rloew

I have been building new AMD systems every couple of years or so. As they get newer more and more on-board devices become unuseable due to lack of drivers. First was on-board Video. Second was on-board Sound. Two years ago on-board Ethernet. With my Patches and added PCI cards, I have been able to run Windows 9x up to this point. I just bought a new Intel system that doesn't even have XP Drivers available for it. So far I have gotten the Hard Drive and USB 2 Subsystems working. My Multi-Core API is not working yet. There is no 1394 Hardware on this Motherboard.

Since removing the IDE Drivers allows Windows to run in compatability mode, the problem does sound like the SATA issue unless you also have the >137GB problem. I do not have a Demo for the SATA Patch, but I have not had a problem in any machine except one VIA based machine where I had to run it in RAID Mode.

I have Oney's book on writing WDM Drivers. There is a section at the end of many chapters listing specific issues relating to Windows 9x as compared to NT. In addition, I have found commands where the function calls were changed such as from fastcall to stdcall or a different number of arguments. Others have had parameters changed so they fail in Windows 9x.

There are two issues with backporting WDM Drivers. 1. Newer OSes have more WDM Functions 2. There are differences between WDM implementations between Windows 95, 98/98SE/ME and Windows NT OSes such as 2000, XP, 7 Etc. I have made some attempts to port USB 3 and HD Audio to Windows 9x. I was able to add the missing functions, but the Drivers still did not work.

Your ATA Mode may be "Native" Mode rather than "Legacy" Mode. This would require my SATA Patch.Unfortunately, I do not have a solution for sound.

@KRH You said "install" Windows 7 which means from scratch. "Cloniing" is not the same as "installing". Cloning may cause other issues particularly if you move or resize the Windows 7 Partitions or add Windows 98 in front. It would depend on the cloning tools used. If possible, you may want to leave the Windows 7 Partitions where they are and add the Windows 98 Partition after them on the Hard Drive.

If you are installing Windows 7, why switch to AHCI at all?

You can try installing Windows 98 on the small Drive first to see if it works and is worthwhile to risk your backup. You do not need to place the Windows 98 Partition at the beginning unless you do not have a Patch for the 137GB Limitation. Moving your Windows 7 Partitions higher up on the Drive may cause problems.

You cannot use AHCI with Windows 9x. Depending upon BIOS implementation you may get a Windows Protection Error before Drivers are even loaded. In any case there are no Drivers for AHCI. ATA may work. If it supports "Legacy" Mode you can use it directly. It it only supports "Native" Mode you will need my SATA Patch.

I added my 6200 (DEV 0221) to the 81.98 Driver Version inf File and it worked fine. There is no shutdown problem in this case.

Can you boot Windows in Safe Mode? If not, then the problem is probably elsewhere. If the message is related to the Hard Drive Controller, it will not reappear. The Protected Mode Driver is permanently disabled. To reenable it, you need to edit the Registry. Search for a Value called "NOIDE" and delete it. If the "NOIDE" value doesn't exist then you will not be in Compatability Mode when running Normal Windows. In this case the SATA Patch probably will help.

The "insufficient memory message" is a very confusing message related to the way Windows 9x manages memory. The Kernel reserves a certain amount of memory to handle the RAM memory management tables. If you have too much RAM (>1.15GB), these tables don't fit so you get the message. You need to reduce memory to 1GB, use a workaround or use my Patch if you want to use more of this Memory. A 1TB Hard Drive would be SATA which is not properly supported by Windows 9X. I have a Patch for this problem also.

Windows 98 does not match USB partitions found by DOS with those found by Windows. This leads to two Drive Letters referencing the same Partition. This can lead to corruption if both are written to. In addition the DOS based Drive Letter is not recognized as an USB drive so it cannot be safely removed. Since they both have the same signature, some internal data is shared causing crashes to occur if the Windows based Drive Letter is removed.To avoid these problems you must insure that only one OS recognizes the partitions. To prevent this you can do one or more of the following: 1. Disable BIOS USB Mass Storage support. 2. Remove or disable the USB Drive during BIOS booting. 3. Remove or disable the USB Mass Storage Drivers in Windows 98. 4. Use Windows Only Partitions with my Patches.

A Registry that large can cause problems. Try my RAM Limitation Patch Demo with the /M Option.

Even with my Patch, the maximum Swap File is 2GiB, smaller if Main RAM is larger than 2GiB.I put Temporary Internet Files in a 64-Bit RAM Disk. Swap can be put in a RAM Disk but I have had deadlocks occur if the Hard Drives Spin Down. XMS RAM Disks have the same effect as additional File Cache so they are generally limited to a few hundred Megabytes.

Mostly, although there have been problems reported in the Kex threads.But this still can put a significant onus on the user to figure this out especially when an installer is involved. My earlier DLLHOOK program which patches the same code as Kex. True, but writing code on a machine with Kex running can result in code that does not run without it.I'm sure there are lots of users who don't have or even know about Kex. I write my code to the unmodified Windows and then seek Kex compatability if I think there is an issue. My current version of DLLHOOK does work with Kex now and can add new features to Kex.

I also use Windows 98SE as my primary OS on most of my machines. The remaining ones runs AmigaDOS. Kex is fine for general users, but I would not describe it as suitable for a default. It is not 100% compatable with all Software and can cause problems for a Developer like me.

A possible problem with the Paragon Driver is that it's cache is not getting flushed before the USB Drive is removed. This can happen if: 1. The Drive was not removed safely. 2. The Paragon Driver does not work with the Safe Removal feature. 3. The Paragon Driver does not support Removable Devices. @Dave-H You may want to try writing to the USB Key then shutting down Windows without removing the USB Key. Then remove the Key and restart Windows.

I would not make that assumption if I were you. I don't run Kex except in one of my experimental partitions. Kex can cause incompatabilities with some programs. I prefer a clean system whenever possible.

I also think the bursty writing is due to caching. When writing to USB keys, the Key's activity light is continuously on even during the pauses at the use end. If you are planning to do a lot of transfers to an USB Device, you may want to lower the MaxFileCache setting and reboot before you start.

As far as I can tell, Windows 98 will run on any modern X86 CPU. The biggest problem is lack of drivers for the built-in hardware on the Motherboards combined with limited options for expansion.

No. Mine is an USB 2.0 drive. Mine has en entirely black barrel, not black and gray. It was preformatted with FAT32 not exFat.The part number is P-FD128BATT03-GE.

There are a few brands available locally. I got the PNY 128GB from Staples on sale for $44 US.

I just plugged in a 128GB Thumb Drive I got on Black Friday. It works fine. If a Drive requires activation or a Password, it is probably auto-running it's own encryption software, but the Drive can be used if reformatted. It is possible that a Drive has Hardware Protection, but then it would be non-standard and need a special Driver to be used.

The 128GiB (137GB) Limit does not apply to USB Devices in general. It may apply to very old External Hard Drive Enclosures not rated for more than 128GB, but this is a limitation of the enclosure, not the OS. Windows 9x can support up to 2TiB External USB Hard Drives. When Flash Drives get bigger, I am sure they will work also. I have patches that push the limit even further to 384TiB.