of the nasty stuff that a computer could catch while on the Internet, back around 2002-2003 I started to look for antivirus software. While at the store I noticed Norton Internet Security on the shelf. Peter Norton's book on MS-DOS was one of my "bibles" way back when, so I had good associations with that name, and I bought NIS. I also bought Norton SystemWorks at the same time, and for the same reason. So when the Win98 got sick and I had to buy a new PC, I was still in the "computer as black box" stage, and the first thing I did was to look for the current versions of NIS/NSW. Norton 360 was the sort of "click and forget," all-in-one solution that I was looking for. That's the reason why I'm on N360. Today I realize that there are a lot of alternatives, some of them possibly better, but I do see that NIS keeps getting high marks for effectivenesss in many places, so I haven't made the decision to switch. --JorgeA

jaclaz, Thanks much for the link from the Wayback Machine. The illustrations helped a lot in visualizing what's going on. I'm glad to see this article, because (among many other things) it addresses a question that I was going to ask -- whether it would do any good to put the swap file on the new partition. Apparently not. (There's no way in Win98 to put the swap file on a USB thumb drive, is there?) As I said to dencorso, if we're going with two primary partitions instead of the primary and an extended partition, then it looks like I should be taking a closer look at Ranish Partition Manager, or *maybe* PartitionMagic (I know that you don't recommend it). --JorgeA

Multibooter, It sure is a complicated subject area. Thanks to the great folks on this forum, though, I understand it a heck of a lot better now than two weeks ago. It's good to hear that these various partitioning tools can work together, I had wondered about that. It's not an either/or thing. Once again, thanks for the recommendation. This last paragraph hit home because I do use Norton Disk Doctor on my Win98FE tower, and I didn't know it could screw things up royally like that. I've been using Norton SystemWorks on that PC for 7-8 years, and recently I've started to wonder how good the Norton/Symantec utilities really are. Thanks to this forum I started to use CCleaner for the registry, and the first time I ran it it found tons of things to fix -- even though I religiously run the SystemWorks One-Button Check (that includes a registry checker) every week. I also have Norton 360 on my Vista machine and use the registry checker on it. When I put CCleaner on that system, it found more than 800 bad entries that N360 apparently missed. And now the Vista runs so much better. Hmmm... --JorgeA

dencorso, So I guess that I'll be taking a harder look at Ranish Partition Manager! Let's say that we decided to set up two primary partitions, using RPM or another similar tool. Could there be compatibility/usability problems in the future? It's a different animal, but -- just as an example -- I understand that drive overlay software can present a problem if you upgrade the BIOS or connect the HDD to a new computer. The other question has to do with how much space to allocate to each primary partition. At this point the HDD only has ~1.2GB in it. After defragging, would it be reasonable to break it into two equal partitions (~7.5GB each)? BTW, I read the Wikipedia links you gave me, and they were very informative. I especially liked the EBR entry, as the charts helped me to form a better mental picture of how it works. Not that I'd do this, but it was pretty neat to realize that, using these techniques, you can take a 1TB drive and break it up into 1,000 different 1GB partitions/volumes! --JorgeA

dencorso, Thanks a bunch for the clarification, and for the links. I'll study them tomorrow when I can absorb them better. (It's after 2:30 AM here!) I won't be multibooting. Does that change the assessment of what I should do, or would you recommend two primary partitions anyway? --JorgeA

rloew, I like the structured progression of your description. Together with Mijzelf's explanation, it made the whole issue so much easier to understand. Thank you. O.K., so I won't resize the existing partition, but rather create an extended one and then link it to a logical partition. Would you recommend RFDISK for this, or should I stick with FDISK? And I'll go with the 31214x15x63 arrangement. Time to use the utility dencorso recommended way back, to make a copy of the BIOS settings. --JorgeA

Mijzelf, Thanks for this explanation, it really helped to make things MUCH clearer in my mind. So I would do what's been suggested -- to create an extended partition with FDISK, and then create a logical partition within the extended partition. The how and why are all coming into focus. Would it be right to say that having more than one primary partition is most useful to people who want to install more than one OS on their machine, so that they can boot from one or the other? --JorgeA

jaclaz, Once again, thanks for explaining. Let's say that I do choose Option 2. In that case, you're saying that I CAN create an extended partition with FDISK withOUT losing the existing data and programs? Another question. I've been reading up on the various kinds of partitions, and honestly the more I read, the more confused I get. Seems like a disk can have up to four "primary partitions," one of which can be an "extended partition" containing "secondary partitions" with (and? or?) "logical partitions." On top of all that we can throw in "active partitions" and "logical volumes," both of which I sort of get but I don't see how they relate to the rest of all these kinds of partitions. The conceptual problem I'm running into here, is that I don't understand the purpose of all these different kinds of partitions, and I haven't come across a good explanation of that. If you can set up as many as four primary partitions on the same HDD, then what need is there for an "extended" partition with "logical" partitions under it?? Where do these "secondary" partitions fit in, compared to the "logical" partitions? Under what circumstances would you create a new "primary" partition vs. an "extended" partition, and vice versa? I'm relying on the Wikipedia article, plus Corey Sandler's Fix Your Own PC, Eighth Edition (p. 249). Both these sources offer almost the same confusing "explanation" of the situation, and to my mind they leave things MORE obscure than before. I'm hoping you can guide me through this jungle of terminology, to shed light on the concepts. Gratefully, --JorgeA

jaclaz, Thanks for the analysis! O.K., trying to get a handle on the type of software that would be involved with each of the options you outline (1,2,3,4). If I understand the issue correctly, FIRST we choose between 1 and 2, and THEN between 3 and 4. Option 3 would involve using RPM or rloew's RFDISK Option 4 would involve using PartitionMagic or a similar commercial application Did I get that right? Option 2 looks more attractive than Option 1, as losing less than half a MB is a good price to avoid a reinstall. We're approaching the home stretch with this project. --JorgeA

Multibooter, Thanks for the references! Is it possible to still find these older versions? I'll look around the Web. When you say that you check the partitioning with Partition Table Doctor -- is that like a doublecheck to make sure that PartitionMagic didn't screw up? --JorgeA

jaclaz, Thanks for the link. I'll try that and get back to you. In the meantime, I found a number of pages that might help us figure out the information we need. First, there's this page from Toshiba Europe. Then, there is a page from a PC enthusiast with specs on his system. FWIW, note that he lists his Toshiba HDD capacity at 15097MB. Others give the capacity as 15.103GB. Next, I found two photos that match my HDD sticker: this one and this one. You can almost make out the number of sectors (29,4?8,112). Mine even has the Apple logo like the first one. The sector number information gibes with what the DEKSI Hard Disk Manager reports for my HDD: 29,498,112. Let me know what you think. --JorgeA UPDATE: I ran the PTS Disk Editor, using the parameters that you suggested (31250 instead of 31214). The error messages (indicated as "??" for the values) began at "Absolute sector 29498112 (cylinder 1950, head 224, sector 1)". The next step is to get an interpretation of what this means, and to decide what to do.

Yes. Not that MS FDISK would even let you do that. But many other tools allow it. It sure is way safer to create one (or more) new partition(s) on the remaining space. But do yourself a favor and create an image of the existing partition and burn it to a DVD, before you start messing with the disk. Having backups is the only really safe course. Dont play Russian Roulette with partition contents you're not willing (or cannot afford) to loose. dencorso, Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it. It sounds like you speak from tough experience! Sadly, this little notebook PC lacks a CD/DVD drive. It has a slot where you can swap a floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive in and out, but it came used and without the CD-ROM drive. Is it possible to create an image of the existing partition to a USB thumb drive, or not really? The odd thing about my situation is that, in a way, I *am* willing to lose the contents. That is, the PC is (for now) a learning/experimentation platform, so there isn't anything on it that would make me lose sleep over it if it went *poof*. (To minimize the wasted time in case I screw up, I haven't even reinstalled Word on it.) It would be frustrating and a PITA to have to re-install Windows and the various utilities I have on it, but at this point it wouldn't be a devastating event if the drive got erased. So, if the prudent thing is to create a new partition instead of resizing the current one, and FDISK can't handle the creation of a new partition, then it looks like we're looking at either Ranish Partition Manager or rloew's utilities, since they both come widely recommended. How about jaclaz's suggestion to use FDISK to create an extended partition and then a logical volume? You can be sure that I'll be reading up on primary partitions, resizing, extended partitions, and logical volumes in the next day or two! --JorgeA

rloew, As reported to jaclaz, the computer didn't get anywhere when I set the values to 29264x16x63. So I went back to 31214x15x63 and ran TEST1. It passed! Let me know what this means, especially in terms of what we need to do so as to make use of the unallocated space. If a partition manager is in order, I'm open to all suggestions, including FDISK, RPM, and your own utilities. One important, though not decisive, factor in the selection would be how clear the chosen tool would be to someone like me, who's doing this sort of thing for the first time (but is eager to learn). Thank you! --JorgeA

dencorso, Recommendation for the Ranish Partition Manager noted. (Thank you!) Let me make sure I understand what you're saying: If I increase the primary partition using FDISK or ANYthing else, I run the risk of data loss. And therefore it's safer to use the newfound space to create a new partition instead. Did I get it right? --JorgeA

jaclaz (and rloew), I tried setting the values to 29264x16x63, but I had the same result as before -- the computer hung with a blinking cursor on a blank screen. And this time I did have a boot floppy inserted. It looks like the road with 15 heads is the straighter one! If it makes any difference, we should note that the default value when I set it to Auto is 15 heads. So I'll go back to 31214x15x63, run rloew's TEST1, and see what happens. --JorgeA

jaclaz, FDISK reports that "Total disk space is 13503 Mbytes." When I changed the cylinder setting in the BIOS to your suggestion and rebooted, FDISK then reported the space as 14396 Mbytes. Usage is reported at 56%, which jibes with what System Information thinks is the size of the drive (8046MB/14396Mbytes). Cool! So now the question becomes how to get the operating system to make use of the extra space. If I understand the issue, this is where using FDISK or another partitioning program comes in. Do we have the choice of either increasing the size of the main partition or creating a new partition? I'd rather just increase the main partition, unless that means losing the data, settings, and programs that are already there. Looks like we are making progress! BTW, I'm wondering if rloew's first setting (29264x16x63) may have worked too. The reason is that when I tried yours and rebooted, the first thing the machine wanted to do was to look for a floppy disk. This time I did happen to have a boot disk in there, so there was no hanging. Then the NEXT time I rebooted, it loaded Windows normally, whether or not there was a floppy in drive A:. Does it matter to any part of the machine, which way we get to 15.1GB (29264x16x63 or 31214x15x63)? Or, do all roads lead to Rome? --JorgeA

rloew, O.K., I tried the various settings you proposed (thank you). 29264 Cylinders 16 Heads 63 Sectors did not work, apparently. I could enter the values and save them, but then upon rebooting the machine wanted to look for a floppy disk, and just hung there with a blinking cursor on a blank screen. Setup didn't allow me to enter more than 16 heads or 63 sectors, so the last three options seem to be out. Before giving up, I tried entering 29264 Cylinders *15* Heads 63 Sectors, and that DID work! Windows appears to have loaded normally. It's not the full 15.1GB, but pretty close. HOWEVER, the drive's Properties still gives the capacity as 8,437,104,640 bytes, while System Information reports 8046MB. So I'm not sure that I would be able to use the extra space anyway. Diagnosis? --JorgeA