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Compatible Hardware with Windows 9x


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It appears that Hitachi and possibly others are selling some 2TB, and possibly smaller, USB Hard Drives using 4KB Logical Sectors. These Drives are incompatable with Windows 9X without Patching.

I just purchased a Touro Desk 2TB USB 3.0 Drive on Black Friday that did this. Previously I had only seen this done on USB Drives larger than 2TiB. My Patched System supports these Drives but others don't.

If more Drives come out using 4KB Logical Sectors, Windows 9X users will have fewer options for large USB Drives.

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Currently, Western Digital's entire line of Green drives are 4KB sectors. Previously, within the Green series, only the larger capacities were 4KB. The transition is beginning to accelerate.

You are referring to "Advanced Format" Drive that have 4KB Physical Sectors. Advanced Format Drives require special Formatting to avoid performance problems, but they are compatable with Windows 9x with the 137GB Fix. I am referring to 4KB Logical Sector Drives which are not compatable without my Terabyte Plus Patches. Currently only certain USB Hard Drives use 4KB Logical Sectors.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

3Com 3CRPAG175B

This is a Wifi PC/Cardbus card with the XJack pop out antenna, which is quite nice for older laptops without built in WiFi:

3Com_3CRPAG175B1.gif

This card sometimes turns up quite cheaply on Ebay, especially if poorly described :), but please don't pay $$$$ for it on the expectation that it will definitely work. If anyone else has it working or not after following these directions it may be helpful to follow up on this post.

Had a struggle getting it working on ME as the drivers seemed to have a .sys file for Win9x missing, in the end I guessed that the XP one was designed to work on 9x too but the .inf file hadn't been updated to reflect this.

So I got it working by creating a duplicate .sys file with the name referred to in the .inf file. I then found it wouldn't work with all versions of the 3Com wireless utility, but found one that's suitable. Tested on WinME but I expect it should work on Win98SE too.

The following files all need a Google account to download them, if anyone would like to mirror them please feel free. The first file is just the drivers, the second the Wireless Utility to go with them, the third file is a compilation of all the different Win9X and XP files I found for this card by trawling the web, in case it helps anyone.

3com_3crpag175b_drv1.1.0.21 Drivers only, renamed for Win9xME.zip 502KB:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B70D9EkoDo2xNzBCbnlPeXJjZXc/edit?usp=sharing

http://tinyurl.com/cyj82n6/preview

OfficeConnect_Wireless_11G_Xja_v.3.3.0.156_3crxjk10075_WW_24Dec2004.exe 2.80MB:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B70D9EkoDo2xYVRBQXZIbmFSYmc/edit?usp=sharing

http://tinyurl.com/asls4zq/preview

3Com 3CR175 3CR175b drivers and utilities pack.zip 42.4MB

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B70D9EkoDo2xbERncHVjcWtnUTA/edit?usp=sharing

http://tinyurl.com/agf5aye/preview

There's also a 3CRPAG175 version (no 'B') which I haven't tried but the above zip file containing some drivers which appear to include Win9x, so it might be worth a go. If someone does try it please post how it goes. :)

cheers, Pete.

Edited by smileypete
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The drivers are missing function NdisQueryBufferSafe :(

Do you have the card, if so have you tried it with the above files?

It worked fine for me on ME, used Opera quite a bit through the wifi. There's an entry for NdisQueryBufferSafe in the .sys file, looked for it with a hex editor.

cheers, Pete.

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  • 8 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Can Windows 98 works fine with 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+, ATI Radeon X1200?

I checked that my motherboard M2A-VM will work just fine with Windows 98 SE. :thumbup

The hard disk (80 GB) is fine for FAT 32.

Im only worried about the RAM, processor and video card listed above...

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There is no driver for ATI Radeon X1200. The driver ATI Catalyst 6.2 works up to X850. The universal VESA/VBE Video Display Driver should work, but it's a very simple one and does not provide any kind of 3D hardware acceleration (DirectX & OpenGL). http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm

An entry in the System.ini is required to use 1GB RAM:

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=393216

Also other values work up to 524288.

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So even my old PC is f*cked! :D But anyway I will think about the 3D hardware acceleration if I really need it because on this PC I never play modern games from 2004+.

EDIT: I'm preparing 3 CD's - 100 000 drivers one (95-Vista), CD with vital programs and the VESA/VBE Driver and Windows 98 SE Bootable. I will try to make this PC 98 friendly and IF needed I will remove the first RAM chip to decrease the RAM (my PC says 896 MB). After installing SP 3.29 I think that the limit will be destroyed. Stay tuned this days...

Edited by RacerBG
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  • 2 months later...

You forgot about the timing problems which stop Windows 95 from being usable on CPU speeds higher than 350 Mhz, and Windows 98 FE (and consequently Win95) from being usable on CPU speeds higher than 2.2 Ghz.

I don't really think this is true. I've been able to run Windows 95 on a Celeron 353 M @ 900 MHz with no problems. I do sometimes get a BSOD when I reboot after making a lot of configuration changes, but it's not that common.

Are there any Windows 95 drivers for an Intel 915GM chipset?

Edited by CamTron
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You forgot about the timing problems which stop Windows 95 from being usable on CPU speeds higher than 350 Mhz, and Windows 98 FE (and consequently Win95) from being usable on CPU speeds higher than 2.2 Ghz.

I don't really think this is true. I've been able to run Windows 95 on a Celeron 353 M @ 900 MHz with no problems. I do sometimes get a BSOD when I reboot after making a lot of configuration changes, but it's not that common.
True it is. But that has been solved by LoneCrusader, since then: Windows 95 2.1GHz CPU Limit BROKEN!

This is the second time the answer to your question is easily findable in the Important / "Stickified" / Pinned Windows 95/98/98 SP1/98 SE/ME Topics sticky, which you should read... :yes:

Are there any Windows 95 drivers for an Intel 915GM chipset?

Sort of... The unofficial SNAP driver should solve both your graphic and sound problems... here's the unofficial SNAP FAQ may be handy. The UniVBE entry at the English Wikipedia may be relevant, too.
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