How does one go about using a flash memory device on Windows 95?

[Andrew T.]

How does one go about using a USB flash memory device on Windows 95 OSR2?

Mainly to satisfy my own curiosity, I borrowed a 256MB SanDisk Cruzer today to see if I could bring it to life on my computer with Nathan's drivers. I haven't yet gotten it to work (or even be detected by the system), though.

I do have the USB supplement installed. However, it wouldn't surprise me if something's improperly configured, or if I'm doing something wrong: I've never used USB devices on this system or any Windows system before. Any tips?

[Mijzelf]

Is the stick visible in the devicemanager? If it is visible, but has an exclamation mark, then you can try to load the driver by hand. Select properties, choose update driver, select 'No, select from a list', select 'Show all hardware', and point to the driver. I suppose it's called 'USB mass storage driver', or something like that.

[BenoitRen]

There are two USB patches, actually. There's the USB supplement, and an update. Both are on the CD-ROM.

After that it should detect new hardware when you insert it, and then you point to the drivers.

[jaclaz]

Just in case, alternate drivers to try are Maximus Decim's:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Maximum-Decim-Na...USB-t43605.html

Generic one:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Generic-98-USB-d...-me-t99220.html

jaclaz

[dencorso]

Give a close look into PassingBy's posts inside Maximum Decim's NUSB thread. If I remember right he was working on generic support for Win 95.

[BenoitRen]

NUSB doesn't work on Windows 95, and likely never will.

PassingBy is making an attempt, but when I tested months ago it didn't work so well.

[sp193]

Please make sure that the disk is not NTFS formatted. Win9x cannot read NTFS disks without 3rd party tools.

[Andrew T.]

Hi all,

It seems that something had been borked up with my drivers. After fiddling with the Device Manager a bit, the computer started picking up the USB hardware and memory stick. Thanks for the tips, in any case: Things work like a charm now, and I can access files from the device.

[Andrew T.]

Just another thought:

Is there any upper limit to the capacity of flash drives that remain compatible with Windows 95?

[Joseph_sw]

Is there any upper limit to the capacity of flash drives that remain compatible with Windows 95?

usualy,

fat16 will define the limit

on 32KB per cluster that would be around 2GB.

Edited November 18, 2008 by Joseph_sw

[Mijzelf]

W95 OSR2 supports FAT32. So theoretically the first limit is 2 TiB. (At 2TiB you've got 2^32 sectors on the Mass Storage Device)

[BenoitRen]

I recall hearing about compatibility problems on all OSs with flash drives larger (or starting at?) 2 GB because of a change in the standard to accomodate this size.

[Mijzelf]

AFAIK that is only for SD cards, and the problem is the cardreader, not the OS. For the OS the same driver (USB mass storage) is used for both flash memory and external harddisks. So a 2GB limit would be very inconvenient.

[erpdude8]

NUSB doesn't work on Windows 95, and likely never will.

PassingBy is making an attempt, but when I tested months ago it didn't work so well.

and still haven't made any subsequent attempts for PassingBy to update his USB storage pack which is still in beta and not reliable enough to recommend using them.

Better off using Nathan's usb storage drivers which worked with my Sony MicroVault 4GB USB Flash drive (fat32 formatted) & my cousin's old eMachine computer with Win95 SR2.5.

There are two USB patches, actually. There's the USB supplement, and an update. Both are on the CD-ROM.

After that it should detect new hardware when you insert it, and then you point to the drivers.

Only the OSR2.1 and OSR2.5 CDs have the USB supplement and the USB patches. Some OSR2 CDs don't contain them.

No matter. For those that don't have the OSR2.x CD's you can download the required USB support supplement packs/patches

at the USBMan sites:

http://www.usbman.com/WebDrivers/Win95USB%...ate/usbsupp.zip

http://www.usbman.com/WebDrivers/Win95USB%...ate/usbupd2.zip

This one is optional but installing USBQFE from MDGx's web site can iron out some bugs with Win95's USB support:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/USBQFE.EXE

(install USB supplement pack first before installing USBQFE)

Edited November 21, 2008 by erpdude8

[BenoitRen]

Some OSR2 CDs don't contain them.

Some? According to Nathan Lineback, the only difference between OSR 2.0 and OSR 2.1 is that the USB updates are on the CD of the latter.