bizzybody

I've put a 40 gig drive into a circa 1998-1999 system with an Epox EP-BX3 motherboard, updated with the last BIOS release from 2000. What's odd about this is that board never had a 4 gig hard drive size limit. It got updates to work with drives over 32 gig (and Y2K), then drives over 36 gig and finally up to 65 gig. http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/bios/Epox/EP-BX3/ I used FDISK from a 98SE boot disk to set up one primary partition and one extended partition with a logical drive, split 50/50. Not one issue with FDISK and the size of the drive. FORMAT from the same boot disk only wants to format 4 gig. So I got Partition Logic's boot floppy and used it to make a primary active and formatted FAT32 LBA partition on the first 50% of the drive. (The drive in BIOS is set to LBA, the default that auto detection set.) Then I copied the Win95 folder from an OSR2 CD to C: and during Setup scandisk says there's a FAT error and it must replace copy 1 with copy 2. Also, there's a huge "corrupt file", which I have it delete. Of course there's no "huge file" because all that is on it at that point is the Win95 folder and its contents. Cannot skip the "fixes" that are actually damaging the partition map, setup refuses to install to a drive with "errors". Get done with Win95B setup and go to check the sice of C: and it is... FOUR GIGS. WTH?! Supposed to be around 15 gigs. Are there replacements for format and scandisk that will see the true capacity of the partition like FDISK does? FDISK on the Win95B boot floppy also had no problems with the large drive. At least a replacement for scandisk I can put in the Win95 folder so it won't wreck itself while it's checking itself. I do not want to have to resort to a drive overlay program as I'm planning on setting up a DOS 7.1 system on the other physical drive which is only 1.5 gig and I want to be able to access the 40 gig when booted to the small drive. (Rapidly losing any sense of nostalgia I may have had for PC hardware of the late 20th century.)

Raise your hand if you've ever taken apart 3 or 4 Model M keyboards to obtain enough good coil springs to make one working keyboard. :-) It's easy to tell the bad ones, they either make no sound when the key is pressed or the *twing* sound of the spring buckling is lower pitch and quieter than a good one that snaps properly. I'd like to see how well one of those with its steel bottom and layers of steel inside would fare against various sizes of lead shot fired from a 12 gauge shotgun. :-) The shotgun packing goons chased Frank into an electronics recycling warehouse. Things were decidedly looking down, way down, for his continuing to stay alive and upright. Then he spotted his salvation, a box of old IBM Model M keyboards and a roll of duct tape! "Heh. Body armor with buttons. The keys to the kingdom."

That would be MicroHouse. They used to have a CD-ROM set and a printed book. The CD set had a hardware copy protection dongle. The content of the discs was uploaded here and there on the web a while back. 'Twas the WWW that killed that company after so much of their pricey content was available for free from manufacturers and other sources. Here's part of it, hard drives and controller cards. All obsolete of course. http://alasir.com/books/hards/ More nostalgia https://web.archive.org/web/20051223080930/http://public.planetmirror.com.au/pub/jumpers/All three volumes, in case you ever need to know the jumper settings for some old 486 or early Pentium or an RLL drive controller. There was another company with a similar product, but IIRC they started quite a bit after MicroHouse and had a smaller collection of information. Went under about the same time as MicroHouse. Ah! Now I remember, Total Hardware 99, the gzip file on the link above. The absolute best pre-Web support was Western Digital's. They had a dialup BBS where document numbers could be looked up and some drivers downloaded. After finding the document numbers you disconnected from the BBS then dialed a toll free number to an automated FAX back system. Had to use a touch tone phone to navigate the menues and enter the doc numbers. IIRC the max was 4 or 5 documents. Then you entered your phone number, hung up and waited for the system to FAX you the files and Western Digital paid the toll. The only cost to the user was if it was a long distance call to the BBS. Even better was WD had docs for many product lines they'd sold off to other companies. I got info on an Orchid VESA Local Bus video card from WD some years after WD was out of the video card business. IIRC I was able to get the drivers from whichever company currently owned the Orchid name at the time. In the years since, with old documentation and software so much easier to provide, many companies have or have had a policy of destroying everything the instant a product is discontinued. No docs, no software, no nuttin. "Buy our new stuff." Uhh, nope. Not when you won't even provide the specifications for this dingus that's only been EOL for a month and you'll do the same on the new model. I've even encountered a few that disavowed ever making a product and even the very existence of the product. One of the craziest was a monitor I wanted the specification on and the manufacturer said they would not provide the specs "because someone might want to buy one" of that model. Can't remember what it was but once I missed *by one day* being able to download drivers for a device. The manufacturer had just killed the product the day before and had removed all the info on it from their site, except a note that it had been discontinued. When it costs essentially nothing to throw old software and docs onto a website with a "Here's our old stuff, don't ask us anything about it. Seriously, we mean it." note, there's really no reason not to do that, especially when doing that shows old customers and potential new customers that your company isn't going to do the "Pi$$ off. Buy our latest stuff!" routine. It helps create good feelings (and $ale$) when people know that the info and software they need to use your products will always be available, even if it won't work with newer operating systems.

I'm going to pull this ISA Sound Blaster 16 PnP. Would likely work fine in an all ISA system or one without built in USB, or one where the USB IRQ can be manually assigned. I picked up a free PCI Sound Blaster 128, model CT5801 with original software CD. It's 'only' 15 years old, what kind of trouble could it cause... At least it has no useless IDE controller on it. Also going to wipe the hard drive and start over so there won't be any digital debris left from the previous sound blaster. No jumpers on the card. It's an Award BIOS but nothing new shows with Ctrl+F1. I tried the Creative Labs DOS configuration utility and the only IRQ it will allow the card to be set to is 5, which the BIOS also helpfully assigns (without giving any choice except to enable or disable) to the built in USB controller. Selecting the setting to disable the card's IDE controller doesn't work, if it did then IRQ 10 would be freed up for the Sound Blaster. The problem is the buggy early implementation of Plug n Play, specifically IRQ Holder for PCI Steering, which also gets IRQ5, or if a PnP ISA requests a different IRQ, the system will assign the same IRQ to PCI Steering. Also apparently buggy is the inability of this sound card to be set to a 16 bit IRQ or DMA. Another piece of the problem is apparently the BIOS cannot find the sound card during POST, but it does list the IDE controller on the card. I did update the BIOS to the last release from 2000. Could be Epox and/or Award didn't obtain one of this particular Sound Blaster model to ensure it was properly detected, or it could be Creative Labs not correctly following the PnP specifications. If I still had any PCI USB 1.1 cards I could try disabling the built in and manually assigning a non-5 IRQ to its PCI slot. (More half-arsedness common to that era, let you manually set *some* things so the ones you can't set can be automatically set to conflict with each other.) I did get both the sound card and USB working by enabling manual configuration in BIOS then assigning IRQ 5 to Legacy ISA. The problem is now Windows 95 will not shut down, it gets stuck at the shutting down screen and until it will complete a proper shutdown it will not save settings to the Registry to re-enable the gameport and the Soundblaster's IDE controller in Device Manager. Being an OEM model, the IDE controller (using IRQ 10) cannot be disabled so BIOS and the OS can't see it. If I leave it all on Auto in BIOS, Windows will shut down, but of course both sound and USB won't work. Yup, more of the same crap I had to deal with from the early PnP hardware lo these many years ago. (And here we are with Windows 8.1 and hardware still cannot be disabled *and ignored/hidden* in Device Manager. It just sticks out there with a red X on it.) That's why I preferred ISA cards with jumpers, because I could set the resources, then if Windows decided "No, I'm going to assign conflicting resources!" it was possible to force it into compliance via the manual configuration options. I called that "Jumper n Stay". Even better were cards that used a DOS program to change settings in an EEPROM. I don't recall Windows ever digging in its heels like a tantrum throwing child over any of those. "Oh, you want this IRQ and that DMA? Yes Master User, whatever you say!" It was much easier and quicker to manually set jumpers on everything (set them *correctly*) then install Win 95 and have it work the first time and stay working because there was nothing in the hardware to allow the software to ignore the jumper settings. Trying to get this old thing to work has been a trip down memory lane, one of the sections that detours through a dark alley...

I have an old Epox EP-440BX motherboard and an ISA SoundBlaster 16 PnP. To have the USB ports working USB must have an IRQ enabled in BIOS setup. The "Plug and Play" sound card tries to grab the USB controller's IRQ. USB wins. Even booted right to command prompt only, the DOS CTCU program says it can't be run "under Windows 95". It's been around 15 years since I last set up one of these Soundblaster cards and I remember they were a big PITA to get them to do the play part of PnP. I've forgotten whatever tricks there were to make them work correctly. This PC is going to be a standalone system for a CNC mill. Doesn't have a modem or network controller, just the built in USB, two RS232 and one LPT plus an AGP video card and the ISA sound card.

I tested it last night and surprise, the DOS software will run under XP and XP allows it to communicate with the milling machine, so I should be able to use a logging program for Windows. Edit: Well, not so much. XP kept butting in and cutting off COM port communication and a realtime COM port driver for DOS software only made the DOS software run really slow for a short while then freeze. So I'll try Win95 OSR2.

I have a small CNC milling machine from the 1990's. The only software available to operate it is for DOS. I'm going to setup an older computer with Windows 95b and see if the DOS program will run under Windows and control the mill. I did find one mention of a person running it in WinMe. I want to be able to capture everything passing to and from the mill while it's operating. The Animatics servo controller in the mill can be accessed via a terminal mode in the DOS software but there's only very limited documentation about its capabilities and commands. If the mill is operating properly, none of that needs to be fiddled with. The goal is to collect the communications data so that the mill can be controlled with modern CAM software for Windows and Linux. Moog bought Animatics and apparently trashed all documentation on all products prior to the purchase. If Intelitek (who bought Light Machines sometime in the 1st decade of the 21st century) has any info on the communications protocol, they won't release it. (I asked, answer was "not available".) Purdue University (at Lafayette, not Calumet) in the late 1990's developed their own software to control this Light Machines Corporation proLIGHT PLM2000 milling machine, but since it's been 15 years since the end of the CAD-LAB and the professor in charge of it retired a year or two ago, and archive.org didn't snag anything from their FTP server due to a robots.txt file (which expressly *permitted* archiving) there's pretty much zero chance of obtaining a copy of anything from that project. Unless one of the students took copies home and has had them in a box since 1999~2000, or someone back then poking around public FTP servers downloaded it and has kept it.

The TV is an old DLP rear projection one from the 90's. Through its S-Video input it will work with 640x480 or 800x600, both of which look horrible. 800x600 looks slightly better but I bet the TV is scaling it down to 640x480. It has a VGA input but will only work at 640x480 or 1080i. Absolutely no other resolutions will work. Nope, not even 720p. The TV does not have DVI or HDMI inputs. Is there some way to make an older ATi Radeon (Xpress 200) output 1080i TV resolution and scan rate?

The computer shipped with Windows 7 so I'm attempting to put Windows 7 back onto it. Setup can't see the hard drive. So I STFI and find that Win7 may need to load a driver during setup. WTH? I thought AHCI support was added to Vista and up so we wouldn't have to do this?! So I find the Pre-OS install driver http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/optiplex-780/drivers and Win7 setup loads it... and still claims there is no hard drive. I know the hard drive works. I connected it to another Win7 x64 computer and formatted it. BIOS setup in the Optiplex 780 detects it. Nothing wrong with the hard drive. The drive was part of a four drive RAID5 array, but I've had no problems with the other drives from that array in other computers, or any drive from any other array. Just format and it works as a single. But not with *this* Dell Optiplex 780 for some reason. The BIOS is A04, latest is A15. Of course I have to get Windows installed to run the update, but if the BIOS needs updated to be able to install non-Dell-OEM Windows... excuse me while I go over to a corner and think evil thoughts in the directions of Plano, TX and Redmond, WA.

I built an all new x64 8.1 box for a person who had XP for years. He'd like it to look and work as much as possible like XP's default Luna theme. He'll never, ever use any of the "apps" that use the new UI. All the software he used on 32bit XP runs on 8.1, upgrade was mainly for speed and due to XP being EOL. I've already installed Classic Shell, uxtheme and found a Luna theme but mostly all it does is alter the taskbar style and make all the window borders blue - but doesn't touch the style of elements within the windows such as the pretty much invisible vertical pane divider in Explorer.

I used PC Mover to copy some programs from 32 bit XP to 64 bit Windows 7. I ended up getting Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime with the other software. It wasn't tagged as incompatible or unsafe on the target system and is in Programs and Features as Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x86) It won't uninstall, I get This edition of the product is not designed to run on x64 platform. And continuing ends up with "installation failed" and nothing removed. Can I dig this thing out by hand or will I be stuck with doing a clean install and having to install everything else that I used PC Mover to save a lot of time by not having to install?

Doesn't work. Tried applying to the entire D: drive and to single folders. Still restricted to only being able to create new folders in most old folders and unable to save files into them - but can copy/move files into those folders after clicking the button to make it do it anyway.

Tried this take ownership Registry patch. It doesn't work. I get a command prompt with everything scrolling past, claiming success at taking ownership but it's not actually doing it, or at least not getting truly full and unrestricted rights. In any old folder that was created by XP, when I right click and go to New, the only option available is New Folder. If I make a new folder then go into it, the full New menu is available. Got a "nuclear option" that will actually work and change the rights on all the files and folders to be as if they were created with an acount with Administrator rights on the current Win 7 install? Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00; Created by: Shawn Brink; http://www.sevenforums.com; Tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas][HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]@="Take Ownership""HasLUAShield"="""NoWorkingDirectory"=""[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /c /l && pause""IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /c /l && pause"[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas][HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]@="Take Ownership""HasLUAShield"="""NoWorkingDirectory"=""[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a /r /d y && pause && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t /l /c /q && pause""IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a /r /d y && pause && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t /l /c /q && pause"[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas][HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas]@="Take Ownership""HasLUAShield"="""NoWorkingDirectory"=""[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas\command]@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /c /l && pause""IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /c /l && pause"[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas][HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]@="Take Ownership""HasLUAShield"="""NoWorkingDirectory"=""[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas\command]@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a /r /d y && pause && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t /l /c /q && pause""IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /a /r /d y && pause && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t /l /c /q && pause"

I installed 7 on what was my D: drive, XP was on what is now my D: drive. I get this problem with files that were created or saved on both drives with XP. It's a silly thing for Vista and 7 (and I bet 8 does it too) to not block a file from being opened, but to block the file from being written to by the program which opened it - but with the click of a button that same file can be overwritten by copying or moving a file with the same name into the folder. "Protection" that easy to override isn't protection at all, so why have it? It's like a bank teller not letting you walk in and get money out of your account while the vault has a back door with a sign that says "No Admittance" but there's a button below the sign that says "Lock is broken, Press Button to Access Vault". Which trick or hack for Win 7 is supposed to take ownership of everything on a drive? There's a Registry file I tried with XP to add take ownership to the right click menu but that only worked some of the time when doing clean installs then saving files off the old drive. If that didn't work I'd boot with a live Linux CD and copy the files. Linux ignores Windows' security settings as long as the files aren't encrypted. Password? Who needs a password? Boot up with Linux and you've blown the back wall off the vault. ;-)

I installed Win 7 x64 on a computer that had XP Pro 32 bit, didn't do a complete wipe, just moved files to be saved out of My Documents and other such locations then deleted Windows, Documents and Settings, Program Files and every file in the root directory. No trace of the old Windows or installed programs left behind. With Windows 7 I'm having a problem with some of the old files, especially text files, and some of the old folders where a program (such as Notepad) can open the file but gets permission denied when attempting to save back to the file it just opened. With folders I sometimes get a permission denied when trying to save files to them, hard drives in the PC or even on some USB drives used with XP. The login account has Administrator rights. I've also reset permissions on everything but it still does the same permission denied thing. With XP I never set any passwords or encryption on any files or folders, nor did I use compression. What do I have to do to get full access to my files and folders, especially ones that have never ever been in any location (such as My documents) that Windows provides any special security to - whether or not the user wants it. It's simply ridiculous to plug in a USB drive with an old text file on it, open it with notepad then have to save the file with a different name or even in a completely different location, then have to copy/rename it over the original, a feat for which I have to click a "Yes I really really want to do that." button to shove aside Windows 'protection' with Administrator authority. If I can override the security then it should happen automatically for such functions and clear off any old settings on the file or folder - unless the file is something critical that should not be modified except under specific circumstances. A many years old text file with a few recipes I saved does not qualify for that kind of protection. I would much prefer to have NO specific ownership or security set on any file that does not absolutely need it. I have many computers which I often move stuff among and this fight over who owns files get quite annoying - especially when it interferes with proper function of programs, like being unable to overwrite files they just opened.

Is there a way to use a Linear Flash PCMCIA card with Windows 7 x64? I picked up some old telecom equipment and plugged into one of the items was a 1993 vintage Intel memory card - and my MPC T2500 laptop with Windows 7 just happens to have a CardBus slot... (2008 and MPC hadn't gone to ExpressCard- when everything else they did was top of the line hardware) Plugged it in, ID'ed as an Intel series 2-04. Pre-Vista, Windows included drivers for these things. Why would I want to use it when it's very likely to only have a few megabytes capacity? Security through "My system has no slot to plug this into." obsolescence. ;-) Can't read things like a password file if you can't plug the storage media into anything. To think these cards used to be considered tiny...

I want a new, updated version of the KeyPro KF9000. It's a 129 key beast. In addition to the typical 104 keys it has an additional programmable function keys, programmable with the keyboard itself. It also has 8 arrow keys in a square with a Turbo button in the center. But wait, there's more! Additional keys in the number pad and an LCD display to make it a 6-function calculator. There's also a Prog key and another key which is blank and apparently does nothing at all. Connection is via ye olde 5 pin DIN AT plug, connected to a PS/2 adapter. A NiCd battery (charges from keyboard port power) keeps the program settings and calculator memory. The switches are mechanical clicky types, but don't have the quiet little *twang* of the buckling spring type. The final unique feature is a tilting holder across the top into which cardboard strips fit. On those strips are printed keyboard commands for various programs like Microsogt Word 5.0, Lotus 1-2-3 R3.1, Wordstar 4.0 and dBASE IV. There's also some blank ones. There's up to four commands for each F-key, displayed in black, green, red and blue. The Alt keys are black, Ctrl keys are red and Shift keys are green - thus the blue commands are for the F-keys without a modifier. (So why aren't the F-keys blue?) I have two of these keyboards, keeping one as a spare lest the one I use on *my* computer - the one nobody else uses, ever, should fail. It does have a few issues. The calculator can't send the numbers on its display to the computer. While it does have the large Backspace and reverse L Enter keys, the backslash key is occupying the space where the right end of the large right Shift should be. The Prog key is sitting between the right Alt and Ctrl where Backslash ought to be. The blank, no-function key is between the left Crtl and Alt. I wonder if that blank might be a PF shift, that would give it 24 programmable functions. (I've never actually used the programmable keys... I should at least set them up with Photoshop toolbox commands or something.) To modernize the FK9000 it would firstly need to be USB (but also PS/2 compatible with one of those adapters like). The next improvement would be enabling the calculator to send its display data to the computer. I'd also fix the location of the backslash key by putting it where it's supposed to be, where no keyboard made since the advent of the Windows keys in the mid 90's has had it - back between the right Alt and Ctrl. That would allow the large right Shift to be stretched to its full and proper width. I'd move the PRog key up next to the Esc key - and be sure to have the firmware coded so that merely striking Prog by itself does nothing. For storing the programming of the PF keys it could use an EEPROM or other form of NVRAM that can take a large number of write cycles. What wouldn't be "modernized"? No Windows keys. In the 18~19 years they've been inflicted on keyboards and preventing the production of my favorite key layout, I have very rarely ever used them. I never wanted them and don't need them. You want winkeys on the nex-gen FK9000? Program a couple of the PF keys to do them. Now onto dream territory... A dot matrix LCD on the calculator, capable of receiving data from the computer and also used for the local PF key programming. Making every key programmable. A built in USB 3.0 hub. And may as well have a color OLED display above the F-keys instead of using the cardboard strips. Make it hacker friendly! Bring out the key matrix to a port so it can be used with custom built systems or vintage computers. How about interchangeable cables for PS/2, USB, PC/AT and even PC/XT and Macintosh ADB? Adding an LCD beside the PF keys might make it too long, but that would have the possibility of programming multiple command sets and a way to easily switch amongst them. Having the PF keys automatically switch commands to the program with current focus would be extra nice. Switch to Photoshop and they're the toolbox commands, click to Word and they do things like opening and saving files or start a mailmerge - without the user having to manually do the switch. Such functionality wouldn't need the LCD but it would need software support on the computer. If I knew whom to talk to at a keyboard manufacturer, I'd try doing a Kickstarter campaign - at least to get the basic modernized model into production.

Ultimate is supposed to install the games by default and the status of Programs and Features indicates they should be installed, but they don't appear to be. I rarely do an upgrade install due to issues similar to this. There's almost always something that needs more work to resolve or repair.

I did all that sort of thing. Made no difference. 16 years is a good long lifetime for a keyboard.

I did an upgrade from XP Pro SP3 to 32bit Vista Ultimate. All the old software installed in XP works in Vista (Microsoft Greetings Workshop has to be run in Win98 comp mode) but the Games folder on the Start menu contains only a shortcut to Games Explorer. In programs and features, all the game checkboxes are checked, so where are the Vista games? The client is missing her Solitaire. If I'd done a clean install and had to go through all the file moving and software reinstalling, all the Vista games would be there. The Outlook Express account and e-mail imported automatically into Windows Mail without a problem, but simply installing the new games, not so much.

I plugged in a used Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard into a USB port to see if it was a good one. Apparently not, no response from most keys and others gave incorrect results, among them Backspace producing that box character with a pointed top. So I unplugged it and went to do something else... what the frell??? The keyboard plugged into the PS/2 port was acting the same way! And the mouse wheel no longer worked, right click menus were screwed up and it acted like the Ctrl key was stuck on. On to troubleshooting. Tried removing the keyboard and mouse drivers and rebooting. No change. Tried getting into Safe Mode. Couldn't do that. Tried to use System Restore to go back to yesterday but the Next button wouldn't work. Something must seriously be fouled up with the keyboard driver... so out comes the big DaRT gun. Hello? What's this? The keyboard misbehaves exactly the same way in that? So I shut it down, swap in a Gateway keyboard, boot up and all is fine. Dunno why the Tiger Direct keyboard failed, it was only 16 years old... Been using it since my first PC with Windows 98. Others have come, briefly, then gone as I went back to the TD. (But I still pine for the *perfect* layout that no keyboards have been made with since the advent of the Win Keys.) Just really odd that it went bonkers at the exact instant I plugged in that fancy pants, cushy wrist rest* MS Natural Keyboard. Now I'll have to try it again, on a different computer. *I have two that I know work fine, should get some thin glove leather to reupholster the wrist rests.

Thanks. Someone else gave me this link. http://www.sendspace.com/file/vjz9xa

The DLL is ConResEn.dll and the empty folder is __Samsung_Update. Two _ in the front. Likely location where the flasher would stash the bios file(s) if it would work. I found a Phoenix BIOS mod utility which extracts some files from it but also has several error messages doing it. Don't know if the files are simply not in the flasher or if the tool isn't completely compatible with this flasher. I may have to do a bootable live XP 32 bit USB stick with the laptop power management support* to see if it's an issue with Win 7 x64. MPC went out of business not long after the release of Vista. *UBCD4Win, ERD Commander/DART don't have it, thus the flasher refuses to run. Gah! Gimmie a bare ROM file and a DOS flasher program any day over this bolshoi.

BIOS flasher for an MPC TransPort T2500 laptop. http://www.mpcdrivers.com/sylvia/Support/Notebook/T2500/BIO001252-02_T2500_BIOS_04AG.exe That download is itself a simple self extracting archive that creates a directory, extracts its contents then executes it. Seems a bit pointless when it only contains a single file. It's that single file which Universal Extractor can't pull anything from. The desired content to be pulled out is a Phoenix BIOS file. Other MPC BIOS flashers on that site are also likely to be this way. I've tried running it on its intended target, an MPC T2500, and on other laptops, but it does not drop anything into temp except for a 64K DLL and an empty folder. Unless it's extracting the BIOS elsewhere or holding it in RAM, it apparently doesn't pull it out until it actually begins the flash operation. Since the laptop already has the same BIOS version, it appears to be written to not complete the flash, in an inelegant fashion by crashing with an error message. It can't be run on a desktop because it first looks for a battery with at least 30% charge, then it looks for a connected AC adapter. A possible helpful clue is the T2500 and most, if not all, other Micron, Micron PC and MPC laptops were made by Samsung.

I have a laptop with Win 7 x64 installed and need to update the BIOS, but the manufacturers BIOS flasher only works with 32 bit XP. I've tried UBCD4Win and ERD Commander but it won't work with them, no power monitoring. I haven't been able to extract or get the BIOS file to use another flash program. Without power monitoring, the flash program only gets as far as dropping a 64k DLL and an empty folder into Temp. I tried on another, different brand, laptop (also running 7 x64) and got as far as far as getting the window with the button to go ahead and flash, or cancel - and still the rotten thing had not extracted the BIOS file to anywhere - except perhaps holding it in RAM. Now that I think more on this, seems very odd that the flasher would run at all on "foreign" hardware yet fail on the machine it is supposed to work on, with the same OS. So without finding some program able to rip apart the flash program to extract the BIOS file, it either needs a CD or USB bootable live XP, or I'll have to swap in a different hard drive and do a complete install of XP just to update the BIOS. The flasher may also work on Vista x32, which was an option on this laptop. I haven't found any mention of Vista x64 even though most of this model came stock with a 64 bit Core 2 Duo and 4 gigs RAM. Win 7 was never a factory install since the company went out of business before 7 was released.