Marius '95

PCI ID consists of Vendor ID and Product ID (and some other, less important, IDs). They are shown on the first 2 lines for each PCI device, like this: Vendor 1011h Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) Device 0009h DecChip 21140 Fast Ethernet Adapter Command 0005h (I/O Access, BusMaster) Status 0280h (Supports Back-To-Back Trans., Medium Timing) ... ... If you installed the driver for that unknown device, did that fix your problem?

Does this new device have a valid PCI ID? You can find out by running PCI32 from here. If it does, install the driver. If it doesn't, click Next until it fails to install. It will appear in Device Manager as an unknown device.

My system takes more than a minute to start. Much more then a minute. I takes 20s just to load all BIOS extensions, and then there's the boot manager with a timout, and then there is a CHOICE.COM line in AUTOEXEC.BAT with a timeout and then there's a registry file to import, and then there are lots of drivers to load... Shutdown takes 8-10s because I set CacheWriteDelay=5000 to improve performance.

I'll add some more: - Three Finger Salute stops the execution of all programs. See if you can stop malware on XP before it installs... - Printing in black and white is far better. "Error diffusion" option is missing in XP. - You can tell if you have a virus/malware just by looking at the HDD LED. - It makes you smarter! In Win98 you have to use DOS commands, registry tweaks, drivers, patches, replace files, edit .INI, etc. It makes you THINK.

My objective is to run Win98 with no memory errors with 1GB RAM, all 3 controllers active, 512 MB cache, and no MaxPhysPage. I did some more testing and: - Using above configuration, memory erros occur only when the HDD is connected to SATA controller, NOT when controller is active but no drive connected. - I tried many different versions of SATA driver including v2.20. None solved the problem and there were no differences between them. Computer always restarted while loading ESDI_506.PDR. Using MaxPhysPage=2FFFF windows started but DOS windows could not be opened. - I tried replacing standard PATA driver (containing ESDI_506.PDR) with VIA Bus Master Miniport Driver v3.20b (containing VIADSK.MPD) and EVERYTHING WORKED!!! In fact, PATA performance is improved with this driver. Too bad I can't keep it - no DVD with this driver. Conclusion: there must be something wrong with ESDI_506.PDR. I belive this is the main cause for memory errors in (my) Win98. I wish LLXX was here... Does anyone use only SCSI/SATA drives? I wonder how much memory can Win98 use and how big vcache can be if ESDI_506.PDR is not loaded.

ESDI_506.PDR is not used for SATA. SATA uses VIAMRAID.MPD. Yes, I used all 3 controllers simultaneously: - PATA: 120GB HDD (Win98) + CD + DVD - SATA: 500GB HDD - RAID: 2x500GB RAID 0 When I activate SATA, a new PATA controller is detected but afterwards everything works OK. I didn't notice any performance problems but (because of these memory problems) I keep the SATA HDD as a backup drive and rarely use it. But I still don't understand why it uses so much memory... Are there any "generic" drivers for SATA controllers that I can test? Or is there any other "generic" PATA driver that replaces ESDI_506.PDR?* *I know about VIA Bus Master Miniport Driver. I can't use it. It's incompatible with DVD writing.

I'm using a computer with Epox EP-8KRA2+ and 1GB RAM. This motherboard has PATA, SATA and HPT372 RAID controllers. Last year I was using just the PATA controller. SATA and RAID were deactivated in BIOS. Win98 ran with no MaxPhysPage and 768 MB cache. This year I bought 2 HDDs and I activated the RAID controller. I had to reduce cache size to 512 MB to avoid memory errors. This week I connected a SATA HDD and I activated the SATA controller. Even with cache size set to 64 MB I cannot start windows! Now I'm using MaxPhysPage=2FFFF and I can't open any DOS windows. I read post #4 where oscardog explained vcache and system arena, and I read some articles on the internet about this subject, but I still don't understand some things: - How can a 65 KB SATA driver use so much memory in system arena? - I understand that vcache can use memory from system arena, but why having more RAM creates problems? System arena is a virtual memory with fixed size and address. And why does MaxPhysPage=2FFFF help? How does it affect system arena? - If vcache uses memory from system arena, can't it be moved somewhere else (private arena or shared arena) with a patch? - If Windows doesn't have enough memory to start, bootlog always shows that it stops at ESDI_506.PDR. Why?

Thank you. I didn't notice the new version.

Can you add SHGetDataFromIDListW ? Abby FineReader 8 needs it. Thank you.

I have Catalyst v6.2 installed and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP). I can't turn off AGP Read. I tried to turn it off from Advanced SmartGART but it is set back on when computer restarts. Can it be turned off with a registry setting? How?

I use DriveSpace. Not because I don't have enough space, but because I can create (or restore) a backup copying just one file - drivespace.000. It can be copied from Windows. If you decide to try this, make sure you have attrib.exe on host drive in case you need to restore a backup. Drvspace.000 is hidden and read-only.

Is that so for the Win98SE version of Scandisk.exe (143.818 bytes) and the version of Scandisk.exe for WinME (245.324 bytes)? I never used WinME Scandisk.

No. DOS version. It's true that most of the time, Scandisk decides that FAT #1 is good and fixes FAT #2 by making a copy of #1. This might be because FAT #1 is updated first and sometimes a computer crash occurs before FAT #2 is updated, not because Scandisk doesn't use FAT #2.

Of course, in the quoted text, Joep is making his case as to why DiskPatch is more reliable than NDD, and in the process also tells why NDD is better than SCANDISK. I do not agree. - NDD fixes cross linked files by truncating both files before the cross link instead of making copies like Scandisk. - NDD 2001 sometimes incorrectly detects cross linked files on DriveSpace volumes where Scandisk doesn't find anything wrong and the files are fine. Sometimes it finds a single cross linked file (a file cross linked with nothing else). I don't know about NDD 2002+ because I stoped using it on DriveSpace. - Scandisk DOES compare FATs; it just doesn't say it like NDD. I had errors like mismatched FAT copies and Scandisk detected and fixed them.

I edited desk.cpl and it works properly now. This is the private message I received. I hope you don't mind if I answer here. My bad english caused confusion. It is not a separate .cpl file. ATI tabs are added to the Advanced Properties page in Display Properties. Without editing desk.cpl, these tabs do not appear and when I try to close Advanced Properties there is an error: RUNDLL32 caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at 0000:7469726f. Is there anything else I can do?

Ah, the old trick from 98lite. I thought I didn't need Win98 SHELL32.DLL any more... Will try. Thank you.

I just installed SH95UPD and ! What a speed! Not just the shell is faster, but all programs! Just one little problem... ATI Advanced Properties Page doesn't load. I think it's because DllGetVersion is missing from SHELL32.DLL.

Scandisk in DOS mode works fine.

If driver update didn't warn you that you are installing an old version, then what you are trying to install is not recognised as a driver for your device. If you still want to install it, you will have to modify PCI ID values in the .inf file. Open HKLM/Enum/PCI and search for your wireless adapter. Write down the name of that key (VEN_????&DEV_????....). That's the PCI ID. Open the .inf file and search for some lines that have a PCI ID at the end. Find one PCI ID that is most similar to your PCI ID and replace it with your ID. Save the file. Now try to update the driver.

Both.

Short answer: It doesn't work. Long answer: I replaced scandskw.exe and dskmaint.dll. I didn't run the installer because right now I don't have time to test if the installer works properly. This Win98 is the OS I use every day and I don't want to risk anything. I tried to start scandskw.exe and I got an error saying that my disk is not properly formatted. This is because my C: is compressed with DriveSpace. I tried "scandskw e:" (my RAID partition) and it didn't work either. Same error as old Scandisk: not enough memory. Scandisk (my old version, and this new one) does work on a partition 100 GB in size formatted with 32K clusters. I advise everyone not to format large FAT partitions with <32K cluster sizes and not to use Ranish to format partitions - it usually uses 8K clusters . RPM is a great tool for partitioning, but not for formatting. About my 1TB partition and Win98: - Format - impossible in DOS/Win98 - Check with Scandisk/NDD in real DOS, impossible in Win98. Note: NDD is very slow. Scandisk takes about 4 min if there are no errors. - Defragment - impossible in DOS/Win98

Boot delay is caused by DHCP. Set the IP manually and boot will be even faster. Don't set a size for swap file. Works better without. I think that Toshiba utility can be replaced by other programs. Search the net for overclocking tools and try them. Add this line to AUTOEXEC.BAT: IF EXIST C:\WINDOWS\WININIT.INI TYPE C:\WINDOWS\WININIT.INI It will show you what "updates" are installed during reboot.

Just a question... How many files need patching to increase that 32bit file pointer? Can it be done? To Offler: I tried Paragon. You can't create files >4GB.

Romoved = Removed from Add/Remove Programs ? It may not be enough. I think the .inf file was left behind. Delete it.

That's exactly how I close eMule. But there's the other problem, with resources. eMule consumes a lot of resources and if some other program has a leak, the system will quickly crash. Some time ago I encountered a resource problem in OUT_KS.DLL (a kernel streaming plugin for Winamp). I wrote a message to author and he found the bug: an object was deleted but the resources were not released. It seems that WinXP automatically released those resources when the object was deleted, but Win9x did not. I'm not a programmer and I may be wrong. About helping the system be more stable: I like Win9x because CTRL+ALT+DEL really stops every running program. (In WinNT, programs continue to run.) Is it possible to modify this behavior and allow ONE program to run? That program could be an antivirus or some advanced task manager.