Dave-H

That could well be it, I have always had my XP system set to 'large fonts' which is 125% (120dpi). Otherwise the text on everything is tiny at 1920x1080 resolution. This has affected a few programs in the past, usually elements not appearing in boxes correctly, but I have never had any problem with the large number of different browsers I've used on XP over the years.

Thanks, but this is actually installing on a FAT32 drive, where there are no permissions involved!

I did try that, and the first one just changes the shape of the tabs, doesn't change the size of anything. The second one did change the size a bit, but seemed to just squash things up a bit vertically. The overall problem didn't change.

Back again! Still not really getting anywhere with this I'm afraid. It seems that the warning about drivers is happening on all drivers, not just the ones for disks. That explains why it's still there with the original disk driver files reinstalled. I have no idea why it's putting up a prompt for all drivers, even ones which are said to be digitally signed. I'm thinking that the problem is probably in the bit of the message which says "not signed in the appropriate manner", but I've no idea what the problem could be. Anyway, I'm now trying with the Paragon GPT driver again, and I've run into another problem! The Paragon HFS+ program appears to install OK, as it did before, but when I reboot I'm now just getting a 7B BSOD (inaccessible boot drive). It won't boot into Safe Mode either, and the 'last good configuration' gets as far as almost loading the desktop, and then just reboots! Anyone any ideas? This did not happen the first time I installed the paragon software. The only clue I have is that when I tried a second time I didn't reboot straight away when I was told to by the installer, and in the event log there was an entry which said - "The HFS+ File System Driver service failed to start due to the following error: Access is denied. " I didn't think that "Access is denied" was something you often got in XP! Anyone any ideas as to what's wrong? As I said, it didn't do this the first time I installed it.

Thanks very much, I will give that a try. Glad to hear that someone has asked for that! It's something that every browser should have as an option without having to install an extension to do it. Yes. I'm aware of the middle click option, that's pretty standard. I really shouldn't have to remember to do it all the time though! I will look into the available extensions to help tab functionality.

That was my experience too, but be aware that some extensions may not work correctly if just moved from 360Chrome to Supermium. You might have to uninstall and reinstall them. Just a quick recap on my experience with Supermium 121 so far, compared with 360Chrome. It works fine, albeit rather slowly on my system. The main issues I have with it are that it closes the browser when you close the last tab, something that drives me absolutely mad! I have fixed that with an extension, but why it can't have a setting to prevent that, like 360Chrome does, is quite beyond me. Also, I don't like the fact that there's no way to get bookmarks and external links to always open in a new tab, as there is on 360Chrome. I guess there's probably an extension for that too, but why it isn't built in as a setting is again a mystery. It really annoys me when things keep always opening in the same tab. I would love to make it all a bit 'smaller'. It's all a bit too large on the screen. Yes, I can zoom websites to a smaller size, but the GUI remains the same of course. Changing the font size settings doesn't seem to do anything. It's certainly deeply linked to Google, as I guess Google Chrome is too. I'm not too worried about that personally, but I'm sure a lot of people are!

If this starts up again, this thread will be locked too. Back off please.

You can post them here for interest of course, but they really need to go directly to the developers on github.

Thanks, that's good to hear, although I will stick with 121 for the moment! I still can hardly believe that a browser with the latest Chromium version will actually work on XP. It's far from perfect, but the fact that it works at all amazes me!

Not here please, as it's off-topic.

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to look. I suspect that it isn't actually an individual file, it's probably hidden inside another file. I did look for disk.sys and scsidisk.sys with no luck.

That was really quite worrying, to see so much missing there on my system! It turned out that three of the four files which should have been in the \system32\GroupPolicy\Adm folder were not there! Only wmplayer.adm was there, conf.adm, inetres,adm, and system.adm were not. I have no idea why that would have been! I've restored them, and it now looks much better. I found the setting specified, and set it to 'enabled' and 'ignore', but again no difference, the wretched prompt still pops up when I mount a drive. One thing I have done as a test is restoring the three files I changed back to their originals, so things should now be standard. I was amazed (and annoyed) to find that the 'unsigned driver' prompt is still popping up! It can't be because of the files now, as they are the originals, so why is it still querying the driver?

'User Configuration' and 'Administrative Templates' are expanded on the screen grab I sent. The only options under 'Administrative Templates' are 'Windows Components' and 'Google' The 'System' option isn't under 'Windows Components' either.

As you can see, that option is not there on my system.

Off-topic, but I've still got my original PC, from 1993, so not quite as old as yours! I run dual boot Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.1 on it.

Thanks both. Yes, that System Properties option is actually mentioned in the article that @jaclaz linked to. I tried using it, made absolutely no difference. I couldn't find the GPEDIT option mentioned in the article, it doesn't seem to exist on my system. The nearest I found was this - It also made absolutely no difference, the wretched warning message still pops up! I guess it's because there are actually 'alien' files on the system transplanted from a different OS. When prompted whether I want to overwrite the 'alien' disk.sys file or not, the file it's offering to replace it with is a temporary file in the system32/drivers folder. This has a temporary name, and presumably it's renamed to disk.sys when it's copied. Where is the system getting this file from? Presumably there's some hidden system files database somewhere. If I can change the file there to the Server 2003 one, would that stop the replacement offer?

Thanks, but does the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider work on XP? All the documentation says Vista minimum. Is it actually a signature problem anyway? XP is just saying that the Server 2003 disk.sys file can't be verified to work with XP. Drivers which are just unsigned are not normally a problem, you can override that, and it's remembered, this isn't being remembered.

@Andalu @jaclaz Back again! I'm still getting this annoying pop-up whenever I mount one of the eSATA connected disks. I thought I had managed to get rid of it, but sadly not. I assume it's coming up because the disk.sys file was changed to the Server 2003 version, which the system thinks isn't compatible with XP. If I go ahead and install the driver it asks if I want to overwrite the newer disk.sys file, and I thought that if I said 'no' that would be it, but it's obviously not being remembered as I'm having to do it every time I mount the disk, and this is happening with both the disk connected to the Asmedia card and the one connected to the Silicon Image card. If the disks are already powered up and connected at boot time, it's fine, I don't see the pop-up, it only happens if I 'add' them while XP is running. Is there any way of stopping this happening?

OK, I think I'm happy with the configuration that I've now got. Sadly it doesn't include the Syba board, which has turned out to be rather a waste of money, but I will stick it in the loft for possible future use! If it can't coexist with the Asmedia board, then it's no use. I did try it along with the original PCI-E Silicon Image board, and that worked fine, but that's no good of course. What the problem is I can only guess at, it looks like some sort of resource conflict in the BIOS, but as the cards are on different buses, and moving the Syba card around to different slots made no difference, it's a bit puzzling. I can't move the Asmedia card, as it's in the only slot it can use. Anyway! I now have the original Silicon Image card back in, the Blu-ray drive is now connected directly to the motherboard, which is better for recovery operations anyway, and the eSATA card has the fixed archive drive and the removable internal caddy drive connected to it. The Asmedia card now only has the backup drive external enclosure connected to it. I will carry on using it in that configuration and see how it goes. Obsessively running chkdsk all the time might be not the thing to do. I will carry on using it as it is, and not worry unless and until I find I'm getting errors reported when backing up, or chkdsk starts running automatically because there are errors. Sorry this has been so long-winded, and drifted off-topic, and thanks everyone, especially @Andalu and @jaclaz for all the help, much appreciated! I will come back if (when) I start getting problems! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks, but there's nothing even resembling that setting in my BIOS. I have a server motherboard, so maybe they don't have such options there as they are more critical of correct configuration and resource usage and sharing. Thanks both, but I've now put the machine pretty much back as it was before, and restored a copy of the registry from before this happened. It still said it was unactivated, but when I tried a manual online activation again, this time it worked! Having had to go through the tedious business of reactivating Office on the phone when I changed my motherboard, I was very grateful not to have to go through that again!

Thanks again @Andalu and @jaclaz ! I'll say straight away that the following is now off-topic, as it's nothing directly to do with using a GPT disk in Windows XP. It has come about because of trying to do this, though. As a moderator I should set an example of good forum discipline of course, but I hope you will indulge me. Should it lead to a lengthy off-topic discussion, I will break it off into a new thread. As I said, the Syba card arrived today. I put it in the machine in place of the Silicon Image eSATA card I've been using for many years, and connected the internal archive drive and the Blu-ray drive to it. My first disappointment was that although both devices were apparently detected correctly, there was still no sign of the Blu-ray drive being available as a boot device in the BIOS. That I can live with, but there were two far more serious problems. The first, and most serious, was that the machine would no longer boot! It showed the BIOS screens of the two cards, first the Syba one, then the Asmedia one, and then just hung and won't go any further. If I removed the Asmedia card, it booted fine! If I put the Silicon Image PCI-E card in place of the Asmedia card, it boots fine. It won't boot with the Asmedia card and the Syba card in place, though. I've tried moving the Syba card to different PCI slots, and it makes no difference, the motherboard just hangs if both it and the Asmedia card are present. I then did boot up without the Asmedia card in place, and installed the Syba drivers for XP, which worked fine. I then went into Windows 10 and that found a driver and it worked fine. I then tried to go into Windows 98, and it wouldn't boot. It goes past the splash screen, but then instead of going to the desktop, it just sits there on a flashing cursor and then reboots. It will go into Safe Mode, and I used that to remove the old Silicon Image card from Device Manager, as I thought that might be causing the problem. No difference, it still reboots instead of loading the desktop. So, all in all, a bit of a disaster today! I've wasted quite a bit of money if I can't use that Syba card, but I didn't anticipate any of this of course. Just to add insult to injury, my Windows XP is now unactivated because I changed the hardware! I've put everything back as it was before, and it's still unactivated. Activation over the internet no longer works of course! Oh dear.

Wow, that is an amazing thing!

Thanks @Andalu ! Sorry, I did understand your suggestion before, it just seemed a bit of a long-winded thing to have to do. You're saying that I should use the Asmedia driver on the on-board Intel SATA ports? As the drives all work fine connected to them as they are, I guess this is just to determine whether the problem is with the Asmedia card itself or with its drivers? As I said, I've now installed a different Asmedia driver for the card, both on XP and 10, and it made no difference on either. That would seem to indicate that it must be the card, it just 'doesn't like' those disks for some reason. I made the 500GB disk as much like the 3TB disk as possible, making it a GPT disk, putting a single primary NTFS partition on it, and it's even a disk from the same Seagate Barracuda series as the 3TB disk. The two disks couldn't have been any more similar, apart from the capacity. The 500GB disk produces constant controller errors on writing (not on reading it seems) the 3TB disk doesn't. Apart from the 500GB disk being faulty, which I'm pretty confident that it isn't, I can think of no explanation for that at all. Anyway, I don't want to actually use the 500GB disk, so it's not really a problem. The important thing is that the 3TB disk works properly, but I just don't like 'unexplained' problems like that!

Thanks @D.Draker and @jaclaz ! I do need a PCI (not PCI-E) card with Windows 98 drivers to replace my Silicon Image card, but good to know what's available. My Syba card has now arrived, I'll let you know how I get on with it!

Oops, yes I must be going blind, it has indeed got two internal SATA ports! If the card I've ordered is successful, I might well buy that one as a spare! Thanks for the heads-up.