98SE

That's where the problem occurred. If you had access to the 98SE FDISK v1.0. You could have partitioned the first partition as FAT16 2GB first. As for why you chose to use DOS 6.22 only and not take advantage of the newer DOS 7.10 to work with the drive itself is curious. Are there some DOS 6.22 specific programs that did not work properly in DOS 7.10? Reboot the computer and pop in your DOS 6.22 bootable disk. At the DOS Prompt FORMAT C:/S Let it finish formatting the 2GB partition. Now the Primary partition will be DOS 6.22 bootable only. Now you can reboot back into 98SE DOS via Floppy. run the 98SE FDISK v1.0 program and create the Extended DOS Partition say 62GB since the first 2GB is for the FAT16. Make the Logical Drives D: E: F: G: H: I: J: K: All with be 8GB FAT32 except K will be around 6GB. Format D: through K: Copy your 98SE CD folder to the K:\98SECD go to the K:\98SECD setup/is let it finish a complete 98SE installation. You will find after this is complete in your 98SE DOS Bootloader you will see an option to boot to DOS 6.22. Since the DOS 6.22 resides on the FAT16 Primary Partition you can access the entire 2GB with no problem. If you need to access any other files from within DOS 6.22 you will have to reboot back and run in the 98SE DOS and copy those files onto the C:. According to this link DOS 6.22 was capped to 2GB FAT16. Even 95A had this limit. It wasn't until 95B that FAT32 became possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_DOS_operating_systems If you truly wanted to keep it PURE DOS 6.22 bootable only with Windows 3.1 you could still use just the 98SE FDISK v1.0 and create multiple 2GB FAT16 partitions which could go from C: to Z: which gives you 24 possible DOS letters. 48GB of the 64GB would have been accessible in this case and the rest would sit unused in DOS 6.22. As for how many drives were possible to hookup if we are dating ourselves back to 1997? This was IDE and pre-SATA 2003. The most IDE drives that could be hooked up at least for consumer motherboards was 2 IDE controllers each with their own master and slave drives. The maximum of 4 IDE hard disk drives was possible then as I even tried to reach the formidable 1TB barrier using 4 320GB hard drives. This meant no IDE optical drives. So if DOS 6.22 wasn't programmed to handle more than 4 IDE Hard drives at the time it is possible FDISK may not have forseen someone using that many hard drives at once or tricking it using your DDO. But I always used one hard drive connected when partitioning with FDISK so I have never seen this problem you describe come up. A few times I have used two physical drives hooked up and FDISK does have the option to select which drive you wish to focus on. I will say it is strange if you only ran 98SE FDISK v1.0 and did not do any operations since I assume it crashed right away when you ran it from the DOS Prompt without first seeing the main menu come up. It shouldn't do any write operations on it until you actually start deleting partitions or creating them. But from my experience a few times I have warm booted out of the FDISK program after doing such operations without exiting to DOS first and the previous FAT was still intact and untouched. Your situation and use was a bit extreme I think even for people of that era. Again I don't know what motherboard make/model you were testing this on do you recall? Perhaps it was on an AMD motherboard? For Intel this has never happened to me once and like I said most even up to the Pentium 4 had only 4 possible IDE drives that could be hooked up. There might be some Server class motherboards that might be able to hook up more than 4 IDE drives at once. But then again even with 4 Hard drives installed at once it would be a nightmare to even consider partitioning if the other hard drives had multiple partitions you would get about 6 drive letters max per drive in this scenario. Most of the time a single drive I partitioned depending on what its use was for I would exceed 6 drive letters partitioning so it was always necessary to reduce the amount of physical drives installed when doing the FDISK operation as when you exceed the Z: you can't manipulate the partitions since it must have a physical drive letter to be removed.

I do understand your iPad analogy but the problem is you are trying to assume my position as it relates in your analogy matches which it doesn't so it is flawed. Had I recently purchased your patch as an individual buying an iPad out of a store and therefore walking around with it your analogy would relate to my situation. If I was constantly using the patch with Windows 98 that would be like me carrying around a used iPad and if a iPad robbery occurred in a store they would investigate if my iPad in hand had any connection to the robbery. Since I had bought it ages ago and correlating that to the iPad analogy I would not have the iPad with me since I didn't use it since it remained unused stored at home. As for the single Youtube video all you would need is a simple gmail account and then create a youtube account which is linked to it and upload a 45 second video and then paste that youtube video link on your website that can be clicked on. I don't see why this is a huge amount of resources wasted on your part. As for the advertising caused by Youtube you can avoid this by keeping it to 30 seconds or less. It's not like it will take that long to demonstrate the patch fixes the maximum memory limit issue of 9X/ME. I'm sure you can easily show a BSOD 98 error screen from DOS prompt running WIN. Then moments later cut to another clip at the DOS prompt running the memory patch program and then running WIN loading to the desktop without the BSOD. I never said you wanted just the Date and Time prompt. I'm showing you that you were incorrect that the EXIT command will not launch into Windows 98 if you had not previously launched into it and exited to the 98SE Pure DOS mode. Renaming the Config and Autoexec would have been a simpler way to prove this since no other files are loaded from either file. You'd hit enter a few times and be at the Command Prompt then type the EXIT command and it will NOT launch into Windows. I use the Config and Autoexec for other purposes as well but since you never posted your file contents for me to investigate I must assume you knew you were incorrect about the EXIT command relaunching Windows without first loading into Windows prior and then exiting back to the 98SE Pure DOS Command Prompt. How many drives do you need internally? Most motherboards have around 8 or more SATA ports at least. And why would you tie up your main system with an 8TB or larger primary hard drive which you cannot move the data around to another system with ease? You could easily hook up the 8TB hard drives to the other SATA ports. And if you needed more capacity after you exhausted all the internal SATA ports you can add USB cards to get another 8 ports per card slot in some cases which would allow hooking possibly up to 16TB external hard drives to each of those 8 ports. You don't seem to be into recording HD videos so I don't even know why you are complaining about using one single SATA port for a smaller capacity boot drive. The OS drive is better kept to a smaller capacity drive to separate the OS from the DATA. Why take the risk if your OS/DATA drive of 8TB gets corrupted and have to deal moving your data onto another drive before you can repartition and reformat the drive and install your OS? A 128GB primary hard drive is plenty of space for installing DOS/W3.X/9X/ME/2K/XP/W7 and W10. I've done this multiple times. If you needed more space you could even redirect the W10 to the 8TB partition but the Boot Drive will still be fine on the 128GB. Well you are a resourceful guy so I don't think it would be that difficult to find a 3rd party 98SE Ramdisk to test out and a few freeware ones already on one of my threads that can be used or a superior one created by you based on the DOS non XMS Ramdisk ported to 98SE. You will realize that the XP Ramdisk should be faster than the 9X/ME Ramdisk. As for overhead you can also say that the DOS overhead is much lower than the 9X/ME but even when testing copying files in 98SE Pure DOS I know it is much slower to copy files around than inside XP as I had to do this to free up enough space on the XP partition in order to boot.

Well 20 years ago would put it back to 1997. But reading what you said you had a 64GB Hard Drive and trying to mimic 8 physical hard drives to run DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. Now I've done 8 8GB partitions before straight on FDISK. In fact I've done 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, 2GB FAT 16 and 4GB, 8GB FAT32 partitions with FDISK. The Primary will be 2GB FAT 16 Boot. Then the rest of the drive space will be the Extended Partition up to the 128GB limit if it is over 128GB you don't want to have the extended partition cross into it. Then you will create Logical drives. The 8GB was a perfect size back then for FAT32 because the AUS didn't get too big so I stayed at 8192 MB. I double checked my input figures. You will need to use 8189 and it will show up at 8197. If you use 8190 or higher it will cross over the 8GB marker and use a higher AUS. I'm not sure if you are aware there are ways to force FAT16 and FAT32 on FDISK. Now the reason since I don't know the exact computer specs you did this on was FDISK didn't recognize the drive through your DDO. If you had not used your DDO and the computer could see the entire 64GB drive in the BIOS then FDISK 98SE v1.0 should have no problem partitioning it. If your BIOS was constrained at the time not able to utilize drives of that capacity then you were asking for trouble when creating your own DDO and then using the 98SE FDISK to try and partition a drive that probably wasn't meant to work over a DDO. If you hooked up that same 64GB drive today I can tell you for sure as long as the Motherboard can identify its full capacity you should be able to partition that with 98SE FDISK v1.0 without a problem as I've done drives all the way to 128GB without any issues even on SSDs. You just have to know the exact FDISK capacity MB numbers to input correctly if you want a specific partition size. Now I wouldn't mess around with it over 128GB although I have successfully used it with a 320GB that has been running for over 5 years straight but I used 64GB FAT32 partitions. After the first 128GB I would only use NTFS partitions if you want to allocate the extra space. DOS won't touch beyond the 128GB and can't natively see NTFS so you can't self corrupt your files accidentally copying into > 128GB region. The just make sure the OS supports over 128GB if it is 9X/ME/2K/XP with a patch. Vista and higher all support over 128GB without corruption.

It is not about informing me but other customers who don't know how the program works or wants to see how it is demonstrated. This is not about them trusting you they don't even know you to form an opinion. Some people may want to see what does it do. I am talking about just one video not a bunch of them as I don't see any other possible videos but the memory limitation patch to be of any significant popularity. The video you create you doesn't need to plastered with any advertisements although Youtube does do their own form already. It is meant to be an informative video if someone sees it they may want to know more about it on your website or purchase it. Sometimes a simple video condenses all the work for you. The 98 BSOD error, running your patch, reloading WIN to desktop should take less than a minute total length. Add your Website and maybe a longer description of your memory patch program and you are done. The iPad analogy was just bad. Since the equivalent would have been the iPad was purchased years ago sitting unused stored in my house after so I wouldn't have it on me which mirrors the patch program being unused but stored elsewhere. There is no need to do a Command Shell to display the Command Prompt with 98SE Boot. The DOS will still be there if you remove the Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat. It only uses Io.Sys and Command.Com to boot. Just use FDISK or your RDISK and create a 2GB FAT16 primary partition on some small drive under 128GB. Use DOS Format C:/S and it will make it bootable. If not you might want to set partition one Active in FDISK. When you reboot the computer and it is the default boot device it should load and display the Date and Time Prompt if Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat are renamed or not present. This is how DOS has always functioned. The W98 Copy I am talking about is when you made the declaration that Windows 98 File Copy would be faster than Windows XP File Copy did you do the actual File copy inside Windows 98 Explorer or in the Windows 98 Dos Prompt Window (not Pure DOS). I still think that the Windows XP File Copy will faster off the Ramdrive to Ramdrive. Even a 3rd Party Windows 98 Ramdisk to Ramdisk File Copy should be slower than XP's. I already know that the DOS File Copy will be slower due to previous testing and responded to in an earlier statement. The DOS File Copy from Ramdisk to Ramdisk will be faster than the hard drive but no where as fast as XP's Ramdisk to Ramdisk transfer rates.

The BootGui=0 option in MsDos.Sys is another way to force to MS-DOS mode instead of launching directly into Windows 98 which can be done the same by typing WIN. There is no need to remove the line or you can just use the ; to comment it out but by default BootGui=1 to load Windows. You can try the F8 method before it loads into Windows to trigger the Boot Menu instead of changing MsDos.Sys. But since you are using the 98SE CD you couldn't really edit the MsDos.Sys file on it since its read only so that's why I recommend a USB Floppy disk if you need to edit the MsDos.Sys. I wouldn't call this a mod. You are just editing the MsDos.Sys file after you Attrib it so it is unhidden. Your memory patch would be a real mod that affects the actual code. I wouldn't call editing the Config.Sys or Autoexec.Bat a mod either. That seems a bit of a stretch. Just like changing the System.Ini and Win.Ini can be done in Edit. You don't need to add Command.Com to your Autoexec.Bat. It is automatically loaded into memory upon boot. If you do run a DOS program that consumes or requires a lot of conventional memory that needs to unload Command.Com. Then after you exit that program it will ask where your Command Interpreter is if it doesn't find it on the default boot up location. How DOS has always worked is it loads itself into conventional memory and then loads your Config.Sys then it loads your Autoexec.Bat. If you renamed both of these files to Config and Autoexec without extensions you will see it boot straight to the Date Time Prompt. I still don't see why you are manually adding Command.Com in your Autoexec.Bat as it doesn't do nothing but call up Command.Com which was already loaded when you booted up straight to the Date Time Prompt if you renamed those two files. Maybe if you listed the entire contents of your Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat I can decipher what your set up is doing. If it's the 98SE CD then the F8 method is the best way to force DOS mode. If you want to the system to remain in DOS during boots then when you are ready to run Windows it is easier to either type Win if your paths are set correctly or create a simple batch file called w.bat and direct it to the directory and run Win in one key stroke. I double checked on a clean 98SE install. Hitting F8 to Command Prompt Only at boot and then typing the EXIT command at the Command Prompt does not invoke loading Windows 98. The EXIT command only invokes reloading Windows 98 after you had previously exited from inside Windows 98 to the pure MS-DOS prompt. I had done this so many times years ago since I dropped in and out between DOS and 98SE all the time.

You will need a DeLorean and a great imagination.

No real form of web browser internet in '89. Maybe Lynx was around on Unix server for text based browser on university. I only used that around 91-92. Before I was a BBS SysOp for which used one phone line to connect to your BBS. Anyone can call and connect to it as long as the line wasn't busy. Google? I doubt it was around then. I think Google is post 2000 era. Yahoo and Excite was around earlier than Google from what I can recall. Before that AOL had its own form of internet news.

Original Ramdisk Franck Uberto Ramdisk v1.9i - 8-12-1998 - XMSDSK.EXE and EMSDSK.EXE working in 98SE DOS boot disk. . Fresh install of Windows 98 Second Edition completed to desktop completed all features selected.

I have bookmarked the link. But like I said I only intend to use it for Linux and MAC OS Hackintosh setups where I will need to use Linux commands to tweak it to work. As for the XP OS loaded into Ramdisk using either method did you actually try this already and then use another 3rd party XP Ramdisk or Gavotte's which is your favorite to use the remainder of the unused RAM as a large Ramdrive?

Update tested: Franck Uberto Ramdisk v1.9i - 8-12-1998 - XMSDSK.EXE and EMSDSK.EXE Functionality: Working on Z77 It looks like I had already tested this back in January on a bootable floppy disk.

Doesn't matter if it's RDISK or a 3rd party partition manager. FDISK has "never" crashed on me and if it were to freeze somehow it doesn't actually perform any changes until you exit out of the program to DOS. Also you should only connect one device to partition at a time removing/disconnecting any other USB or IDE/SATA connected drives. That is the best way to partition and ensure you aren't looking at the wrong drive when partitioning in case of a mistake. FDISK is only done once to create all the partitions on the drive and that's it. You never go back and delete and readd later unless it's a test system. It's always a complete deletion of all partitions and then formatting them if necessary. Even some of these 3rd party partition managers I wouldn't mess with on a drive that has sensitive data. Sticks to OSs on a 128GB or smaller drive and storing essential data via external USB hard drives is the best way to go. Less headache if the boot drive gets corrupted you aren't mixing your OS with your data and having to move all that to another drive before repartitioning and reformatting.

That's when happens when they opened the can of worms and extended it from 8.3 to 255 characters.3 As for categorizing that is the best way to go as R L stated. A lot of times saving websites it creates its own long set of filenames and eventually some pages cannot be saved in its entirety so you will have to manually truncate them to shorter lengths. But if you want to preserver those long MP3s sometimes it is best to shorten it enough where it is recognizable then create a separate text file where the long original filename is pasted so you can reference it back. Another problem is moving long filenames that reached 255 characters.3 cap. Sometimes you can't move or copy them without shortening them first. DOS has more issues with these long filenames I'm sure which could be the reason directory listing corruption occurs.

A simple low wattage laptop can do the job without any real dedicated machine if you want to reuse the device. But yes it's possible to recover that data even after wiping the partition table. You'll be surprised how many hard drives have retrievable data sold on eBay. But if you are looking that extra security and quick kill I hear those HD-5T magnetic degaussers will do the job. Then they just buy a brand new 128GB drive.

That's what NTFS is best suited for large TB capacity drives. You don't have to completely format the entire drive. 8TB takes about 30 seconds or less to partition the entire drive. As for MBR I haven't seen any damaged MBR drives in decades. Usually IDE was the last time I've seen these get damaged and even then it wasn't due to the drive itself but to the 128GB limitation. Also using a disk imager you can restore the boot partition in seconds. All you need at most is a 2GB partition. Only 22MB is required for a DOS->W10 bootloader as far as space. Unless you are you using an 4TB or larger drive as your boot partition which would be foolish then you'll have a real mess on your hands if that got corrupted.

Windows 2000 Professional no service pack is unmodified. :3 Where is the link to 7.6 SATA AHCI driver for it? I will test it BWC. The 'iaStor.Sys is Corrupted" is the normal message I have seen.

I don't use that in my 98SE Bootdisk. Most of the time if it can't find the Command Interpreter it will prompt you to type it in. I think the last time that command reared its ugly head was in DOS 4.0. You remember DOS SHELL?

I actually like the Unconditional Formatting. It just looks impressive going through the percentage. Even 32GB doesn't take that long. You have to remember when hard drives were extremely slow that it used to take hours. Also Formatting SSDs are a blast too. 16GB it's like sipping water. Most of my high capacity drives because of NTFS partitioning it's just partition and and start writing. I think of the old school FDISK partitioning as an art form.

The video I was thinking of you could do is showing what happens in a typical 98SE with too much memory. Then apply your patch in DOS showing it do its thing. Then loading Windows without a problem and you could follow up with Right Click My Computer and show the Max Memory visible and also open up the Task Manager to show Memory statistics. Pictures I guess the ones you mentioned could work. Snapshots of ones that don't work could be added for the Before shots. Well as much as that scenario would be funny to have happened. I wouldn't be caught dead with an iPad. Not saying I wouldn't take one for free. But the whole idea of the iPad revolts me. They purposely had no USB ports and decided to use a proprietary jack for the audio. Anyhow it wouldn't be me holding one but if it did get stolen that's one less to deal with for the Apple store. Overpriced junked imo. Why are you putting the COMMAND.COM in your Autoexec.Bat? This isn't necessary for 98SE DOS. It automatically loads it regardless if you are booting straight to DOS or straight to 98SE. And when you say "Command Shell" you mean the Command Prompt? I think you need to use a USB Floppy with 98SE formatted bootable. I think that 98SE CDROM just has too many issues and I don't have one setup for me examine step by step. You can copy the 98SE Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat to the Floppy after. Just modify any C: to A: in the files but you will have to copy any files that are stored on the optical disc that are not present on the A: and make any appropriate directories to match. I used to make 98SE CD boot disks into a Floppy form when I needed a way to access the optical drive without needing to use the 98SE CD. Are you doing the W98 copy from Y: to Z: within 98SE Explorer or going to the Command Prompt within 98SE? I still think the XP Ramdrive will be faster than the 98SE Ramdrive. If I get a chance to finish the 98SE on Z77 maybe I can do some tests even using the XMSDSK for a smaller size. I just find it unlikely the copy speed would be faster.

An Unconditional Format also occurs if you recreate new RAW partitions with FDISK and FORMAT it. This is standard DOS behavior.

I'm talking about the Partition Manager in XP's Disk Management not what XP could read. I normally used FAT32 2TB drives for awhile for compatibility reasons. The program you referenced is an XP program although there were others I had used to create large FAT32 before ages ago using bootable CDs. I there might have been a few DOS ones that could do it too but I've forgotten most of these tools. Sadly I now only use NTFS for 2TB and larger drives. FAT32's 4GB file size limit was too restrictive having to stop HD video recordings every 30 mins. There is eXFAT but NTFS seems to be preferred.

I can't explain it either. I can only report what is happening. Now other Z170/Z270 may differ in DOS compatibility. And just to be clear Formatting has no problem in DOS. It's the SYS and creating a bootable boot device under DOS that has the issue using the FORMAT/S method. These for some reason fail. If you ever get a Z170/Z270 this might be replicated to see if the same result happens. Most proof is done either through demonstration on Youtube with videos or at least snapshots of the program they would be receiving. If I remember correctly there are none that exist on your website. Which is why I'm focusing on the Z77 to do my 98 test. None that have video card emulation of the 7900 GTX and none for an EAX Advanced HD audio card which should cover the necessary 9X/ME hardware emulation required. I find that situation highly unlikely but assuming someone had a receipt but forgot they could still check the surveillance tapes to see if I was wearing it before I entered the store. There are no mods. The F8 key I suggested would the fastest to get to the command prompt and just add Himem.Sys to the Config.Sys. As for the EXIT command I believe that is only triggered if you loading into 98SE and then did an exit to DOS. The Exit at first DOS boot I don't believe it will load Windows. I think the EXIT command only comes from exiting out of 98SE to DOS mode. You can double check. I am pretty sure EXIT should not call up WIN.COM out of the blue unless you had set up some strange batch file to call Win.Com. I think the overhead as you put it probably won't matter. The extra large cache and buffer in XP would probably beat what DOS copy could do. If I tested your program I would time the same 4GB file copied from 64-bit Ramdrive Y: to Z: in 98SE DOS and replicated the same copy of the file for two Ramdrives Y: and Z: in XP. I am quite certain because of the way the COPY buffer is so tiny in DOS it would take much longer than in XP. XCOPY might beat the COPY transfer time. There have been a few times when my XP partition ran out of space causing a reboot loop. I had to go to DOS and move / copy a file on that partition to another to free up some space before I could boot into XP. The COPY process takes some time. XCOPY should be faster. But there's no way that it would beat an XP Ramdrive 4GB COPY and PASTE from Y: TO Z: in a test. I already cleared up that up in the last message. It would depend on the licensing restrictions and how much. If the license was the individual could only use the program on one computer being booted at a time it would make sense as it is rare that an individual would have several DOS computers up running your Ramdrive simultaneously. If the person was limited by the machines they could install it to it would be a costly endeavor. This is why it is simpler to license to an individual user so that user can do what they want as long as it is the user doing it only. Also from all the hindsight discussion I mentioned my DOSBOX insight using the XP Ramdrive instead. So that's why I think the 98BOX emulator is a better use of your resources if you consider doing one. Are you referring to just the DOS Format command or some other Ramdisk command option to resize? Did you put a full manual up of the Ramdisk program to better understand its features and command line options since there is no Demo program?

I think you missed the reason I went through all the trouble of formatting the hard drive in DOS. It was the only way to guarantee full compatibility without using a 3rd party partition manager and I think at the time 500GB FAT32 partition was the max possible. XP has a 32GB partition limit for FAT32. The PS3 = Playstation 3 does not read NTFS otherwise I wouldn't have gone through the trouble. Also I was curious how long it would take to do an unconditional format of the entire drive. It was not about collecting bad sector info. The drive was brand new. I wanted to test hooking up the largest FAT32 drive to it externally first. Later I tried using it internally and the 1.5GB limit is a PS3 firmware issue.

There was some post thought after all the Ramdrive discussion and what unique advantages your Ramdisk has. I mentioned it more detail in my last post. But DOSBOX itself takes care of the need for the DOS ISO idea. I also realized that the DOSBOX can be installed to the Ramdrive and the DOS programs so in fact it already can run in a larger 29GB Ramdrive in essence. But as far as all the testing of Drive Letter of the Optical drive. You can easily confirm what drive letter the optical drive gets assigned. Set your USB as the first boot device or if you have an optical drive set it to that and reboot while the 98SE CD is still in the drive. Hit the key when asked so it boots off the CD. When it starts loading just hit the F8 key and go to Command Prompt mode where it should load the CD-rom driver and finally get to the command prompt. You can verify what your drive letter is there. I think it should be C: assuming no hard drives / SSD are connected. You can also disconnect any USB floppy drives and redo the test to see if it changes to A:

I don't agree. If this was on your website in its own forum then I would agree with your statement somewhat but no amount of discussion/interaction with a sales agent such as when a telemarketer calls you up or when you walk into a cell phone store approached by an employee can force you to buy something. At any point the customer still has the potential to buy something but it isn't forced. Having your own site with its own forum would also help you figure out who your direct customers are without questioning their validity on other sites. Although "Discussion" doesn't preclude interest pre or post in your products. I never said I would never buy your Ramdrive nor does it mean I wouldn't refer to others to purchase it if that was something they needed. I was evaluating what you had to say about your Ramdrive since you initiated comment on my comment. I could have ignored your comment but that would be rude. Since there was no "demo" version of your product most of these "limits" or "questions" I had that you answered could have been taken care of on my own limiting the amount of excess discussion. Any other questions about your product that could only be directly answered by the author since the author would have the total knowledge of their product and would be the only ones I would need to ask. You don't need further proof. But the user who doesn't see the proof will. I already explained to you before that you could not SYS or FORMAT with SYS a boot partition. This is what I meant by DOS support was broken. Himem.Sys was the other. There could be more but I stopped testing as I had other projects of more importance. Well I'm not sure what you wanted to do with the HIMEMEX as I don't use it nor had your Ramdrives so I couldn't do any real testing for you. I only did that test for you if it helped you or other potential customers confirm something I didn't do it to gain anything on my part. I think you were more interested in confirming if your Ramdisk might work. My initial thoughts were it may not. I might attempt to test the XMSDSK to see if functions or not on Z170 later on. If that program works most likely your Ramdisk should work. But in my opinion the Z170 is the deathbed for the 98/ME and possibly pure DOS gaming. The lack of PCI ports is a huge blow and the USB 2.0 eHCI removal is needed for the USB mouse and USB keyboard for starters as even a lot of the Z170s have removed all PS/2 ports. The PCI also affects the PCI sound cards needed for 98 driver support. Another issue that might have resolved it is HDMI support in 98SE. I'm unaware of any HDMI graphics cards that support 98SE. This is the only reason I'm suggesting you consider making a 9X/ME video and audio card emulator for XP and W7. Given the complexity I'm not sure it's something you would consider doing and selling later or some other group similar to DOSBOX ends up beating you to it. I still have doubts about using such cards in 9X/ME. Are you using these as 9X/ME only cards? The SATA PCIe card would not be bootable. Any USB card may or may not work but none I'm aware of exist in PCIe slot form for 9X/ME driver support that have been tested to work. It would still be a lot of work for anyone to even do compared to earlier chipsets just to make 9X/ME work on a Z170. A P4 would be a much easier and possibly cheaper solution given all the extra software patching and hardware they would have to buy. I suggest you start with the 98BOX emulator I described above. That will be your "piggy bank". I'm not sure what other XP or XP Compatible Products you were thinking about that hasn't been done yet. Let's use your example of a jacket purchase. First I would have to be in the store I bought the same jacket from for even the store owner to make an accusation like that assuming this specific jacket was still for sale in the store. Some simple ways of proving I was the owner of that jacket might be the security cameras seeing me enter the store with it on. If they wanted more proof maybe they could inspect my jacket for signs it was worn or looked used and not brand new. Unless I had been wearing this jacket only a few times would this be an issue. If someone were held by security because they were suspected of stealing a jacket that they paid for prior beyond a reasonable length of time and had already proven through surveillance, wear and tear, or looking up the purchase in the system assuming the owner recalled when they originally purchased it or kept the original receipt in the wallet they might have a case. If it was a recent purchase there could be a possibility of a law suit in this case if they were still prevented from leaving and harassed and accused of stealing afterwards. The only tracking a credit card does is by the credit card company and even those schmucks will sell your information to 3rd parties. Hence cash only if you want to eliminate a digital trail. I never implied any such amount. Anyone can open their mouth. But from what I've seen the bigger the amount guarantees a fraction of that amount. Again you already assumed that the Ramdrive will work from your tests. Since I confirmed that the Himem.Sys did not load it may or may not indicate 9X/ME will run. If your Z87 shows the same behavior or you've already tested 98 on it and included it in your Config.Sys then you could see whether or not it loaded by removing the Boot Gui so it goes to DOS. Then you could use Win.Com to relaunch back into 98SE. I actually said that if you made one that worked for going back to the 8088 up to the Z170 that this would be an all in one solution. However you mentioned that your license is per computer and not per user so now it depends on your pricing because if someone owns 100 computers and let's assume you are a real watchdog and I were to use a computer other than the one I bought the license for I would have a real headache on my hands. Obviously I would only know that I used it on the wrong computer but I'm just saying as an example of what could happen given your license restrictions. I still think if your Ramdisk wanted to be crowned the Ultimate DOS Ramdisk then most of the features I mentioned were included you would definitely get the crown. And I don't think any "Freeware" ones would be able to compete. Some post thought after thinking about the DOS Ramdisk ideas despite your own resistance that overall I'd rather you focus on a video and sound card 9X/ME emulator for XP and 7 if you want that piggy bank unless someone beats you to it. The whole DOSBOX actually can be stored on a Ramdrive so any huge amount of Ramdrive above 4GB really no longer has any significance and the whole CD ISO idea can still be done in DOSBOX so all those ideas you no longer need to worry about. If it could have been done easily I still think it would be an enhancement. The performance of the XP Ramdrive probably beats any DOS or 9X/ME Ramdrive in performance. After considering all of this the "unique" feature of your Non-XMS Ramdisk is its ability to work with 9X/ME without stealing from the system arena memory region for people with over 1GB of memory is probably where it is most useful. I believe only your 32-bit Ramdisk is the one will only be useful for the system arena memory avoidance. The 64-bit Ramdisk just touches 4GB and above so it wouldn't be of any significant use in 9X/ME or help occupy the extra memory around the system arena. Yes but shouldn't this go against your moral fiber? If Microsoft says it's okay but for you it is not? Why would you be okay someone else doing it to another program? I don't think Microsoft said the license is for the CD key. I think they are selling to the original end user only when they came up with the licensing. Not that I personally care one way or the another about 98 licensing enforcement since it's a dead OS and MS probably doesn't care either at least they haven't done any crack downs on eBay. Programming these languages would be a killer since Assembly and C++ would require a lot of time to come up with the Code and Debug it. I leave that to you and if I overestimated what you could do it's only because you already have most of the working code and know it well so any adjustments would not take as long as starting from scratch and I assumed you were the best at it even for a super human. I'd help if I could but like I said before there maybe but a few dozen of your types still around and most of this stuff have long since been forgotten. I tend more to the hardware these days where it's more hands on and more enjoyable. Occasionally I will try and modify something to see what happens in software only if the need arises and yes it is extremely time consuming. But if I get the result I wanted I document it so I can repeat it later again in a fraction of the time and then move on.

I think you are conflating two different discussions. Jaclaz recommended a CDrom replacement driver program. Later I noticed it had the ability to create ISOs in DOS. There was a note from the author that the DOS created ISOs would not work in Windows. The author stated that any Windows created ISOs will work with the DOS program. Since I haven't tested that program yet I can't confirm anything regarding its functionality. Traditionally, I used the MSCDEX program which dates back to around DOS 6.00. I hardly used the CD-rom since I had a 1X that was donated to me and I think it used its own proprietary driver and was flaky at best if it operated. Now running a DOS booted off the CDrom using the 98SE disc would use the CD-ROM drive letter default. I haven't checked the default drive letter when booted off the 98SE CD and using F8. If it's A: as you stated you could still redirect the Command.Com to your C: or an actual USB floppy which would be accessed as B: if A: is taken by the optical disc and it was removed. The times I booted off a bootable flash drive it was always C: and not A: and never had the problem you mentioned since the flash drive was always inserted.