rloew

The Headset was just a cheap USB Headset. i am not a gamer, I just needed Audio. Until now. I just installed a CMI8738 4 Channel Sound Card and had no problems. Even unmodded Drivers can run a few PCI-E Video cards, only the INF file needs to be changed. Unfortunately Shutdown or stability problems occur with the ones I tested. Which one? Check the Ethernet Controller. It is one device where support varies from Motherboard to Motherboard.

@RFMaster Based on further research I have attached another program to read your APIC MSR. Run the program from Real DOS and capture it's output as follows: APICMSR >LOG2 Post the results. Apicmsr.exe

I wrote P6CPU.VXD specifically to run GOM. I thought about Patching to get the necessary speed. Unfortunately, CMOV Instructions are not easy to Patch. The required Code is One Byte longer than the original, so it cannot be done in place. Most of the CMOV Instructions are Three Bytes whuch is not enough for a CALL or JMP. It is necessary to replace more than one instruction. This makes automatic Patching very difficult. I added a Log to P6CPU.VXD to make a list of Instructions to Patch. I managed to Patch enough Instructions to get one Video to Work. It was fast enought to be useable, but other Videos needed more Patches. Unfortunately GOM has over a thousand CMOV Instructions.

I have attached a program to read your APIC Memory. Run the program from Real DOS and capture it's output as follows: APICDUMP >LOG Post the results. Apicdump.exe

I tried running GOM on my AMD K6 450 CPU using Windows 98 FE. Adding FineSSE to my WIN.INI File do not work. I ran "FineSSE GOM" but got a error after over 153000 Illegal Instructions and 7 Access Violations. My P6CPU.VXD works similarly to FineSSE but does it's job in Kernel mode. It can run GOM successfully but is too slow to properly render Video. FineSSE appears to be much slower as it ran for quite a while before it reported the error. Even if it worked, I doubt that FineSSE could be used with GOM.

My Partitioning tools can align Sector accesses to be compatable with "Advanced Format" for Windowx 9X. Western Digital provides a Partitioning tool for XP. @rainyd: I installed an AMD Athlon X2 6000 Processor and used DDR2 RAM. @Petekeller: I am using the built-in USB with Altec Lansing and other Headsets. Any Windows 9X Compatable PCI should work. I don't think there are any Windows 9x Drivers for PCI-E Audio cards.

[somewhat off-topic] @RLoew: Which Seagate HDDs are actually big sectored (Advanced Format)? Or, putting it the other way, which are still using 512-bytes sectors? Only those already manufactured? Which size sectors has a 1TB Barracuda LP? I once thought 4kiB sectors would be used just on 2TB+ HDDs, but it seems that's not the way things are. And what about Seagate SmartAlign? Is it any good? [/somewhat off-topic] All Seagate SATA Drives I have seen, including the 3TB drive, use 512 Bytes Sectors Physically and Logically.. Certain lines of Western Digital Drives use 4KB Physical Sectors Internally but only expose 512 Byte Sectors Logically. The Seagate Go-Flex 3TB USB Drives use a Bridge that maps 4KB Logical Sectors to the 512 Byte Sectors of the Enclosed SATA Drive. My Software can handle any combination of Physical and Logical Sector sizes, and can emulate the Go-Flex's USB mapping. @RFMaster: Did you install the VXD required for the MultiCore Demo to work? @petekeller: I have ended up using USB Audio on the last three Computers I built. Audio and Video are the two areas that Windows 98 Support is unavailable for newer Motherboards.

I'm very curious, how it was possible for you to install Win98 SE, using that relatively a new motherboard - it supports even six-core Thuban! Btw, you can download drivers for Windows 2000 and up only. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3396#dl I used the following: Windows 98SE Install CD. My TBPLUS Package for IDE and SATA. My RAM Limitation Patch for 16GB of RAM, with /M Option for Gigabyte Ethernet Memory Issue Patched Windows ME USB Driver Files. USB2.0 Driver Files from NUSB. RTL8111 Windows 98 Driver Added NVIDIA 6200 GS Video Card with 77.72 Drivers. Internal VIdeo Disabled. Added USB Audio Device. No Driver for Internal Device.

or i can do a Multiple Configuration Mode into CONFIG.SYS and yay, get the same result =P Not quite. If you select DOS then you need to reboot to go to Windows. I just type EXIT if I want Windows. Also Multiple Configuration Mode is not as quite as simple.

So what is your solution to break the 2.19TB limit? Are you actually using one of those recent 3TB hard drives? I have two approaches, both of which are in my TBPLUS Packge, that can be combined or used separately. 1. A modifed MBR to define Partitions starting above 2TiB. 2. Actual or Emulated Large Logical Sectors. I have a couple of the new 3TB Drives and have no problem using them or even booting from them. The Seagate Go Flex 3TB Drive (USB) works fine in Windows with the Patches.

I have already conquered the new Hard Drive Formats, so I am good to 384TiB. I heard about HP's paln to eliminate 98 support a few months before they did, so I did a full backup of their support site. After removing obvious foreign language and NT/XP code, I ended up with about 500GB of Files. I am writing this on a GigaByte MA785GM-US2H, I just built using Windows 98 SE. The BIOS is dated 2010, so it is Modern enough.

I use a very simple approach to running true DOS on my System I added the following line to the end of my AUTOEXEC.BAT File: COMMAND The Computer boots up to true DOS, so I can run applications or make changes. To go to Windows I only have to type: EXIT

So LBA2 doesn't contain any data or parameters - just code? When (or under what circumstances) does any of this LBAn code get executed? The Code is used when the particular Partition is booted from. Strange. In my general-purpose Win-98se folder (where I have a copy of all win-98 files, unpacked all cabs, etc) I have vfat.vxd, with a file-date 4/23/99 (the typical date for all win-98se files) - except that it has a version number of 4.10.1998. What improvement or fix did Microsoft do with version 2223? Does it also have this 1-TB bug? Under what circumstances does this bug manifest itself? Is it dependent or does it involve the number of clusters a volume has? IE - can it happen if the volume is less than 1-tb in size if the volume has a cluster size smaller than 32 kb? I checked my files. You are correct. The 98SE Version is identical to the 98FE Version except for the DateStamp. The 2223 Version (KB277628) fixes a bug in a File Date Setting function. It still has the 1TiB bug. The bug appears in some configurations when you try to access a Directory that is located more than 1TiB into the Partition. It is not affected by the Cluster size.

Is VFAT.VXD contained within Win-98's self-generated "master" driver (I forget the file name)? I don't see it as a separate file in this computers various c:\windows directories. I seem to have 2 versions of that file in my archives - one with version 4.10.1998 and the other with version 4.10.2223 (10/19/2000). Is there no version 4.10.2222 for that file ??? VFAT.VXD is compressed and inserted into WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD. Version 1998 is the original Windows 98 Version Version 2222 is the original Windows 98.SE Version. Version 2223 is the latest Windows 98.SE Update. I have a Patch to correct this bug.

Ok. What I did was to capture the first 3 clusters of the volume, first with the drive formatted using format.com, and second with the drive formatted using the Western Digital Data Lifeguard program (WD-DLG). I captured the first 3 clusters because I wasn't sure if the 3 boot sectors are stored each in their own cluster. If they're not, then I suppose that the 3 boot sectors will all be found in the first cluster, and the other 2 clusters can be ignored. I can tell you right now that there are some differences in the first sector between the two versions. The first two Sectors were enough. WD-DLG is flawed, it set the FS Info Sector Pointer to 0, it should have been 1. You can see the difference in the two text files you posted. The FS Info Sector is the Second Boot Sector (LBA Sector 1). Without a proper pointer, the Free Space could not be updated. I'm not sure how far FORMAT.COM can go, but VFAT.VXD has a bug that can cause lockups when a Partition is larger than 1TiB.

The long delay running the DIR Command occurs when the Free Space entry in the Partition's Boot Record is marked Unknown. DOS or Windows has to read the entire FAT Table to compute, and set, this entry. Not all Formatters set this entry to the actual Free Space. That would explain a delay the very first time (and ONLY the very first time) you perform a DIR command after a volume has been formatted. It wouldn't explain a delay that happens the first time you perform a DIR command EVERY TIME the system is booted up. There may be a problem with the Information Sector (Second Boot Sector) that is preventing DOS or Windows from updating the Free Space Entry. You would have to send me the Second Boot Sector from both a normal Partition and from a Problem Partition to examine.

The long delay running the DIR Command occurs when the Free Space entry in the Partition's Boot Record is marked Unknown. DOS or Windows has to read the entire FAT Table to compute, and set, this entry. Not all Formatters set this entry to the actual Free Space.

Perhaps attempts to create a volume using more than 268 million clusters (2^28) will end up with a modulo number of clusters instead - regardless of cluster size? I don't remember seeing any mask applied to the number of clusters in VFAT.VXD so I think it will compute the actual number. The problem is that when you reach ~1TiB, the Cluster numbers will be confused with the Bad Cluster and End of Chain markers. I haven't analyzed to code to determine what happens after that. My RFORMAT Program can create Partitions with any Cluster Size so I can run tests to find out more.

FAT32 by design is limited to 28-Bitl Cluster Numbers. This will limit a FAT32 Partition to 1TiB with 4KB Clusters. At least 8KB Clusters are needed to properly Support 2TiB. It may be possible to Format a larger Partition with 4KB Clusters, but it will get confused when more than ~1TiB of Data is written to it.

In practice you will see around 3GB of RAM as the last 1GB of 32-Bit Memory Addresses are reserved by the BIOS for Memory Mapped I/O. The remaining 3GB of RAM can be used as RAMDisk(s) using my 64-Bit RAMDisk Drivers. I have not found a PCI-E Video Card that works smoothly with Windows 98SE. The few that work at all, crash when you try to shutdown or have problems displaying Videos. Bearwindows's VESA Driver does NOT work with DOS Boxes so it is not yet a solution.

Yes. It is designed for Computers with BIOSes that do not support 48-Bit LBA. This is generally the case with Computers older than 2002. You can use the 48BITLBA.EXE Program in my Demo Package from True DOS to test your Computer. You will need a Hard Drive larger than 137GB to run the test. You will still need to Patch Windows to support 48-Bit LBA.

A word of caution if you decide to use Intel Application Accelerator along with a DDO. Make sure you don't install a DDO developed by Ontrack, as doing so will render the OS unbootable. They're incompatible with each other. Ontrack's DDO is typically included with hard drive installation software such as Maxtor's MaxBlast, Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools, or Seagate's SeaTools. RLoew's DDO (Bootman) will work with IAA. Some DDOs are very dangerous. They offset the Sectors on the Hard Drive. This makes the Drive totally unreadable in a system where the DDO is not active, even if the BIOS fully supports the Drive. If the DDO is damaged there is no easy recovery. This is why DDOs have such a bad reputation. Microsoft's ESDI_506.PDR Driver is designed to handle these DDOs, but other Drivers, including IAA apparently, generally do not. My BOOTMAN DDOs are designed to be compatable with other Drivers and not to alter the Disk layout, so the Drives can be used in other computers without the DDO being active, except the Encrypting DDO of course.

You have four options for using SATA Drives. 1. Motherboard or Add-In Card with Windows 9x RAID Driver. 2. Motherboard or Add-in Card (Not AHCI Only) with my SATA Patch. 3. SATA to IDE Adapter. 4. External SATA Enclosure.

FYI (a follow-up and "easy way" for you) -ResHack will export all RCData to a folder of your choosing - give any name you like to the "*.RC" file it wants to create. The largest file (usually) will be the ".CAB" - append that to the name (the name of the INF inside?), unpack it, replace what you want, repack it (MakeCab will do, I believe - you could use the CabPack GUI I've pointed out before), and re-insert this way - 1 - Select to replace a Resource 2 - Browse to Repacked CAB 3 - Give full Resource info as follows - "RCData : CABINET : 1033" * - Note - above is Resource Type, Name, and Language (you're smart enough to understand the reference ) Extracting the CAB as a Binary Image is simpler than extracting all of the RCData.

Agreed But I have no clue how to do that. I can extract the files and modify the .INF, no problem, but other than some quick reading about IEXPRESS, I know nothing about compiling an installer. Resource Hacker can replace the CAB file inside the Installer as well as change the Command executed.