Patched IO.SYS for 9x/ME

[jds]

I was hoping the updated IO.SYS would solve the annoying bug in Windows Explorer of having multiple entries for discs mounted in my CD/DVD drives but that's not the case, as those multiple entries still occur. And yes, the original Win98SE IO.SYS has a file size of 222,390 bytes while the updated IO.SYS installed by the 311561USA8.EXE update is 222,670 bytes.

Since this is a combined CD and DVD drive, I'm guessing one drive letter is for CD, the other for DVD.

Joe.

[Prozactive]

Thanks for the reply jds, but i guess I wasn't clear. I meant CD and DVD drives, not a combo drive. Any disc (CD or DVD) tends to show up twice in Windows Explorer for some reason.

[rloew]

Thanks for the reply jds, but i guess I wasn't clear. I meant CD and DVD drives, not a combo drive. Any disc (CD or DVD) tends to show up twice in Windows Explorer for some reason.

I have not seen a problem with doubling of CD or DVD Drives. I doubt that IO.SYS is responsible. There may be a problem with your Hard Disk Drivers. Try reinstalling them.

[dencorso]

Wait a sec!

Try this simple and reversible test: enter BIOS and disable all CD and DVD drives (set them to "None" or whatever).

Then reboot, start windows and tell me whether they still appear doubled.

[LoneCrusader]

For completeness sake, is it possible to get these bugfixes applied to the Windows 95 IO.SYS from Q185301 KB Article HotFix?

(I believe that's the last official version for 95, but I'm not at my usual "project machine" so I can't check right now.)

It appears to work for both of the Hotfix files as well.

Thanks!

@dencorso

I believe a slight change to this thread's title may now be in order

EDITED 12-22-11 - Reason For Edit:

Attempt to correct continuity of split threads

Edited December 22, 2011 by LoneCrusader

[dencorso]

@dencorso

I believe a slight change to this thread's title may now be in order

I was hoping the updated IO.SYS would solve the annoying bug in Windows Explorer of having multiple entries for discs mounted in my CD/DVD drives but that's not the case, as those multiple entries still occur. And yes, the original Win98SE IO.SYS has a file size of 222,390 bytes while the updated IO.SYS installed by the 311561USA8.EXE update is 222,670 bytes.

Thanks for the reply jds, but i guess I wasn't clear. I meant CD and DVD drives, not a combo drive. Any disc (CD or DVD) tends to show up twice in Windows Explorer for some reason.

I have seen this before. However, it is an intermittent problem that I cannot reproduce consistently.

It only happens when a CD/DVD is loaded, and sometimes ejecting a disc that's already loaded and reloading it will cause this to occur, sometimes not.

No, I don't think so. I'm quite confortable with this thread's title. What title do you have in mind?

I'm thinking, however, about splitting Prozactive's hijack (which nobody could know was a hijack until he tested the patch without success...) into its own thread.

I do intend it to be my *last* thread surgery for 2011! But I won't do it today. What do you all think about splitting this thread?

[Prozactive]

I think LoneCrusader means include Win95 in the title.

And I certainly didn't mean to hijack this thread, even though I don't think I did. It's not that big a deal to me actually, but it was the main reason I decided to update IO.SYS, in the hopes that it would fix the bug. My experience parallels LoneCrusader's except it almost always occurs especially if you eject a previously mounted disc. Windows Explorer will then consistently display duplicate disc names. A much more aggravating problem is that Windows Explorer tends to hard freeze and lock up quite regularly after initial loading, but that is definitely a topic for another thread.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Prozactive

[dencorso]

Thanks Prozactive! Title adjusted.

I know you didn't mean to hijack this thread.

And I'm not sure thread surgery is really needed.

It depends on how far the phantom CD/DVD subject proves to go.

The final Win Explorer for 98SE is v. 4.72.3612.1710... is that the one you're using?

[LoneCrusader]

No, I don't think so.

I think LoneCrusader means include Win95 in the title.

Yep.. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I thought it was obvious since I quoted the 95-related content beforehand.

[dencorso]

Well, I guess I wasn't at my best (probably too sleepy) when I posted post # 126.

My apologies if I came across somewhat rough, it really wasn't my intention.

I thought you meant to have the phantom optical media drives mentioned in title, while I was considreing splitting the thread instead. Of course you were clear enough. I surely must learn not to reply imediately when I'm too tired...

[LoneCrusader]

Well, I guess I wasn't at my best (probably too sleepy) when I posted post # 126.

My apologies if I came across somewhat rough, it really wasn't my intention.

I thought you meant to have the phantom optical media drives mentioned in title, while I was considreing splitting the thread instead. Of course you were clear enough. I surely must learn not to reply imediately when I'm too tired...

No problem. I was a bit miffed when I first read it, but after the confusion it just seems rather funny

[submix8c]

WOOHOO!!!

Finally got around to testing the rloew patch. (ref this. I am happy to announce that the "ghost" drive disappeared.

Several other patches included, among those the BHDD31 package (referenced here) and the 6-step SafeBoot "fixes". I manually "Hex Edited" the IO.SYS for both this and the SafeBoot, created/modded appropriately for SafeBoot, backed up the "old" files, and copied all necessary files "over top" wherever necessary (didn't want to start from "scratch").

However, for some strange reason, I'm only showing 1023MB RAM (probably some other setting either BIOS or "other") but that's a different subject.

Thank you all (especially rloew for his generous contributions, notwithstanding the others in said packages). Now on to installing Paragon's NTFS for Windows.

Post made on my 98SE partition, booted into using Grub4Dos, in FireFox 2.0.0.20 with (nunya) v1.9.9.61 Add-On.

As jaclaz would say, Happy Bunny!

(please forgive the harsh SafeBoot link comments - at least the "method" is now clear as watered-down mud!)

note: "mods" performed/checked from OUTSIDE Win98SE, so anyone seeing this, follow all given instructions

[rloew]

However, for some strange reason, I'm only showing 1023MB RAM (probably some other setting either BIOS or "other") but that's a different subject.

Windows 98's Memory Mapper is poorly designed. It fragments Physical Memory into separate pieces losing little bits in between. This appears to cause small discrepancies as you have seen.

This problem only gets worse with more memory, as occurred with the older version of my RAM Patch. The newer Versions eliminated this fragmentation and reduced the discrepancies.

[dencorso]

Moreover, without the RAM Limitation Patch, as you go beyond 1 GiB RAM, as is your case, submix8c, Win 98SE tends to oscillate somewhat in the amount of ram it detects, from boot to boot. It's not uncommon to see 1023 MiB, then 1024 MiB, then back to 1023 MiB. If you kick MaxPhysPage a little beyond 40000, then you'll always see at least 1024 MiB, but it will still oscillate around it. As you approach the maximum detectable memory (which also varies a little from board to board) it may oscilate in 2 MiB steps, instead of 1 MiB steps. I reported it here, from the time before I moved on to RLoew's great patch, but at the time I was just puzzled by it. Nowadays I know that's the normal behaviour of the unpatched MS vmm.vxd (even when you use the highest version available of it, which is v. 4.10.0.2226, for Win 98SE).

On rereading that post now, 4 years later, I can add that there is a subtle balance among the sizes of the Page File, the ramdisk (unless it's a non-XMS one) and the MaxFileCache sizes, that must be reached for the machine to work, let alone for it to work stably, which was elucidated by RLoew some time afterwards (see this and this).

All three posts I pointed to in this post are the result of original research, the first mine, the other two by RLoew, and contain information that, AFAIK, is not findable anywhere else.

[submix8c]

Reporting on Displayed RAM (not relevant to topic BUT since it's here, will post and "point" back to it elsewhere as necessary).

I hadn't tried the "Safe Mode" fix (described above) until this AM.

It failed with "insufficient memory to initialize windows" so I dug around, and only came up with the standard MS response about "MaxPhysPage". So I dropped it to "40000" (the "1gb limit") from "48000" in SYSTEM.CB and it worked.

(note: I had changed BOTH SYSTEM.xxx to "48000" last night)

Next, confused because RAM now showed 1017mb instead of the (yesterday) 1023mb, reviewed "Day to Day Running" thread and looked at xRayeR's configuration -

Was in SYSTEM.CB

[vcache]
MinFileCache=32768
MaxFileCache=106496
ChunkSize=4096

Was in SYSTEM.INI

[vcache]
MinFileCache=32768
MaxFileCache=261120
ChunkSize=4096

I also had a line in CONFIG.SYS for "emm386" REM'd prior so I had uncommented it (consequently no problem with Normal Mode).

Deciding to try xRayeR's, I removed the above two Sections and removed the CONFIG.SYS HIMEM.EXE parameter "/max=1048576". Rebooted to Safe and LOCKED! (Jeez, CLUELESS why it was there - not listed in the "Day to Day...")

I decided that using Xeno86' VCache.VxD may be the culprit (as it affects MaxFileCache) so I renamed it, and tried again.

Both Safe Mode and Normal Mode appear to function fine now. In addition, RAM now reports ~1143mb. Not sure whether any of the "changes" made will affect anything in the future, but Happy Bunny (again).

Thoughts on any side-effects?

------

Maybe I should have started a new thread called "Experiences with RAM/Large HDD/Ghosts Appearing-SOLVED" - feel free to split into a new topic if warranted/time. (Probably should with relevant link to here, I inadvertently clobbered this one).

Dencorso, maybe a change to my entries in the associated thread accordingly (including the SYSTEM.CB)?

Side Note - currently running System-II; a "new" Dell AMD64 Dual-Core w/1.5GB on SATA-II in the works.