rloew

Do you even know the difference between an MBR and a Partition Header? FDISK and my RFDISK setup Partition Tables. The only thing using FORMAT X:/S/U does extra is a scan for bad Sectors. If you have all day or days, go ahead. It might be of some value of Floppy Disks, but Hard Disks generally use sparing to eliminate Bad Sectors so you will likely lose capacity using FORMAT. My RFORMAT does not have a 1.5TB limit. I also have a much faster Surface scan tester. It can test 4TiB in less than 8 hours. I also have one that can trigger sparing so the Drive is effectively bad Sector free when done.

No. I am replying only to your previous post. I was not referring to any specific program, just the description "DOS ISO". An USB will boot as A: or C: depending on how it is configured. The El-Torito Emulation will map a Floppy Emulation to Drive 0, as in the Windows 9x CD, a Hard Disk Emulation to Drive 0x80, or nothing if in "No Emulation" mode as in Windows NT CDs. IO.SYS maps Drive 0 to A: and 0x80 to C:. Only the ISO part is mapped to the CD Driver specified Letter. Some things default to the Boot Drive, it takes careful handling to avoid Boot Drive references.

"Discussion" is a form of pre-sales Support. Your questions went way beyond the normal range of questions and seemed mostly hypothetical. Practical questions are worth answering in a forum as they inform other potential Customers. But answering hypothetical questions are not. Who wants to bother answering questions from someone who is not a potential Customer and is not informative for other Customers. You reported possible issues with the Z170. I sent you tests so eveyone on the forum could find how if they are real problems or not. The uniqueness of my RAMDisk is described on my Website. How do you think I explained my "non-XMS" designation. My consulting rate is higher than that. Writing code for one bothersome Customer is all about profit. You are definitely not a charity case. A year was your idea, not mine. Testing copying ability with a Demo was not necessary. As long as the Memory block transfer routines worked, as tested by the test I sent you, all my prior testing is valid. I don't need any further proof. I don't know what you are talking about as far as a "break" in formatting Bootable 98SE Disks is. I make my own with my Patches built in. I don't charge for HIMEMEX. You got one free. It is a component for the RAMDisks and MEMORY64 API. The 64-Bit Support is still usable in DOS as it can provide much larger RAMDisks. If that is not enough for Z170 users, then they won't buy it. Your "improvements" won't change that since I don't think anyone else would care. AHCI and USB3 can be circumvented by using PCI-E Cards but I am not expecting a lot of Z170 Customers for my Windows 9x products. Maybe I will sell more of my XP and XP Compatible Products to them. Some Licenses specifically provide for on-demand audits. Your name and E-Mail address are basically proofs of purchase, or do you have a written receipt from me? If I accused you of stealing a Jacket, you would have to provide a receipt to prove your innocence and you would not be able to countersue for invasion of privacy. You would only have a possible case, if I posted the information on the forum. If you buy something with a Credit Card, you are already tracked and marketed to. A Copyright suit is not limited to the cost of an item, nor the development cost. You don't know much about Windows 98SE. It will not run if HIMEM.SYS or an equivalent does not work. I don't have to test it separately. I knew that DOS had a lot of problems with >2GiB Files. I hadn't run that specific test from DOS. I ran it in my RAMDisk and was quite surprised how fast it ran. A test you can't do with any other RAMDisk. I never said I didn't have a USB Floppy Drive. You misread what I must have said. You still didn't say that you would actually buy a separate copy of my RAMDisk for a 386 System when free alternatives exist. Legal Second hand CDs come with a valid key and are not breaking any License. Microsoft doesn't have a transfer registration requirement. I don't enforce Microsoft's Copyrights in any case. Apparently you are not a Programmer and have no idea how long it takes to write Code and Debug it. If you think it is so easy and fast, do it yourself. Last time I checked I was human. Sorry if that disappoints you. Good code does what it needs to do. It is not full of unneccesary bloat that implements features that would rarely be used. If you can't explain why you need to reallocate RAMDisks on a regular basis, or anyone for that matter, don't mention it again.

A DOS ISO is a Disk designed to run DOS. How it is created is irrelevant. It uses the basic ISO-9660 Format and may not include Joliet or other extensions. It will work in Windows but may not support long file names. Running a DOS system the way you describe it may not totally free you from the Optical Disk because the default Drive is A: so it may make references back to the Floppy Emulation part of the Disk.

Correct. RFORMAT writes all zeroes to the FAT Table except the two 3, 4, or 8 Byte Headers.

Try rereading what I said. It was getting apparent that you did NOT intend to purchase the RAMDisk. There is not much point to provide such a high level of support to someone who is not even a potential Customer. Only then did you claim to be a Customer. Only then did I ask you to prove it. Of course I would have refused to add your "improvements". A market of one is not worth it unless they pay full development costs. How often would you need to reallocate a RAMDisk and why? What about a more common user? The "additional features" are Windows 9x compatibility with >512MB RAMDisks and 64-Bit support. Neither is available elsewhere. This is my Market for the Product. $2500 only covers a few days of work. I would like to see you write one faster. Not all products are easily Demoed. Demo Patches in particular can be reverse-engineered and pirated. I cut back on Demos when some of my early Products were hacked. What kind of Demo did you expect. One that only allocates a few Megabytes maximum? You wanted to know if my RAMDisk was compatible. The Test Program proves it. The Test Program was not for general public use, just you and people like you on the forum. Most Programs don't have Demos unlike cars. Since the test passed, I feel comfortable in telling Customers that the RAMDisk is compatible with the Z170. No countersuit for privacy invasion would stand as no previously unknown information is revealed or improperly distributed. The penalty for Copyright infringement is much higher than 700McRibs. The Music industry often SETTLES for over 800 McRibs. You don't know much about Windows 98SE. It will not run if HIMEM.SYS or an equivalent does not work. I don't have to test it separately. I don't "allow" piracy, but I have to find out first and not all perpetrators are reachable. Why do you think I bothered to track down your copy? Licensing per Computer is very common, ask Microsoft. I seriously doubt that you would buy more Licenses for 386 or 486 machines when they do not have enough RAM to be a problem with Free RAMDisks. The ones I have seen suggesting a lower price were hypotheticals. I doubt they would have actually bought. Z170 buyers are not going to install Windows 9x, so selling my Patches at a discount is not going to increase sales. As I already said, a smaller market generally supports higher prices than a larger market. In fact, I could charge even higher prices if I developed fixes to make the Z170 usable with Windows 9x. I use DOS a lot. I still do not see a need to reallocate RAMDisks. Reformatting is more than enough. I already explained that the Video BIOS ROM only contains Code related to the DOS accessible VESA Modes and the PnP Function. It has nothing in it to support Windows. At best it might get you to the VBEMP level. You mentioned a year. I never said it would take a year to add your "improvements".

My RFDISK and RFORMAT Programs eliminate this wait. RFDISK is essentially instantaneous. RFORMAT might take a minute or two to write out 256MiB of FAT Tables. USB Hard Drives larger than 2TiB will not work properly or at all in DOS or Windows 9x.

In addition to all of the "improvements" you wanted, you asked an awful lot of questions about extreme cases. That is a lot of support questions from an apparent non-customer who wasn't even planning to buy anything. If you possess a Copyrighted Program you have a legal obligation to prove it if your ownership is questioned. Many businesses have been fined for failing to do so. I would also have a case against the person I sold that copy to for illegally distributing Copyrighted Software. If it wasn't so obvious that I had found the right Customer, I would have challenged him to explain how you got it. If a friend bought it for you, he is supposed to inform me to properly register the Software. Multiple copies would not be relevant here. You didn't ask me to do the Z170 test. You asked me for a limited RAMDisk to do the test. I sent you a test program instead. I asked for the test results because you did not report any results from either of the Test Programs I sent you. I didn't need your Instructions to test my Z87. I have been using the Z87 with Windows 98SE for years. Any past Customer could distribute my Patch so piracy is far from impossible. I can only put a stop to it when I find a copy. Anyone who links a pirate site here is immediately banned and the posts sanitzed or erased. It would be hard to verify your "positive" references if they were posted under different names. Your remarks about the RAMDisk do not sound like "positive" references. Since you need a separate License for each Computer, who is going to buy multiple copies of an All-In-One RAMDisk when they can just buy one for the Z170 and use two free ones for the 386 and 486? One copy of my RAM Limitation Patch can only be used in one Computer also. In this case that is enough because a 386 or 486 wouldn't need it. From the comments I have seen, people fall into two groups. Ones that don't have a problem with the current price and ones that wouldn't pay a penny for anything. Even on a 24/7 system, you still haven't explained why you would need to reallocate a RAMDisk with any Frequency in normal use. If you have to reboot even once a day, a couple of minutes doesn't matter much. If it took a year to implement your changes, I would have added two more zeroes to the estimated price. Sorry Jaclaz, 00007 isn't as funny. I don't work for minimum wage and I don't live in India. Of course emulating a Video Card under DOS is pointless. My point was that is all you can do with an extracted Video Card BIOS. You kept insisting that extracting the ROM was important to an Emulator. A Windows Driver or Emulator is a far bigger project and the ROM provides very little information.

Corruption would not be a problem as no tool is going to support a partition extending beyond 2TiB.

Your method works but USER98.DLL itself apparently failed to load. You will have to check it for missing Imports. Even so it may not be compatible.

You need the DDK and documentation for the Video Card itself. I have not seen much documentation on the nVidia Cards. Even Linux source code provides little information. They use a proprietary module from nVidia to provide the low level interface.

I wrote a Hex Editor using standard C calls. The _open Call fails if the file is larger than 2GiB. I already know that SMARTDRV can corrupt a Partition larger than 137GB. It uses Cache keys that are too small.

I initially did not ask you about your prior purchases. I asked you why I should provide so much support when I was not aware of any purchases and you showed no interest in buying the RAMDisk. Once you claimed to have purchased my RAM Limitation Patch, you have the obligation to verify your License. What positive reference. You seem to think it is inadequate. I didn't ask you to test compatibility with the Z170. You asked me. Having the Files does not prove you bought them. A pirate copy would have the same files. Identifying yourself in a PM or E-Mail does not disclose any private information about you that I don't already have. I said that unpatched Windows 98SE had a limit of ~1152MB and Windows ME had a limit ~1.9GiB. My Patch eliminates these limits. Who would buy my RAMDisk for a 386 Computer when the free RAMDisks are adequate for the amount of RAM available? Basic Economics would not recommend $5 or $100. Neither would maximize profit. There isn't a lot of crossover from one product to another so follow-on purchases would not make up the difference. The shrinkage of the Customer base for these products would tend to skew the optimum price upward not downward. It would only motivate me to move my efforts to other OSes. Deleting and reallocating RAMDisks may save boot time as you said many times, but you still haven't explained why someone would need to do so at all. It is not "common" activity. Other RAMDisks do not. Your ideas are of no help as they don't solve any problems customers would have. I already am aware of the AHCI issue. I saw it on a Laptop over a year ago. Emulating a Video Card ROM would only give you the modes supported under DOS. This is hardly useful for Windows much less gaming.

No. I was referring to the 2GiB File Size limit that most DOS Programs have. Larger Files cannot be opened by the normal INT 21 Calls. I think the extended Calls are needed. It appears that the COPY Command is one of the exceptions.

A Hardware RAMDisk is not going to run as fast as a Software RAMDisk. It is basically PCI or PCI-E RAM, rather than directly interfaced system RAM. DOS does not support files larger than 2GiB. He cannot link to my RAMDisks, only the Catalog page. Incidentally, I ran some tests. The Dual-Mode RAMDisk will work in a 32-Bit only System. It just assumes 0 Bytes of 64-Bit RAM.

You made the claim that my Patch has a limit in the first 1GB. There is no such limit. People who buy my RAMDisks want to be able to use large RAMDisks. Otherwise they could use a free one. Pre-Pentium Computers don't have enough RAM to justify my RAMDisks, so there is no point to support them. A Conventional Memory RAMDisk is even smaller and a HMA RAMDisk is absurdly small. You clearly do not understand how MMIO is allocated. You will not see 3840MB with a 256MB Card. You would be lucky to see 3584MB. Read the PCI Spec. The RAMDisks are TSRs so they cannot be deallocated. Most people use only one or two RAMDisks so your redesign ideas are of little value. Making it the "best" all-around RAMDisk was never my purpose and gains me nothing. There is no point in competing with free stuff. You still have not come up with a productive use for uninstalling RAMDisks. Reducing the price of my Patch is not going to increase sales by a factor of four. An AHCI Driver is possible. I have created Source Code for the Disk Driver. I said it is easy to extract a Video Card ROM. That doesn't make it any easier to Emulate. Emulating Boot devices requires a DDO style RAMDisk such as the GRUB4DOS RAMDisk. Thattype of RAMDisk is an entirely different project. Copying Windows 9x into a RAMDisk is a way of minimizing the impact of AHCI. Using a PCI-E SATA Card is a better one. MS-DOS 7 may have a problem listing a very large number of Files but it is not dependent upon the size of the Partition. I don't require my Customers to identify their MSFN Handles. Some volunteer this information or it may be obvious from the interactions. It has come in handy when I need to E-Mail them and their E-Mail has changed. You claimed publicly that you were a Customer and hoped to curry favor for being one. That nullified your claim to privacy. I never said that you have to reveal your name or E-Mail publicly. You gave me your name and E-Mail when you purchased the Patch. If you bought a jacket with a Credit Card, the retailer gets your name and card number. In any case, I was able to determine your name and E-Mail from the information you already provided.

Extracting the ROMS from nVidia Cards is easy but I don't see how much help they will be as they only provide PnP and DOS support.

How is he going to test his 4TB Drive when he cannot access more than 2TiB? H would need my Patch to access it. Neither internal or external Drives will work without it.

There are no limitations in the first 1GiB range with my Patch. The System Arena issue does not affect Physical RAM. Windows ME has the same System Arena limitation. I was referring to the same ME Patch. My RAMDisks are not intended for pre-Pentium class CPUs. A pre-Pentium Class RAMDisk would require a new HIMEMEX Driver. It still could handle any 32-Bit Memory available and still would be non-XMS. The same 32-Bit RAMDisk Program could still be used. So far your desire to deallocate or reallocate RAMDisks dynamically is strictly for testing purposes. You still have not proven a need, even for yourself, much less regular Customers. Developing a new design for a single Customer would raise the price to far more than the equivalent of 7 McRib Sandwiches. Try adding a couple of zeroes. 2K is the smallest FAT12 Partition. The smallest FAT16 Partition is just over 2MiB. My RAMDisks use FAT16 or FAT32. You can reformat the RAMDisk as a smaller FAT12 Drive using RFORMAT. It is not a true Floppy Emulation as it is not Emulating a Physical Drive, only a Drive Letter. It would be of no help with AHCI. You said you were a Customer so I want to know which one. Sending me a masked directory list doesn't provide enough information to verify that you are a Customer not a pirate. Since you have the Files, E-Mail them back to me. Unpatched MS-DOS 7 can handle 2TiB without any problem. There are other issues, but they are not dependent upon the size of the Partition or Drive.

Unpatched DOS 7 can handle 2TiB without any problem.

Maybe in the US. Not necessarily elsewhere. 7 McRib sandwiches won't last very long. My Patch still works ten years later.

PCI-E SATA Cards can be used with my SATA Patch.

I asked you to PM your info to confirm you were a customer. If you were not on MSFN that only explains why you didn't tell me then. You must like to operate a very limited system if you only use 512MB of RAM and apparently don't want to use Hard Disks larger than 137GB. Without the Patch to support CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, you cannot use the RAMDisks in Windows ME. The RAMDisk can be reformatted and raw copied to. I sell the 32-Bit RAMDisk and the 64-Bit RAMDisk individually so Customers can use either or both. The Dual-Mode RAMDisk is new and is not even available yet. I plan to include it as a free upgrade to purchasers who own both single mode RAMDisks. No customer get "screwed". I mentioned PSE to indicate that none of the RAMDisks will work on CPUs that are too old to support PSE. They all depend upon HIMEMEX. You still haven't explained why you would need to deallocate or reallocate RAMDisks dynamically. Your suggestion about resetting the 64-Bit Memory space is only the easy part. You still have to remove all of the Drive Letters from the System Tables. The Memory used by the TSRs cannot be recovered so you would keep losing Conventional Memory. 2K is the smallest possible FAT FileSystem. As you are aware, I chose a granularity of 1KiB for the RAMDisk size. You could reformat the RAMDisk with an odd number of Sectors if you wish.

You are way behind the times. It doesn't take many HD Videos to fill up a 120GB Hard Drive. I don't even see any new Hard Drives that small in the stores anymore. I have already broken the 2TiB limit. My 4TB Hard Drive is nearly full. My C:\ Partition uses 4GB out of 8GB and has no data stored in it. The Patch is for Windows 9x, not the Drive. I also have a DDO for old BIOSes.

I broke that limit over 13 years ago. You knew that already. FDISK can be used up to 512GB per Partition using percentages. My RFDISK can easily create up to 2TiB Partitions.