Drugwash

Why would you be surprised? Do you think hardware manufacturers stopped providind Win9x/2000/XP drivers for newer hardware simply on a whim? They always are in agreement and they never care about the end user as long as they know there will be income. Microsoft has to go, forever. Or there will be no more computing for the average user.

Considering your lack of computer knowledge (no offense intended), I'm afraid you would have to be guided by a knowledgeable person in some sort of live mode - be it over the phone or in an instant messaging connection. For the latter you would need a second working computer while working on the faulty one in real time. I'm not sure who could/would do that for you. Basically, what you need to do is: - install the appropriate chipset driver so the USB hub(s) would be detected correctly - remove any and all USB-related drivers in Safe Mode (the unofficial Service pack help file explains this in detail) - install the NUSB package so that most USB storage devices would be detected without the need of a third-party/proprietary driver The chipset driver may already be installed but better double-check. For the rest please read the uSP3 help file carefully, write down/print the instructions and then follow them exactly. It has to work. Just relax and confide in yourself.

Here's mine. Told him not to chew on the power wires but… Hahaha, don't worry, he's fine - was just sleeping like a lazy bastard that he is!

Since it's an AWARD BIOS you may try the 'advanced options' trick: hit CTRL + F1 once while you're at the main BIOS screen. If you're lucky there will be additional options available in certain sections and even new section(s) may appear (screen will briefly flicker). That may offer the possibility to tweak certain settings that are usually unavailable, such as ACPI. Also, when such problems appear it may help temporarily disable (if possible) any non-critical built-in devices such as LPT, COM, Sound, Modem etc. Once you get the installation to finish succesfully (again: if you're lucky) you may reenable the necessary ones one by one and hope to find drivers for them (and not hang again).

Well, as noted by PROBLEMCHYLD above some newer updates may break certain functions so according to specific user preferences there may be a need to back up a little bit and install an older update in order to preserve desired functions. Therefore having the complete timeline of updates would allow one to set their system up exactly as they wish. And there's also the historical perspective where one just wants to collect each and every piece that was ever released, not necessarily for a subsequent install.

According to some notes from January 2007 pertaining to soporific, KB835732 has been superseded by UCrypt9x. No mention about Q329128 though. If you want to look at the latest version of uSP3 maintained by PROBLEMCHYLD, open the link at the bottom of his signature.

Theoretically, even a beta product should be usable - especially when it's offered publicly - but there's always a chance for it to have bugs. Considering even retail products have bugs this kinda levels the things. Biggest problem you have though is that, on a failed BIOS update, if you're lucky you get a default restore option that only works through a specially prepared floppy disk and since your floppy setup is defective you may just remain with a bricked board (unless you can reflash the chip on a similar board through hot-swap or you find an external Flash Programmer board with the corresponding software). At this point I believe we can eliminate the BIOS software from the list of possible floppy fail causes. Maybe there still is an unusual combination of settings that must be achieved for the floppy to work or maybe you're extremely unlucky and all your related peripherals (cables, floppy drives) are defective. Latest possibility would be for the floppy controller to be fried, from a previous wrong connection or any other reason (broken PCB tracks, cold soldering points, detached components and so on). Dunno about SATA.

You probably need to update a (relative) path to the newer executable in some initialisation file. Never used PortableApps so I don't know the system used - it's just a hunch.

That may be as simple as building an additional module and linking other modules to it or just impossible. The logical path would be to track down the very first version of Firefox that implemented the desired protocol and compare the sources with the previous version, to find out the implications for the whole code. Then port the changes back to your version of Firefox. Then follow the changes through all subsequent versions until the very latest and notice any and all changes pertaining to that protocol and any linked elements. Then port back the cumulative changes up until the latest to your code. Then rebuild your version of Firefox, provided you can set up the proper development environment required by that particular version. Yeah, given enough time, will and ambition one may do that. But is it worth it? Can't answer that.

A better way might be to keep count on the offending applications and then launch them one at a time, either by profiling them in Dependency Walker or by parallel running an API monitoring application (I think there is an old one also built by Sysinternals but forgot its name). It's possible that one or more system files are outdated and/or mismatched. I remember an issue that resurfaced recently with missing rebar elements in taskbar after installing Revolutions Pack without previously updating the required system files. That happens because certain flags are not recognised in some system messages which makes those messages fail. Your case may be very similar to that, meaning you'd have to find out which libraries need updated and do that (after backing up the original(s), of course). However, if the offending applications are those run through KernelEx, chances are some system messages themselves are not the appropriate type (Unicode instead of ANSI) and/or use flags and/or parameters that are not supported even by KernelEx. But you'll have to find out the exact cause(s) yourself. Good luck! (typos again…)

Ah, don't mention it! Fingers crossed for our friend above.

You're welcome - just trying to help when possible. The download link for uSP3 is in PROBLEMCHYLD's signature, the last one, which leads to a page with another link to a different board with more information and the actual download links. For your convenience here it is the starting link: u98SESP3.x After download, when you launch the executable you'll be presented with a help file and after closing that you'll get the main dialog with all the available options. First thing is to install the core components. Reboot when prompted. Then you may relaunch the uSP3 executable and - if so desired - mark other optional components and install them. Otherwise stick with the core components and hopefully that will be enough. Before that, please double-check if the chipset driver is installed, as advised by submix8c above. Install manually if needed. Good luck!

I may be wrong but AFAIK the floppy LED only lights up when there's a seek operation, so it does require an operational data cable. If the floppy is selected as one of the boot devices in the BIOS boot sequence, it should briefly light up at boot looking for the boot sector. Maybe the BIOS has floppy A and B swapped (some have such option) - have you tried enabling both as 3.5" 1.44MB?

That may happen with applications built for newer versions of Windows that are being run through KernelEx and/or with the help of other system files updated to their Win2000/XP+ versions. But not only. I see the same behavior with a few recent versions of FastStone Image Viewer on my heavily updated 98SE, while on the same system certain 2000/XP+ applications such as Firefox 9 fail to show a taskbar button at all or until certain operations are performed (start/close other applications, minimize/maxime the offending application etc). I haven't pursued the issue so can't tell the exact reason or offer a fix, if possible. I can only suspect wrong/missing system messages or wrong windows classes that messages are being sent to.

Usually I let POP Peeper to deal with e-mails from most accounts but ever since I caught AOL doing this unwanted filtering I'm mostly using their web interface (old/lite one, to protect my metered connection and weak machine) because the free part of POP Peeper doesn't check/report the contents of the Spam folder. So I actually click their own 'not spam' button on their own interface, which should have absolute priority over any kind of AI they may have in place. Unfortunately I've migrated all my subscriptions to AOL after going through Yahoo and GMail and I don't feel like going back to any of them. I wouldn't even consider using Hotmail/MSN Live or whatever they may be calling it now. Usable alternatives (that allow POP3/IMAP) aren't available on my side of the world. I have to apologyze for the off-topic - I only mentioned it here because it all started to happen after I began following this particular topic and frankly I don't believe in coincidence.

- Double-check the BIOS to make sure the floppy controller is enabled and floppy type is set to 3 1/2" 1.44MB. - The FDD power can sometimes be misfit, leaving the impression it's connected correctly but it's not. Double-check that. - Also do find another (preferrably new) floppy data cable and pay great attention to the keys at both ends. If keys are missing, make sure pin 1 (usually marked in red) matches the board socket on one end and goes head-to-head with the red wire on the power socket (it's called 'red-to-red') - unless the power socket is fitted above the data connector, in which case you'll have to check the markings on the floppy drive's PCB. Don't rely only on the key slot, it may be placed on the wrong side. Remember: there are OEM floppies with non-standard data pins and (obviously) there are OEM data cables that match them, so if you have the wrong combination you may fry the floppy or even the motherboard.

Actually it sounds more like: […] I am a vegetarian and to me it is as if someone opened my front door, and threw in a dead cat saying "at some point you'll have to eat it!" […] I have an idea of what causes this, as it happens to me as well with my non-aol email. I think it is because many times I use email to notify me of certain things but do not necessarily read the email. For example, when I get an email from a forum, I then make a note to visit that forum. What I physically do is just delete the email. Delete emails from the same sender without reading them enough times, appears to trigger something that indicates those emails are unwanted and then end up in the spam folder. Be that as it may (although I rarely mass-delete them because they seldom come in bulk and I don't always log in to read the rest of them), there is a button up there that says "Not spam" and after selecting all MSFN messages in Spam I click that button. I did that too many times without any change in their behavior. Maybe it's me the stupid guy but when a person says "put this on the table, don't throw it away" then you put in on the table from then on. Why do they systematically throw it away? Not all of them, but some - mostly from this very topic. And why doesn't the same thing happen with the dozens of comments from the blogs I follow, when I sometimes mass-delete those after opening the first one? Maybe WordPress is more trustworthy than MSFN because someone told them so?

Why not? Ever since I first mentioned it somewhere back in this topic, many times each day I have to recover MSFN e-mail notifications from my AOL account's spam folder, despite my marking all of them as 'not spam' each and every time. They are all in this. The way I see things, a (personal) computer should be totally unbiased in regard to which operating systems would run on it. The moment they cripple compatibility at someone else's whim, that hardware should not be bought by anyone at all. Let the hardware rot on the shelves in stores and warehouses, let the manufacturers go bankrupt and maybe they'll learn it the hard way. Same goes for software: either they offer what we want/need for the hardware we want/have or we won't buy their garbage and we won't even use cracked or free versions of that software if available. We've been messed with for way too long.

First you would need to find a user/service manual for your exact model/line of Deskpro since there are many versions bearing this name - I have one myself but it's a Pentium II 400MHz (Compaq Deskpro EN400 SFF). The manual should tell you the supported FSB value(s) and the maximum CPU speed as well as maximum RAM capacity and type. Alternatively, open up the case, carefully remove any dust inside and read the markings and notes on the surface of the board. There may be a dip-switch block or jumpers that set FSB, CPU speed and/or other settings and from that you can get a rough idea on board's capabilities. A better CPU is always preferrable, provided it matches the board specifications. It all depends on the purpose intended for that machine, as older software and games may not require much CPU power compared to (relatively) modern browsers and other applications. In regard to video, a GeForce3 Ti200 (or Ti400) or GeForce4 Ti4200 would work just fine but I don't know if there ever were PCI versions of those cards. Finding a good, working PCI videocard today may be quite hard. Even if the board had an AGP slot, it would probably require a SFF (Small Form Factor) videocard if you have a desktop SFF case and not a tower case. Apart from that you might wanna check for a BIOS update at the manufacture's site, if available, in case the current BIOS version has a HDD capacity limit (many/most Pentium III machines at the time didn't have LBA48 support so HDDs would be limited to 128/137GB). Can't say much about the BIOS (recovery?) partition as I never had a chance to work with one. I recall Compaq had a set of tools for that purpose that might be available at their site - look through all downloads available for your model. But that would only work if the HDD is the original one that has the hidden recovery partition. Win98SE is the last in the 98 series (not counting Millenium). There have been a lot of official updates/bugfixes/hotfixes in time but they were pulled from the MS site long ago and finding those specific to your language (Swedish?) would be quite hard. Since the unofficial packs (Auto-Patcher for Win98 and uSP3) are both exclusively for the English version of the OS, in using any of them you'd risk at least a mixture of languages if not totally bricking the OS. So you have the alternatives of going on with the system as is in case official updates are unavailable or completely wipe the HDD, find an English 98SE CD and install it, followed by any other available updates for the English version.

Yes, that is possible too but something from my hazy memory says it's not always recommended - maybe because the HDD controller may be disabled during the update and certain pending operations may fail. Of course, it totally depends on BIOS type and version and may also be a thing of the past, but it's still a risk. I've done BIOS upgrades from HDD in the past as well as from floppy - can't do it now for a 64bit AMD Gigabyte board since it won't acknowledge the USB stick, HDD is NTFS with an NT-based 64bit OS and there is no floppy drive on that machine.

Certain BIOS update utilities do have command line switches that allow saving current BIOS before updating. Indeed manufacturers provide autoexec files but those can easily be modified to add the save option. Of course, manual operation can be performed just as well. The most important thing is to pay extreme attention to the motherboard version/revision number and any other important details when downloading BIOS update, otherwise flashing the wrong file can brick the board. I did that to one of my best boards (different BIOS image for different RTC chip, got it wrong) so I've learned it the hard way.

Thanks for the addition, Doug! Indeed, many times we do forget to clean the floppy heads. I still have a very old floppy cleaner kit which is nothing but a modified floppy disk with a paper disk inside that has to be moisted with isopropyl alcohol before usage. When such kit is not available, the (handy) user can open up the floppy drive and gently wipe the heads with a piece of paper dipped in isopropyl alcohol, which should be available at the electronic parts shops (such as RadioShack, presumably).

Check/replace the floppy cable, it may be defective or it may pertain to an OEM machine that has the floppy connector mirrored or otherwise nonstandard. Alternatively, make sure the cable is connected properly and you're using the 'A' end (the one with six twisted wires) in case the cable has twin floppy capability. Also double-check that the floppy controller is enabled in BIOS. Certain newer machines can update BIOS from USB but the function must be available in current BIOS. Read the manual for your board version/revision and BIOS version. Enable legacy USB option, if available. The stick should be formatted as FAT32 unless otherwise stated in the manual. Regardless of the BIOS update, AMI remains the worst among all, maybe even worse than certain old Phoenix. It changes boot sequence on the fly after (non-)detecting boot devices so with a flaky HDD drive you may well experience random lockups or boot from a different drive than expected.

If it's an AMI BIOS, you better check boot sequence twice - AMI is the most stupid BIOS logic I've ever encountered, which killed me many hours and brain cells. Alternatively check with Mr. Loew for more advices.

In regard to uSP3, you don't have to install the whole package - only the core components that are mostly MS updates/bugfixes/runtimes. The others are more or less optional components. Since you said that last time the computer came with newer versions of software, most likely the guys at Gateway Ireland had also updated certain system components. Core components in uSP3 may just be what's needed. It's an option to consider, not pushing or anything. Either way, good luck!