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98SE won't reboot with External USB Drive ON


joe tweaker

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I'll give that a test tonight, see what it does, before I start the surface scan.
I doubt the surface scan will be of much use. How about clearing the USB disk & then partitioning it into a single logical partition, 160GB is Ok on USB? My partitioning tool of choice for Win98/FAT32 is PartitionMagic 8.01, which can partition external USB drives.

My next step would be try the shutdown/restart sequence with another make of external USB HDD.

You could also check whether it's the fault of nusb, which I would doubt:

1) with your Acomdata USB drive connected, rename Windows\INF\USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.PNF to something like\Usbstor.inf.deactivated and usbstor.PNF.deactivated

New devices will not be detected by nusb anymore

2) go into Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager

select (probably under Disk Drives) the Acomdata USB drive -> click on Remove

3) reboot

4) install the Win98 driver from the Acomdata CD

5) reboot again, when your system is up again, plug in your Acomdata USB drive, Win98 should detect it Ok

6) shutdown/restart again, with the Acomdata drive connected: do you still have the same problem?

To re-activate nusb for installing other devices: just rename the renamed USBSTOR.INF & USBSTOR.PNF to their original names.

Edited by Multibooter
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Well, despite the error message, USBD is not a VxD, but a WDM driver. BTW, what version of USBD.SYS do you have in your system?

USBD.SYS 18,928 bytes 09/08/1999 12:46PM <-- version is 4.10.2224

98se restarts without incident when the Memorex Thumb Drive is left in a USB port during a restart.

Scandisk reports no surface defects in the first logical drive on the AcomData.

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If I get it right, the PC tries, no matter what the settings in BIOS are to boot from the external USB if it is switched on at boot time. :unsure:

If this is the case, it is possible to workaround the problem. :)

Which exact "crash" do you experience (are you getting a readable error - if yes post it EXACTLY as you see it - or a flashing cursor or j in the top left of screen or whatever - please describe it).

One can install on the external USB stick a MBR/Bootsector or loader that actually boots and then passes control to the internal drive.

Tests must be made to check whether drive numbers are shifted and a disk BIOS swap is needed or not.

This technique is used commonly for the "Install XP from USB" using grub4dos.

jaclaz

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How about clearing the USB disk & then partitioning it into a single logical partition, 160GB is Ok on USB? My partitioning tool of choice for Win98/FAT32 is PartitionMagic 8.01, which can partition external USB drives.

But I don't have PM 8.01. I haven't used PM since v3.0. I use BiNG for most jobs now,

but for some reason this AcomData unit causes EVERY system I've tested to LOCKUP

when it's powered ON outside of windows. Within a windows environment, it's A-OK.

But outside windows (ie, DOS and BiNG) it's instant system LOCKUP. So it appears the

only hope of resizing it is with a partitioning tool that handles USB from within windows,

OR removing the disk from the AcomData enclosure and installing it on an IDE cable

in a system with a newer BIOS than mine (ie, one that can "see" a drive > 128GB).

Unfortunately, I don't have such a system available whenever I need one!

On my ABIT mb it seems the BIOS detects anything > 128GB as a 128GB disk.

Apparently the BM6 BIOS also limits what BiNG can do, because BiNG would not

permit more than 128GB to be used when it partitioned the 160GB disk.

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joe tweaker said:

but outside windows (ie, DOS and BiNG) it's instant system LOCKUP. So it appears the

only hope of resizing it is with a partitioning tool that handles USB from within windows

Well you could always try the Puppy suggestion or maybe SwissKnife

joe tweaker said:

98se restarts without incident when the Memorex Thumb Drive is left in a USB port during a restart.

For me this result has placed the external enclosure itself at the top of the hit list and would trigger my getting another one as my remedial strategy to cure this ill.

Please correct me if I missed this in an earlier one of your posts but the Memorex flash drive is the only usb device that you have connected to your system (apart of course from the AcomData) ie have you tried your friend WD external on your system.

Good Luck

Edited by risk_reversal
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If I get it right, the PC tries, no matter what the settings in BIOS are to boot from the external USB if it is switched on at boot time. :unsure:

I don't think it is actually trying to boot from the USB, because if I do a Step-by-Step confirmation during a restart, it processes my Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, and loads all windows drivers before a BSOD appears. If it were attempting to boot from the USB drive, all these files would be missing as there are no files saved to the USB drive yet.

Which exact "crash" do you experience (are you getting a readable error - if yes post it EXACTLY as you see it - or a flashing cursor or j in the top left of screen or whatever - please describe it).

The exact error is listed in post #1 of this thread, third paragraph from the top. I went back and highlighted it just now to make it easier to find.

It appears more likely to me that this drive just isn't designed to work correctly OUTSIDE of windows. It refuses to "play nice" when powered ON anywhere OUTSIDE the windows desktop. ie, DOS, BiNG, or while windows is loading. This makes it all but impossible to use third party tools with this drive outside of windows.

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[Please correct me if I missed this in an earlier one of your posts but the Memorex flash drive is the only usb device that you have connected to your system (apart of course from the AcomData) ie have you tried your friend WD external on your system.

You are correct that I have only tested one flash drive and one USB drive (AcomData) on my system. I have not tested her WD Book Drive on my system as we live miles apart and she has too much data stored on it to "loan it out." But I can state that neither of her TWO external drives exhibit the issues on her system that the AcomData exhibits on mine AND on hers.

Edited by joe tweaker
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@joe tweaker

I misunderstood the symptoms, sorry. :(

Can you try running Chipgenius on the USB enclosure?

Here:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=4661&st=0

Maybe this way we can pinpoint the "problematic" controller, there may be a "manufacturer tool" available for it.

@dencorso

The one you found:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-s...-usb-drive.html

seems like a report confirming my initial idea (wrong MBR/bootsector and attempt to booting from it)

The one on the "mac" forum seems like it. :)

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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... seems like a report confirming my initial idea (wrong MBR/bootsector and attempt to booting from it)
When I clone the main 120GB HDD of my Inspiron 7500 laptop to a another HDD in one of the 2 drive bays of the laptop, and then put the cloned HDD into another nearly-identical Inspiron 7500 as main drive, the cloned HDD works fine, no errors detected by PartitionMagic 8.01 or Partition Table Doctor 3.5. But when I put the cloned HDD into a USB enclosure, PartitionMagic reports disk geometry errors (255 heads vs 240 heads) and displays the cloned disk as Bad, even if Win98 Explorer can handle it Ok. Partition Table Doctor 3.5 also finds unrepairable errors in the partition table of the cloned HDD put into the USB enclosure. Acronis Disk Director 10 finds no errors. The BIOS of my old Inspiron 7500 reports at POST the internal 120GB HDD as 65535 MB.

When I clone the main 120GB HDD of the laptop to a USB drive, and then insert the cloned HDD into another Inspiron 7500 as the main drive, the Inspiron will not load Windows and has an error msg on a black screen.

Again, as long as I clone the internal HDD to a HDD in a drive bay module, the cloned HDDs work fine as the internal HDD of another Inspiron 7500. But I never clone (or partiton) a HDD in a drive module for use in an USB drive.

This may be related to joe tweaker's problem, since he has partitioned the HDD inside his desktop, and then uses it in his USB drive. Maybe joe tweaker should partition the Acomdata HDD in the Acomdata enclosure, not inside of his desktop.

Edited by Multibooter
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PartitionMagic reports disk geometry errors (255 heads vs 240 heads) and displays the cloned disk as Bad, even if Win98 Explorer can handle it Ok. Partition Table Doctor 3.5 also finds unrepairable errors in the partition table of the cloned HDD put into the USB enclosure. Acronis Disk Director 10 finds no errors. [

This is interesting. :)

The 240 heads (WRONG :() value as opposed to 255 (RIGHT :)) should be related to the (in)famous 240 Head Int 13 Interface (7.38 GiB / 7.93 GB) Barrier

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/sizeGB738-c.html

Something that may :unsure: (or may completely fail to ;)) solve or alleviate the problem is using another MBR, that ONLY uses LBA, some hints are given here:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=2246&st=15

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=7468&hl=

AND

using LBA partitions, i.e. type 0C and 0E and NOT 06 and 0B.

jaclaz

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Something that may :unsure: (or may completely fail to ;)) solve or alleviate the problem is using another MBR, that ONLY uses LBA,

AND

using LBA partitions, i.e. type 0C and 0E and NOT 06 and 0B.

Hi jaclaz,

Great idea. For my next deployment of an internal main HDD to my old Inspiron laptops (in about 2 months) I will try to:

- clone the internal HDD to an external USB HDD

- then change the partition type from currently 06h [= FAT 16B greater than 32MB] to 0Eh [=FAT 16 LBA]

while the HDD is still in the external USB enclosure

- then insert the cloned HDD from the USB enclosure into another Inspiron, as its main HDD

In about 2 months, after my next deployment, I will post here whether PartitionMagic still reports a disk geometry error when the USB-cloned-HDD is inserted into the Inspiron laptop as main HDD. On the HDDs which I am currently using I don't want to try changing the partition type, I don't want to get into trouble now.

PartitionMagic v8.01 build 1312 cannot change partition types. Acronis Disk Director 10.0 build 2117 can change partition types, but does not list 0C or 0E in its partition type menu.

Paragon Partition Manager 9 (is about the same as V-COM Partition Commander 10) and Partition Table Doctor 3.5 CAN change to partition types 0C [=FAT32 LBA] and 0E [=FAT16 LBA]. Which of the 2 tools would you recommend for changing the partition type to 0E? My gut feeling is that PTD works better on partitions used by Win98 than Paragon Partition Manager.

BTW, I have been using in the extended partition of the cloned HDD a mix of FAT16 [type 06] and FAT32 [type 0B] partitions. Should I also change for the next deployment the partition type of the 2 FAT32 partitions inside the extended partition from 0B to 0E? On one of these FAT32 partitions inside the extended partition I am using WinXP. Or is it sufficient to change the partition type only for the FAT16 boot partition C:?

Another complication may be that I am using as boot manager on the Inspirons old System Commander 2000 v5.01 (on my desktop I have installed newer v9 for Windows Vista), which installs its own MBR.

@joe tweaker:

Did the partitioning of your HDD inside of the USB Acomdata enclosure solve your problem?

Edited by Multibooter
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