98SE

Best MB if it exists. Quad Core Support and 8GB/16GB Ram with SATA2 for 9X/ME Otherwise Dual Core with 4GB/8GB and 2 DMA ISA Slots, AGP, PCIe, and 2 PCI for DOS/3.X/9X/ME Any update on SB Aud 1 PCI W98 test result on the AM4 Ryzen?

Post a snapshot of the Splash screen that shows the version number for it - "hide your name and serial number if you need to." Does it work in 98/ME?

This is a good point. What computer system and OS are you using to read the disk on? Is the Floppy drive internal or external USB and if so what brand? However, if the disk itself is really nuked which I've never seen 3.5" diskettes go completely bad even some that I created dating back to 1987 but sometimes disks will fail or start getting the dreaded CRC errors. There is one other possibility but given it's a 3.5" diskette and not a 5.25" diskette it is still within the realm of possibility that it could be copy-protected. Funny thing because I own a rare collection of computer equipment dating back to that time period it is possible I can try and duplicate the disk with the copy protection intact or copy the data around the bad areas and who knows maybe there's enough code that's still intact after reassembling the good files to a good diskette maybe it will function? However if the actual program is copy protected sometimes the program installs a special key to say the hard drive it was installed to and the key must be released from the hard drive to restore the disk back to its functional state. I've seen a few of these before but because this is for Windows 3.1 I just find it highly unlikely they still used copy protection but if this was for DOS and for Windows 3.1 that could change things as there were dual OS software back then. Seeing how obscure this company is sometimes these companies go out of their way to protect their investment. I have no clue how much the original retail price of this program is. But if you can recall the MSRP of this it could be possibly they added this special copy protection to the diskette due to its high cost but even some cheap software has had copy protection included. If you want to send me a PM with your email address and you want to mail me your diskette safely I can try and inspect it with my older machines to see if it is readable and if somehow I can extract the files for you I can email it as a zip file. If you wanted the original disk back then you'd have to add some return postage on top for First Class Mail Package or include a slip of cash in there for the return postage cost. I also had another thought. Even if you found another copy on eBay there is still a chance the reason why you can't read the disk due to age and disk rot of the magnetic media. But it seems to mean a lot to you to get this program working so I'm just offering a possibility of investigating the disk physically and see what's up with it. And just for my own protection. I'm not guaranteeing anything. The disk could be impossible to recover but I doubt anyone here has the same amount of gear as me from that time period to even do these tests.

@Roffen What Dave-H mentioned is the correct way. Once the double ended vertical arrow pops up you then hold the Left Mouse button and don't release but drag downwards slowly and it will collapse one row at a time. While still holding the Left Mouse button going upwards will expand it. Once you found your "perfect" setting just release the Left Mouse Button. If for some reason this isn't working you've confirmed the Task Bar is on the bottom of the screen and the "Lock The Taskbar" when Right Clicking the Mouse button pulls up the menu is unchecked then there is seriously something wrong with your OS. You could try rebooting the machine and going through those steps again and if it still doesn't then I would guess possibly something to do with the SP4 unless it was previously able to adjust without issues before. I'm also in agreement here on SP4. I don't use it nor do I see the need. Most XP software will only check for SP2 and SP3. The SP4 for the most part is a collection of security updates which even on SP3 I haven't once been hijacked using Firefox whereas it did happen with Internet Explorer like a boat with a new hole that pops up once another is plugged. The user is the usually the only one to infect themself by opening or running a file or downloaded attachment not knowing if it is legit and take the risk. However I find it unlikely if you're surfing Youtube and other legal sites banking or doing normal things only a badly led search engine result to some unknown site is the only way possible that it could happen but FireFox from my experience has never gotten infected that way although it is not impossible. The other thing you may not have the ability to do now is image your OS during its freshly installed state since it has already been in use since then but had a clean image been done restoring it is so much easier than trying to eradicate and fix it post infection. Although on a number of occasions I didn't and just decided for fun to fix it manually to see if it was still functional despite trace elements still in my registry. There are alternative ways to install your OS from scratch to pretty much proof it from such catastrophes with long downtimes once infected or the OS is hosed but probably beyond the scope of time I'd like to get into. I also had witnessed you went with the bootloader of Jaclaz's choice and I saw the extensive amount of time both spent setting that up and my method would overwrite that. I am surprised you both had the stamina to keep that up going for 7 pages. I'm more on the other end just making it as simple and efficient as possible while maintaining full compatibility and unnecessary patching. If you had an original 98SE CD, an XP CD with SP3 slipstreamed, a USB Floppy Drive and Floppy disk, all XP drivers to your devices, and a DOS imaging program you have all the tools necessary to make an id*iot proof XP recovery solution should it get infected and would only take possibly a few minutes to restore the image compared to the amount of hours going through all that BS and starting all over from scratch after being infected. Another image could be made after all drivers were installed successfully, then a Final image with all your software programs installed. This final image would usually be your usual restore image to get back to an uninfected state with all things working. Depending on how large your XP SP4 install is I'm not entirely sure how much extra bloat vs a clean nLited XP SP3 which is the best way to deal with XP. I'd combine that with Netlimiter which does somewhat of a version of UAC in a sense and controls what apps get what sort of internet bandwidth usage but more importantly if any program requests internet access that was never authorized (usually some malware with some completely random filename) will ask for permission first unless you make it a trusted program such as Firefox. The Zone Alarm version I had used in the past but at one point it stopped working or became incompatible with Windows 2000 or XP and crashed the OS from booting or something and I sort of abandoned it. And regarding another post about Office 2000 or 2003. Depending on what Office programs you really need to use if you're just a Word and Excel user and don't use PowerPoint you could easily use Word 97 for most of your tasks. The only problem is when someone is using Office 2016 and they forget to save the document as Office 97 format or older so you won't be able to open it. They on the other hand have no problem opening up your documents. If you are a PowerPoint user I didn't see much need to go beyond Office 2003 which still worked on XP and actually made PowerPoint a little easier (less repetitive tasks) to use than previous versions of Office 2000 and Office 97. Speaking of Shop Talk... Now I'm not sure what this MOM message is you are referring to but if the acronym matches a well known parent it's best to spell it out or identify M.O.M. =? So far no DAD messages have popped up on my XP. Got a snapshot? I can only guess you meant some sort of Windows nag screen but I could be mistaken.

It appears this program is more nostalgic in intent for you? What happened to your original disks? Did you misplace them after your got them? If you hadn't moved since you bought them then there's a chance it's hidden somewhere in your house waiting to be rediscovered. A grand massive clean up is in order and it will show up when you least expect it as everything always does. It's also possible the original computer you installed them on may still contain them on the hard drive or if you made backup disks? I did spot one torrent link but it was fake or something so when all else fails do an eBay saved search for all possible iterations of that program name and have it constantly email you every day for updates. This usually works when one day someone happens upon an old garage sale or junk thrown away picked up and lists it online and all the stars align with a total solar eclipse. One morning while sitting in front of the computer checking your eBay email updates it shows up in one of your saved searches. Jackpot... but not so fast... Then comes the crushing blow of buying it before someone else does as it could be a simple BIN sale and you get it for an easy Jackson shipped to you with the seller thinking who could want this crap or it could be an auction and you and some other nostalgic junkie(s) happen to have the same idea and go to a bidding war just to re-experience this esoteric piece of vintage software one more time in all its Windows 3.1 glory on your fully upgraded IBM XT 5160 with pure 5 pin DIN mechanical M clicky keyboard with authentic serial ball mouse. Who shall be the victor? A picture of the actual box front back and all sides top and bottom will be helpful. One day someone may spot this somewhere and recognize it and possibly email you a digital copy?

Okay we need to find out if your Z97 can't work with the SB Aud 1 PCI. AMD 970 already known to work with 98SE.

PAC-MAN ate all the dots just like PAC-CLAZ absorbs all information everywhere...

Since I haven't actually tried or seen what this program does take a look and let me know if this is similar to what you were looking for? https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/#?id=7pq5wm http://www.circuitstoday.com/circuit-design-and-simulation-softwares

You tested this on Z97? Did you try the SB Audigy 1 PCI card on it? I thought you said the USB ports were not working?

Add PCI and ISA slots count. Floppy controller: 1 or 2 Floppy drives BIOS support Serial Port Parallel Port P2 ports should be PS/2 ports? Add USB 3 ports also. DOS support W10 support

Very obscure stuff. Can you upload photos of what you got? Interested in seeing what the box, paperwork, and 3 disks looked like. PAC-claz's good research finds System requirements: 386 or higher IBM PC or compatible; Windows 3.1; 2 MB RAM minimum; VGA monitor. Did you use this in some Electronics course in a classroom? Windows 3.1... PAC-MAN OR PAC-CLAZ

Why go for these? I think that AGP/PCIe hybrid motherboard is a better option for 98SE. Dual Graphics option and if you include PCI slot that's three types of graphics cards for 98SE choice. Some have 4GB or someone BIOS hacked them. I wouldn't use Vista, 7, or 10 on these. At least 8GB or 16GB memory to even consider those newer OS but it's still good for DOS, 3.1, 98SE, 2K, and XP. I'd use a more powerful machine for XP, Vista, 7, and 10.

That's why I say to keep it simple remove all PCI and PCIe cards. Just use the Intel HD graphics HDMI port for video. I checked for your CPU but you didn't show all 4 digits. But even all Haswell in i5-44XX line up will have at least basic Intel HD Graphics 1000 low end. Go to the BIOS and you can change the graphics shared memory down to 32MB for the first install test. You can use Bear Video driver if you want but not necessary for doing Audio card sound output test. Then add your SB Audigy 1 PCI into the PCI Slot see if it detects or you have to Detect New Hardware to scan for it. My feeling is it will not see the audio card and you can't install the drivers or get any audio output. If it can't see this most compatible sound card for 98SE then it's a dead end for sure as far as gaming natively.

Well if you can get the Z97 to work with 128MB or 256MB 6800 Ultra PCIe or other 6XXX PCIe card and Audigy SB 1 PCI working in Windows 98 with drivers I need to see what you did. I have some suspicions it will not work even if the Graphics card might be detected in Device Manager but I think as soon as you install the drivers if possible it will crash or not work and then graphics will not work for gaming. The Lan and USB ports are not that important to gaming if you have a serial mouse and PS/2 for Keyboard you are set without any headaches. If your PS/2 mouse works in the PS/2 port let me know. I know USB mouse seems to malfunction. Most people will browse the internet in XP+ better experience with a simple reboot so not having internet on 98SE is not a deal breaker. You should skip the IDE to CF adapter it's way too slow. Just try straight SATA SSD into Intel SATA Port instead. You might have to change SATA to IDE Compatibility Mode if it is present on your motherboard? Just use 128GB or smaller SATA SSD is good enough for a simple test. I have been using the USB with SATA SSD and no problems loading into 98SE and a lot more convenient than hooking internally the drives. I swap to my other computer and hook it up to the USB port if I need to move files to it.

Try the Z97 SB Audigy 1 PCI first and let me know. If it doesn't work on Z97 no point in testing X99. X99 is a different chipset and probably will not have a PCI slot on it. And I wouldn't try using those PCIe to PCIE to PCI slot adapter. Might cause more problems or not even work. Without Audio working there is no point in doing 98SE install. Then VM becomes best solution but 98SE becomes only good for possibly browsing internet not gaming. And on top of that browsing in XP+ already works better so ends up being pointless. Also I think it is unlikely USB ports will work properly on Z97. I tested Z77 USB PCI and PCIe cards and they won't detect. X99 will definitely not work since it will be Intel USB 3.0 only.

Are you doing clean install or using the patches for USB? Did you test SB Audigy 1 for detection in Device Manager and getting audio output confirmed? I have the DDR3 sticks that's how I did it hardware on first tests. Later I tested 8GB and should work up to 32GB not using any Windows patching. Should work to 64GB and 128GB DDR4 in the future.

Here is how you can get this to install on Z97. Install 1 stick DDR3 512MB easiest method. But if you don't have 512MB let me know if you got a single 1GB or 2GB DDR3 stick for the test. Go into the BIOS and Disable Realtek Onboard Audio and also Disable Onboard Realtek LAN. Go to CPU Ratio and Force Ratio change to 8 = 800 MHz. I think this is the lowest MHz for Z97. If not let me know how low it can go. Change CPU Cores used from 4 to 1. Shut down the system. Remove all the internal cards in the motherboard slots including the PCIe graphics card. What was the CPU you have installed? I think it should have the integrated Intel HD Graphics present. Hook up to HDMI out on the motherboard. You will then get Video from the monitor using HDMI after you boot the system. Confirm this is working then go to BIOS save settings just in case and Shut down the system. Instead of IDE Compact Flash method we will be using USB for this test. Remove the PCI IDE Sil Medley 0680 controller. Install SB Audigy 1 PCI Sound Card into the motherboard to the rightmost PCI slot. (additional content removed)

I see what you are doing to try and shortcut from a fresh W98 install. But I was migrating a P4 98SE install this way to a Z77 and the Z77 failed no matter what I tried. Then after trying all sorts of options which all failed I decided to do a fresh install and the Z77 completed it without a problem. I noticed on your motherboard there are no PCIe slots and using PCIe with PCIe to PCI slot adapter. The Ryzen 5 doesn't have an iGPU so I would recommend you remove all cards except use one PCIe card in the 6000 series for testing. So on the cloned 98 test were you able to see the SB Audigy in the Device Manager still showing up and did you try to get audio output from the card to see if it worked? This is important. The 16GB DDR4 - Since no AM4 with DDR3 motherboard I could locate you cannot use the 512MB DDR3 test so you are stuck with DDR4 capacities. I have seen them go as low as 4GB and I think I saw a 2GB one but nothing in the 1GB and 512MB size yet. Upload your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files as an attachment for inspection. Do you have a USB Floppy drive and Bootable 98SE CD? What is the capacity of that SSD you have? Do you have any SATA SSD or Hard drive 128GB or smaller? Also I would avoid that Usher / Non-Usher method. I don't see the point if you couldn't get into 98 properly how the Safe Mode will benefit you. If you need to modify any of the INIs it can be done in DOS. Although this Usher method is the best. One more thing I need you to test out on the AM4 BIOS. Do you know how to underclock it? If so what is the slowest MHz you can set it? Also check if you can disable cores from 6 to 1.

(Your board) Audio on board is Realtek® ALC887 codec Realtek LAN unknown codec 2 x PCI slots Intel 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header) Intel 10 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers) 1 x PS/2 keyboard port 1 x PS/2 mouse port serial port ///// ///// ///// Okay if you can't bring this motherboard home for testing. Remove the PCIe card and it will use the Intel HD Graphics on the HDMI video out. Windows 98 can use this for the video test. Video card is not needed here yet if it is causing problems. You can also go to BIOS to adjust Shared Memory of Intel HD to 32MB. ----The mouse problem is this on the PS/2 port also? or just the USB port? or BOTH? If both are having problems you can use the serial port with serial mouse. This will work 100%. Does your onboard Realtek Audio show up in the Device Manager and is the sound driver installed and working? If working did you test 3.5mm output headphone jack? Audigy 1 - SB0160 - bring this card from home and install the card into the Z97 to see if it detects and install the 98 driver and test for audio output. If both sound options (onboard Realtek and SB Audigy 1) works fine for Audio then you can try adding either a PCI or PCIe 6XXX graphics card for testing video. Make sure it has 128MB or 256MB video memory at most. You can deal with 7XXX and 512MB cards much later when a functional 98SE SB Audigy and nVidia 6XXX card both work and games are not stuttering. Lan isn't a deal breaker as most will just reboot to XP or W7 for internet. Clean hardware device tree? Did you mean no PCI or PCIe installed cards were detected in the Device Manager? The addition of the PCI bus device are you talking about adding a PCI USB card? or the PS/2 ports detecting in Windows 98 first time? Is this the Onboard Intel USB controller here? Did this show up under Device Manager needing driver? What is the drive and capacity you are testing the 98 install? How did you partition the drive space out?

The Bear Drivers will be pointless for gaming. I couldn't get DOSBOX to function on it. You need to try and install a 6800 Ultra PCIe to test if 98 VGA drivers will function. Can you test a SB Audigy PCI sound card or other 98SE driver sound card to verify 98 sound driver installs and it functions in this Z97 and see if will detect the sound card inside the Device Manager? Test the USB Ports to see if USB Mouse, Keyboard, and Sound Card will work on it.

They are nasty and disgusting. I found some rat s*** trail in the garage recently. They snuck in somehow. They carry diseases even in their urine and feces. I have to disinfect it with bleach and use gloves and don't inhale the air or dust particles. https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/diseases/direct.html An ingenious way to kill them without smashing them. Too bad when you type mouse in a google search most of them point to a computer mouse.

Finally someone had the courage/$$$ to get an AM4 with Ryzen to do a 98SE test. This result was what I expected as well being the end of 98SE for gaming on AMD. You had mentioned even the later AMD 900 series chipsets already didn't work properly. However don't lose hope that this is a wasted motherboard I have some other OS tests for 2000 and XP if this motherboard can't do 98SE. You could also try clean install of Windows ME as a last resort to see if it somehow works. Describe this DOS with Ushers method test you did? What does this scrambled VGA screen look like? Do you have a camera phone to snap what this looks like? Did the VGA card and the SB Audigy PCI sound card show up in the Device Manager? Are you able to install the SB Audigy 98 driver and working audio output? Did you do a SB Audigy DOS driver test with a DOS game? What about the Network PCI card in 98SE does it work? Do any of the USB ports work with USB mouse / keyboard? If not do you have a USB 2.0 PCIe card to test USB ports? Weed back your install to just one PCIe graphics card 6800 256MB for a single video card test. This one should work with a modified PCIe 98 driver and not deal with the 512MB video memory issue. Use the VGA port on it.

Grandmaster Xper I am glad you found a way to continue another month. I had created my Avatar to honor the death of Windows 98 but also in case this site somehow must cease I have added a note for MSFN to signify its 16th year online on August 17th, 2017. In 5 days it will hit its possibly Final Anniversary. Hopefully this isn't the end of the road and MSFN will make it past Christmas to 2018 somehow when it will try to survive to its 17th Anniversary and I will update the tombstone. I remember as a SysOp taking down my BBS ages ago. It was like a baby you cherished and in some ways you wished you still had it and in other ways it was also a tremendous burden. I recall babysitting it and waiting for someone to dial in. On a brighter note this site has as close a feel in atmosphere as a BBS compared to other websites so that should be quite a feat going back to the original MSFN idea you had in your room in another country. If I had the funds to help I would try and temporarily keep it afloat till you were able to retake the reigns or at least mirror it somewhere so it would exist beyond this site such as the waybackmachine or relocated and merged to another site as one member has offered. I had also read you are taking care of an autistic daughter on top of all this. I don't know the full story or how this impacts you looking after the site but I will share a small recent story. I had to do some major car repair in the garage and I needed to clear out the garage to move the car into start the project. It took about 2 weeks to get that settled than as I was trying to figure out the car repair situation which took another 2 weeks I had a pet that died as a result because my focus was not there to be aware something was wrong and when I finally took notice I didn't realize it was too late and if I knew what I had known then I would have taken a break after cleaning the garage out and perhaps had a chance to have noticed something was wrong with the pet. Running the BBS was the best thing back in the day but also there was a huge sense of relief like I was unburdened in some way after letting it go. The cost of the electricity, phone bill, the computer equipment, and a PO BOX added up and even though there were donations I can't honestly say that the donations were greater then the operating costs and more importantly the time invested. If one day your site does go down if not in a month from now but later in the future give me your physical address via PM or email it to my email address on the account and I can mail a small amount in cash or an international money order that I can muster up so it wouldn't be taxed perhaps $100 that would not be for the site but for your daughter. I know it's not much in the grand scheme of things but just a small gesture from an Op to another.

Incorrect again. Since the patch was purchased and unused it would be like buying an iPad years ago and leaving it at home unused. Plenty of people purchase things they may not end up using. There's still a ton of stuff I have purchased still sealed in their shipping boxes unopened. Do I take these around with me? I hope not as I couldn't carry all of it around. Instead I could be carrying an Android cell phone or a Windows touch screen tablet and those security guards looking for an iPad would notice it wasn't an Apple branded device and continue searching for the stolen iPad. In this case it would still be a BSOD error but the B would refer to Black since most of the screen in DOS is a BLACK background. But BSOD is the common term to describe the Windows error problems. Even a true Blue BSOD can occur during the setup process which may or may not be used in a video. I experienced one issue with BSOD with the 512MB test but it did not prevent the installation process to complete after the reboot. But this video is what I would do if I were you but since this is all regarding your own profit then you can do without the video as your profit could be reduced and it wouldn't affect me. Also you don't need to add Command.Com to the Autoexec.bat at all. All it will display is the version information. If you wanted just a Command Prompt instead of the the Date Time Prompt I think even creating a blank line might do the trick or you can do a CLS command only in the Autoexec. And the purpose of renaming Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat is prove you were incorrect that the EXIT command will not trigger launching Windows if you booted straight to 98SE DOS. You must run Windows 98SE prior and then exit back to 98SE Pure DOS before the EXIT command will invoke relaunching Windows from the DOS prompt. And you cannot modify an original 98SE CD's autoexec.bat. It is read only. So the F8 method is probably the easiest way to get to the Boot Menu on an unmodifiable source. False. I can replace any partition on the fly without any problem that was imaged. I just restore the image saved back to the partition I want restored. For D I might have 98SE and just restore the 98SE image to the D partition. I have no issues here. In fact restoring the bootloader DOS to W10 will only take a second since it is so tiny. If you are keeping the boot partition combined with the entire DATA on the same partition and some part of the OS boot loader it is less risky to restore just the boot loader partition than if the OS and DATA were on the same partition. Why would you want to create a larger image to deal with for backing up? If you're constantly installing programs I'd put them on a separate partition. If I have any data corruption on the OS partition I just restore it back quickly. If I had to constantly backup the OS with my DATA and Program Files these images would get larger and larger. Also I wouldn't use a 4TB as the primary drive with the boot loader. I don't see why you need 4TB for the OS anyhow and any additional files could be housed on other internal drives or external drive. If you just wanted a large MBR primary drive I would just stick to a 2TB laptop 2.5" instead or a SSD version when they get cheaper. Don't tell me you need 2TB for a single OS? Even Windows 10 could fit on a 32GB partition. But for expansion purposes you can redirect to another drive. As insane it may sound to have 384TB connected to 98SE why is it capped at that specific amount and the 3072TB for DOS? I suppose this is more a DDO experiment as no physical drives of such capacity I'm aware of exist to confirm these limits. According to this chart it's looking like exFAT is superior to NTFS and caps at 16EB for max file size and 128PB for volume. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm This link shows NTFS max file size capped to about 16TB and volume max at 256TB with 64KB AUS. Given the capacities we are approaching for hard drives 16TB seems on the horizon for consumers. It is possible within 10 years we could have 256TB hard drives assuming it will continually double to 32TB, 64TB, 128TB then finally 256TB which would hit the NTFS limit but perhaps by then most would start switching to exFAT which may survive its higher limit not within their lifetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS Drive Banker? Are you talking about some RAID0 setup with multiple drives and how many drives are we dealing with here? I wasn't talking about directly porting a DOS to 98SE Ramdisk but you would have enough knowledge to code a similar one to function properly in Windows 98 unless coding in Windows 98 isn't your thing or the 3rd party ones out there already are better than what you can create. This is what I would recommend in a test if it were performed to prove which is faster. I noticed you added the 32-bit in front of the 98SE Ramdisk. I'm not sure if these are 32-bit already or you were worried that if most were 16-bit the 98SE Ramdisk would lose to XP. But my belief is the XP Ramdisk will be faster than the 98SE Ramdisk whereas you believe the 98SE will outperform the XP Ramdisk.

Again it gets more baffling. The only program you couldn't get to run in 98SE DOS was Windows 3.1? Are you seriously telling me Windows 3.1 did not work in 98SE DOS? I think I had tested this way back then and didn't have any problems. I'll have to dig up the old Windows 3.1 Floppies to confirm this. The other question is what Windows 3.1 software did you have that didn't function in 98SE or XP? As for the 8GB limit that's if you are sticking to DOS 6.22 that's your own fault for limiting yourself. I'm suggesting a way to maintain compatibility to use both FAT16 for the DOS 6.22 partition and also be able to access the remaining portion of your drives you could still access the D: E: F: as 2GB FAT16 partitions and partition the rest as FAT32 partitions. Also my method would allow the option to boot to Dos 6.22 or 98SE DOS which is rare to see on modern systems. Today I would just skip DOS 6.22 altogether. Is there some DOS 6.22 software that didn't run properly in 98SE DOS that you can list? In my opinion you aren't a gamer so any DOS utilities should function in 98SE DOS. What you find stupider is I'm keeping it simple with 98SE FDISK v1.0 since you hadn't thought of using my technique but insist on using a self created DDO which backfired on you. Obviously it infuriates you since it isn't your RFDISK method. You also haven't addressed the fact you were incorrect that the EXIT command does not trigger running Windows if you booted straight to 98SE DOS. It only triggers relaunching Windows "if" you had first loaded Windows and exited to PURE 98SE DOS. And if I think back further maybe even Windows 3.10 had this same behavior. You obviously glossed over what I stated. I said that the first 2GB would be for the DOS 6.22 the remainder could be FAT32 to keep it simple without making multiple partitions consuming more drive letters. Any data could be copied off the FAT32 partitions in 98SEDOS over to the C: if needed. The other option is creating C: D: E: and F: as 2GB FAT16 and then G: through X: the remainder FAT32 partitions which could be 8GB if that's what you were targeting per partition. You also missed the point that the bootmenu allows you to choose between DOS 6.22 or 98SE DOS so you can access the entire drive when needed beyond the 8GB. As for the Sound Blaster IDE expansion idea. First does the BIOS recognize this card as the primary IDE boot controller or does it only recognize the IDE devices via use of a driver? Which Creative Labs Sound Blaster card model is this? I have a whole bunch here I can examine. Name me some consumer motherboards make and models during 1997 that had 6 IDE devices possible through the motherboard and not through some addon card. Even my old P4 still had two IDE ports. Maybe some special edition ones had 6 possible IDE devices then that would at least be testable with FDISK. But you'll need 4 onboard IDE ports to confirm your FDISK issue if you really believe too many IDE devices were connected that caused the corruption issue. SATA drives in 1997? Please list the motherboard make and model. SATA ports didn't really come into existence till around 2003. I have some more modern ones that have both IDE and SATA controllers but those were late stage P4 and usually started around socket 775 CPUs. Most of what you were doing was experimenting. Testing your DDO and how FDISK saw it. If you were focused on making partition managers maybe this would have been more useful if you partnered up with Partition Magic and could have standardized something that even Microsoft would have adopted. It's a good thing this was not tested on an actual hard drive with vital data you couldn't lose. That's why most people would rather use a Partition Manager that is trusted and tested and I'm sure Microsoft had tested their FDISK for as long as they felt was necessary until the Windows Disk Management became a replacement when NTFS was the new standard. FAT16 and FAT32 had their uses and I still use them for DOS to XP partitions. Also how you are going to navigate in DOS to access each partition if you exceeded the Z: drive? Even when I mentioned this prior how is your Drive Mounter that can add a Drive Letter dynamically? If you are at Z: after consuming C: to Z: to assigned partitions what will the next assigned drive letter be? And will it be accessible under 98SE DOS or DOS 6.22? The only thing I can say is you might be able to come up create code for special utilities but most of these utilities will go unnoticed unless you spread it for free for people to use. Once major adoption occurs then releasing revised versions with more features you could charge a licensing fee and profit. But if you start off charging for every program it's hard to see it gain any major wide usage. There will also be unforeseen bugs which haven't been ironed out and a lot of bugs are revealed by freeware users to be patched.