SDHC & micro-SDHC card readers are essential add-ons for Win98
SDHC cards are removable media, comparable to Jaz, zip and plain floppy disks, in sizes currently from 1-32GB. Now is the last moment to buy card readers which have manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers, eventually they will be gone. I don't expect large capacity USB-sticks with manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers to be available in 1-2 years, but SDHC cards for your Win98-compatible card reader will be around for many more years. The media wears out, maybe after writing 10.000 times the capacity of the card/stick.

How to buy an SDHC card reader for Win98
1) The box of the card reader MUST have the logo "SD HC ready", otherwise the reader will probably not work with cards >2GB. SDHC is a different format, it is not SD 1.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card The websites usually do not indicate whether a card reader is SDHC ready or not, you have to look at the box in the store.

2) The box should also list Win98SE as system requirement, but this is not reliable: the manufacturer-provided drivers of most SDHC card readers described as for Win98 wouldn't work. It is amazing how many models come in boxes with "Windows 98" printed as system requirement, but then the provided driver doesn't work. When manufacturers started to switch over some time ago to SDHC-compatible chips, they may have put the new chips into the same old enclosures and boxes, which still said "Windows 98". The hama 55310 for example has V1, V2 and V3, each with a different chip inside.

3) An included mini-CD, with the Win98 driver on it, is the best indication that the card reader works under Win98. But careful: one card reader came with a mini-CD, but had only software on it, not a Win98 driver

4) Multi-card or single-card reader? A multi-card reader has several slots and uses up several drive letters (in most cases 4), so you may only want to own one. Single-card readers, on the other hand, use only one drive letter and usually have only one slot. You may want to own several single-card readers, but all different models/makes (exactly: different VID/PID), so that you can use them at the same time, as additional storage media. 32 GB SDHC cards, for example, are still substantially more expensive than 2x16GB SDHC cards, so using 2 single-card readers may save you money. The MSI card reader is a hybrid, it has several slots for different types of cards, but it uses up only a single drive letter, the best solution because drive letters get scarce if you use many partitions and USB mass storage devices.

List of Top Card Readers (SDHC compatible, working manufacturer-provided drivers for Win98SE)
1) MSI StarReader mini II (single-card reader) VID=04CF PID=9920 (Myson Century)
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=pr...mp;prod_no=1161 , which comes with a very handy USB extension cable and can also accept SIM cards of your mobile phone. It also includes SIM card editing software (under WinXP). It is a single card reader, with 5 slots for different card types. It's sturdy, the big metal ring around it can be removed easily. The MSI Win98 driver on the mini-CD also includes an Adaptec ASPI Installer. Currently my TOP CHOICE as a single-card reader.

2) hama Easy Line 55745 (multi-card reader with built-in USB hub) VID=05E3 PID=070E (Genesys)
Not listed at the hama website.
The Genesys driver of the card reader adds 4 drive letters to My Computer, each one nicely identifyable by specially marked 2-state-icons (card inserted/no card) CF, SM, SD and MS. You easily get around a multiple-drive-letter bug, which occurs only when you use other Genesys-driven USB devices, by plugging them into the built-in hub (the cause of the bug is unclear, it may be a MS Windows bug or a bug of the Genesys driver). Very sturdy construction. The Genesys driver has its own safely-remove-utility in the system tray. The hama 55745 complements the MSI card reader very nicely (SmartMedia, CompactFlash).

3) Wintech CardReader SR-06 (single-card reader)
2 identical-looking models but with different chips inside, VID=05E3 PID=0717 and VID=05E3 PID=0723 (both Genesys)
http://www.wintech-products.de/index.php?listing=7
The Win98 driver from their website didn't work, use the Genesys driver from the Toolbox, with manually updated VID/PID
Pro: sturdy construction; 2-state-icons of Genesys driver. Cons: It does not have a protective enclosure of the inserted SDHC card; the SDHC card is inserted at the side of the reader, instead of at the back and may block the USB connector next to it; you have to manually add 2 lines to the .inf driver file.

Toolbox for SDHC cards
1) Panasonic SD Formatter v2.0.0.3 (for WinXP, does not work under Win98SE)
To restore an elsewhere formatted card to a fast, near-original factory condition, especially after having used other partitioning and formatting software. Can be downloaded from http://panasonic.jp/support/audio/sd/downl...tp/sdfv2003.exe The Panasonic Formatter creates a single partition on SD/SDHC cards and formats it, only very few choices possible.

2) Manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers (alphabetically by chip manufacturer):
Alcor http://www.emtec-international.com/drivers.../k101_win98.zip
Genesys http://www.hama.de/webresources/drivers/00...350_win98me.exe
Myson Century http://download1.msi.com.tw/files/download...mini2_Win98.zip
Realtek Semiconductor http://www.cnsupport.de/files/de/treiber/w...ader/popart.zip
US Best no download location found yet (I wasn't looking), driver is on the mini-CD which came with the multi-card reader hama 55350 with the SN 32822630800 on the box

3) ChipGenius v2.64 (for WinXP, does not work under Win98)
Displays info about USB devices including SD/SDHC card readers, incl. Vendor ID, Product ID, USB serial number. The displayed Vendor ID and Product ID may be used to manually update .INF files of manufacturer-provided drivers. For some card readers it identifies the chip used. Does not tell whether a card reader works with SDHC or just with SD cards. Very handy for documenting your card readers: in contrast to ListUsbDrives v1.7.8, the displayed info can be transferred into your notes with copy & paste. No installation, just double-click on the .exe Download location: http://www.mydigit.cn/mytool/chipgenius.rar

4) Reggel's List of card readers http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/info-readers.html
For information about chips inside card readers, more reliable than ChipGenius, but use ChipGenius to get the VID/PID. Careful, card readers with the same model number may come with different chips, but then they should also have a different VID/PID.
Also useful for finding additional card readers which use the same Win98 driver, but have a different VID/PID (so that you can use them at the same time)

5) USB extension cord
A USB extension cord (not a USB connection cable) allows you to have your SDHC card reader in your hands while inserting or removing the tiny but expensive SDHC or micro-SDHC cards. If your SDHC card reader is directly connected to your PC, not via an extension cord, you may have to creep under your desk to insert or remove SDHC cards. Also, the USB connector of your motherboard might get worn out when the card reader gets moved upwards, downwards or sideways while you insert or remove SDHC cards. Then there is the risk of electrostatic damage while fiddling around at a USB port of your precious/irreplaceable Win98 compatible motherboard; the USB port is one of the components of the motherboard which is most susceptible to damage.

6) HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool v2.18 (runs under WinXP, not under Win98SE)
To make an SD/SDHC card bootable. By selecting in this "HP Format Tool" the boot file on a floppy, one can possibly create an SD/SDHC card which boots into the XYZ operating system. I can create only a single partition on SD/SDHC cards and probably does not adhere to the SD Memory Card Specification since it was made for HP flash sticks, so your SDHC card will become much slower. Can be downloaded from http://www.bay-wolf.com/utility/usbkey/usbmemkeyboot.zip

7) Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD v8.08 (CD with its own Linux operating system)
Creates the fastest multi-partition SDHC cards in town, if you leave the boot record by Panasonic Formatter in its own partition.

8) Hitachi Filter Driver v3.20 (runs under WinXP, not under Win98SE)
To access, under WinXP, multiple partitions created under Win98 on an SDHC card. On removable media WinXP can access only the first partition, it cannot access data on other partitions. By setting a specific SDHC card reader as "fixed" under WinXP, the Hitachi Filter Driver allows you to access data on other partitions. Can be downloaded from http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/xpfildrvr1224_320.zip Good instructions on how to modify the WinXP registry for the Hitachi Filter Driver are on http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html#partitioning Once you have entered these lines into the WinXP registry, the so-identified SDHC card reader will always be seen under WinXP as a fixed drive.

9) Hard Disk Drive Low Level Format Tool v2.36 (runs under WinXP, not under Win98SE)
For your privacy. Can be used for low-level formatting of SDHC and flash cards. Wipes SDHC cards including partitions and MBR. After wiping an SDHC card with it, a msg pops up: "Low-level format is done. You will have to create partitions and format this drive." Use the Panasonic SDFormatter, not WinXP for formatting/partitioning. Freeware, can be downloaded from http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/200...el-Format-Tool/

10) Special multi-partition card reader for WinXP
In my own toolbox I have a separate card reader on which I pasted a label "multi-partition card reader WinXP". I have entered the details of this card reader into the WinXP registry (see Hitachi Filter Driver). With this card reader I can access under WinXP the data on all partitions of an SDHC card. This special multi-partition card reader "unhides" under XP data which is visible/accessible under Win98.

11) Disk flusher Sync v2.2 by Mark Russinovich of SysInternals (Win98 and WinXP)
Is a near-substitute of a Safely-Remove-Hardware utility in the System Tray, for removable devices which do not have their own(e.g.the emtec SDHC card readers). Also to make sure that modified data on an SDHC card is safely stored, e.g. in case of frequently hung systems or frequent power failures. Can be downloaded from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897438.aspx

ListUsbDrives v1.7.8 (for WinXP, does not work under Win98)
Displays info about an USB SD/SDHC card reader, incl. Vendor ID, Product ID, USB serial number.
Indicates the string to be placed into the registry for making an SDHC card appear fixed under WinXP with the Hitachi Filter Driver v3.20 Download location: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/listusbdrives.zip

Items removed from the front page can be found here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=806633

No unique USB serial number
One cannot use 2 USB card readers of the same make and model at the same time since they have the same USB serial number. I could not find a card reader model where each individual reader sold had a different unique USB serial number.

Several SDHC card readers in a USB hub
I wanted to use several card readers at the same time, plugged into a 7-port-USB hub - but this would work only if they were all different models with different USB serial numbers. So this is another reason to buy several Win98-compatible card readers of different makes: to be able to use several card readers at the same time.

When SDHC cards have become cheap and faster, I could imagine using 7 USB card readers connected via a USB hub to Win98, giving a max. of 7*32GB=224GB hi-speed. Because of the requirement to have different Vendor ID/Device ID/USB serial number for simultaneous use, it is essential to get feedback for the list of card readers above with working Win98 drivers.

SDHC card readers and eMule
Software which requires huge directories could use such a group of card readers. eMule, for example, already allows multiple directories/disk drives for its Temporary files. eMule has worked fine with a 2nd \Temp\ directory on a 4GB SDHC card (class 4), connected to an old USB 1.1 port.

Creating bootable SDHC cards
Under Win98 you canNOT readily create a bootable SD card. When right-clicking on the SD drive - Format - Full - select Copying System files: the format will complete ok but the system files will NOT be copied, when formatting is complete, the selection "Copy system files" in the Format window will be greyed out.

The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool can, hower, create a bootable SDHC card under WinXP, extracting DOS boot files from an inserted floppy disk. UltraISO v9.2.0.2536 cannot extract the created boot sector of the SD card, Read error.

The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool can be downloaded from http://www.bay-wolf.com/utility/usbkey/usbmemkeyboot.zip The referring page http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm is interesting.

Benchmarking file systems: FAT vs FAT32 vs NTSF on SD/SDHC cards
Here is the time it took to copy a directory with 200 files, altogether 122MB, to an SD card

SD card formatted FAT: 42 seconds
SD card formatted FAT32: 92 seconds
SD card formatted NTSF: 200 seconds

(from a FAT32 partition of an 80GB HDD, 700MHz laptop, 512MB RAM, via a USB 2.0 PCCard under Win98)

There are many implications of this result:
- Windows & browser cache files, temp files e.g. for unraring, should be on a FAT drive
- CD/DVD images for burning under WinXP should be on FAT/FAT32 drives for better burn quality, not on an NTSF drive
- frequently accessed software/files in general should be on a FAT drive
- maybe a 4GB SDHC card should be partitioned into 2 FAT partitions, if speed matters, but that would require another benchmark

This posting was originally #1; 3 newer postings are above

I have 2 hama USB "Cardreader 6 in 1" model 55310 v3. Singly they work fine under Win98 & WinXP SP2, when connected to a Belkin USB 2.0 PCCard adapter or to the USB 1.1 port of an old laptop. Both card readers have printed on them the SAME "SN: 06822630800". a MAC number is not indicated.

PROBLEM: I cannot have these 2 card readers connected at the same time.

Under Win98, upon inserting the 2nd card reader, the msg: Unsafe Removal of Device is displayed, MyComputer stops displaying the 1st card reader, but shortly afterwards displays the 2nd card reader, under the same drive letter of the 1st card reader, the files on the SD card in the 2nd card reader are correctly displayed & fully accessible.

Under WinXP, when I have the 1st card reader inserted into the USB 2.0 PCCard and subsequently insert the 2nd card reader:
1) into the other slot of the USB 2.0 PCCard, MyComputer displays correctly the content of both card readers, each with a different drive letter (in contrast to Win98). But when I try to copy stuff from one cardreader to the other (both connected to the USB 2.0 PCCard, sticking out of the laptop), the system completely freezes & I have to press the reset button.

2) into the USB 1.1 port at the back of the laptop, the system crashes (power off) immediately, on the next reboot there appears only a blinking cursor, on the 2nd reboot it gets into WinXP again, but with the error msg: "The system has recovered from a serious error" & wants to send a msg to MS.

QUESTION: Is this a problem of the hama card reader or of the Belkin USB 2.0 PCCard? Is it because both card readers have the same SN? I have been using, for example, 2 Adaptec ACS-100 external HDD enclosures connected at the same time, with no problems, but they each had a different SN printed on the back. How can I assign a unique identifier to each of the card readers (WinXP apparently can distinguish between them because it assigns different drive letters to them & displays/reads their content ok, maybe it distinguishes between them by port number??)

QUESTION: Which other SDHC card readers work fine under Win98 & come with a unique SN? Are there any USB SDHC card readers which work with Win98/XP/Vista/Linux?

Note: A SD/SDHC card reader is needed for transferring .nds files from the PC to the R4-III Nintendo adapter. Without a Win98-compatible SD card reader, the file transfer cannot be done under Win98 & must be done under WinXP, see http://www.msfn.org/board/Compatible-Hardw...963#entry794963

great work multibooter!!

I (a late-bloomie noobie to digital cameras) am trying to figure out what I need to retrieve pictures out of a digital camera with w98se ...

It may be my ignorance, but as the word 'camera' is not mentioned on the last 10 (of 23) pages of the Maximum-Decim USB driver project, and since cameras are such a huge area, and, since the card reader is apparently the critical item required to use a modern cameras with w98se (since they don't come with w98se drivers), it looks to me like this topic, on card readers and 98se, should be (or become) a pretty important one ...

So, from me, your work on adapting card readers to w98se is (and will be) much, much appreciated ...

regards

molecule

Partitioning Software for SD/SDHC cards
If you format an SD/SDHC card on your computer with Windows-Format, the SD/SDHC card may possibly not work in your camera anymore.
"Ok I have a problem.... the SD card I use in my camera might have gone Pete Tong" http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=38005
"Generally, SD/SDHC Memory Card file systems formatted with generic operating system formatting software do not comply with the SD Memory Card Specification." http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/d..._formatter.html Maybe this warning by Panasonic just refers to FAT12 partitions, where the SD specification allows a max.FAT12 partition size of 256MB, vs 32MB of the Microsoft specification ( http://www.compuphase.com/mbr_fat.htm ,towards the end)

1) Panasonic SD Formatter v2.0.0.3 (runs under WinXP, not under Win98SE)
Since large capacity SDHC cards are quite expensive (a class 6, 32GB SDHC card costs over $200), Panasonic - possibly to prevent customer returns - made this program which can restore an elsewhere formatted card to a near-original factory condition. So if you have done a lot of weird stuff with your SD/SDHC card, like creating several partitions, with NTFS or Linux file systems, different cluster sizes, extended partition, multiple primary partitions, etc., this program can clean that all up. The download location is http://panasonic.jp/support/audio/sd/downl...tp/sdfv2003.exe The Panasonic Formatter creates a single partition on SD/SDHC cards and formats it, only very few choices possible.

2) HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool v2.18 (runs under WinXP, not under Win98SE)
Also creates a single partition on SD/SDHC cards, but does probably not adhere to the SD Memory Card Specification since it was made for HP flash sticks.
Its main use is to make an SD/SDHC card bootable. By selecting in the HP Format Tool the boot file on a floppy, one can possibly create an SD/SDHC card which boots into the XYZ operating system.

3) Acronis Disk Director Suite v10 build 2089 (under Win98SE)
My top choice for special formatting and fiddling around with partitions on SD/SDHC cards under Win98. Allows to format FAT, FAT32, NTFS & Linux partitions on SD/SDHC cards. The more recent build 2160 I rejected, it hung under Win98 after the 2nd internal HDD was partitioned by Vista during the installation of Vista.
Norton Disk Doctor and ScanDisk have not found any errors after Acronis Disk Director formatted single and multi-partition SD/SDHC cards.
There is one annoying bug: Acronis Disk Directory Suite 10 does NOT see the SD/SDHC card if the SD/SDHC card is already inserted in the USB port at Windows startup. To make a card visible to Acronis Disk Director:
- you should insert it into the USB port after Win98 is up;
- or: remove the card reader with the eject-utility in the system tray, then re-insert the card reader
- or: run and exit immediately afterwards Paragon Partition Manager 9.0; voilá, Acronis sees the SD/SDHC card until Windows shuts down.

4) Paragon Partition Manager v9.0 build 4156 (under Win98SE)
It sees the inserted SD/SDHC card as partitionable media, BUT: DON'T use this software for modifying or formatting partitions on an SD/SDHC card. After re-formatting the 2nd partition of a multi-partition SD/SDHC card from FAT16 --> FAT32, Norton Disk Doctor found errors like:
2x "Invalid Disk Table in Boot Record", "Entries with invalid file names"
and ScanDisk found errors like: "The K:\ folder is damaged", "The K:\ folder contains incorrect information about PARA0_1?.???"
Also: The partition of an SD/SDHC card freshly formatted under WinXP with Panasonic Formatter is incorrectly marked red, Invalid Filesystem.

Uses of Paragon Partition Manager v9.0 with SD/SDHC cards:
- as a door opener for Acronis Disk Director Suite: it makes an SD/SDHC card visible
- to export files to & from NTSF partitions with Volume Explorer.
It is very easy to export, for example, files from an NTFS partition on an SD/SDHC card to a FAT32 partition on the same card.
- its disk editor, to see what's in the boot sector and in the MBR of an SD/SDHC card

Seagate DiscWizard 2003 v4.07.11 and DiscWizard for Windows v4.09.05 (under Win98)
Also see the inserted SD/SDHC card as partitionable media, BUT: Rejected, Norton Disk Doctor & ScanDisk also detect errors after an SD/SDHC card was partitioned & formatted with it.

Benchmarking partitioning/formatting software for SD/SDHC cards

I initially made a full format of a Kingston 4GB, class 4 micro-SDHC card with the Panasonic Formatter 2.0. For each test I copied under WinXP 200 .jpg files, altogether 122 MB, from a FAT32 partition of an internal IDE 80GB 2.5" HDD to this micro-SDHC card, always newly formatted with the software in question.

Here the amazing results of the time it took to copy these files:
- if fully formatted under WinXP with Panasonic Formatter 2.0.0.3: (FAT32, only cluster size possible: 32kb): 30 seconds = 4.06 MB/sec
- if formatted under Win98 with Acronis Disk Director 10 as FAT32: 123 seconds = 0.99 MB/sec
- if formatted under WinXP with Windows-Format as FAT32: 103 seconds = 1.18 MB/sec
- if formatted under WinXP with HP Formatter (FAT32, 4kb clusters): 100 seconds = 1.22 MB/sec
- if quick formatted under WinXP with Panasonic Formatter 2.0.0.3: 30 seconds = 4.06 MB/sec, same copying speed as full format

The tests were done under WinXP, on a 700MHz laptop, 512MB RAM, Praktica card reader via a USB 2.0 PCCard. Files were copied to the micro-SDHC card from a FAT32 partition of an 80GB 2.5" HDD.

Conclusions and implications:
- copying to an SDHC card is about 4 times faster when the card was formatted with the Panasonic Formatter;
using any other formatting software reduces writing speed to a fourth.
- it is much more important to use the right Formatter than to use a fast SDHC card.
- when you use SDHC cards, you need WinXP, Win98 alone just won't do it
- partitioning an SDHC card into multiple partitions comes at a huge speed cost; if speed is important, it may be better to use several SDHC cards at the same time, rather than partitioning a single card into multiple partitions. This makes combo card readers which assign several drive letters of special interest. The hama Traveldrive, for example, has the size of a stick, and you can use on it simultaneously an SDHC & a micro-SDHC card. On the hama Traveldrive stick, for example, the micro-SDHC card could be a specially formatted smaller boot drive, also containing the encryption key, while, in the other slot, the larger SDHC card could be the non-booting (encrypted) data/program drive formatted with Panasonic Formatter.
- the Panasonic Formatter does not format NTSF since the SD Memory Card Specification only accepts FAT12, FAT16 & FAT32. By formatting an SD card with another Formatter as NTSF or Linux, its speed is reduced to about a fourth, which makes SDHC cards not well suited for running Vista or Linux.

Hi, nice thread you got there.
Did you notice a link between speed and clusters size?

Cluster size
I just made 3 more tests:
Using the same 4GB Kingston SDHC microSD card & the same old laptop, I copied under WinXP the same 122MB to the microSD card, with the following results:
When the card was formatted under Win98 with Acronis as FAT32, 32kb cluster size: 138 seconds = 0.88 MB/sec
when formatted as FAT 32, cluster size 16kB: 132 seconds = 0.92 MB/sec

Conclusion: cluster size doesn't make much of a difference on write speed of SDHC cards.

Here a comment by H.J.Reggel:
"with FAT32, two FAT copies can occupy up to 1.56% of the media, and cause a lot of processing overhead. There is a recommendation to start with a cluster size of 4kB for disks of more than 260MB and up to 8GB, and to use 32kB cluster size for disks of more than 32GB. But for photo/video recording on flash media, the cluster size should be as large as possible, to reduce the overhead for FAT handling." http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/info-formatting.html
That's probably why the Panasonic Formatter uses a 32kb cluster size on a 4GB card.

Huge boot record of Panasonic Formatter
The 4GB card freshly formatted by Panasonic Formatter had a boot record of 3.064MB (6276 sectors), possibly with special instructions for the controller inside the SDHC card. Maybe this has something to do with the copy-protection scheme of the SD card controller. When the card was reformatted by Acronis Disk Director to FAT32, cluster size 16kB, the boot record was reduced to 16kB (32 sectors). It could be interesting to look into the huge boot sector created by Panasonic Formatter, which may give a clue why the Panasonic Formatter creates fast cards, while the other formatting software creates slow cards.

Making an image file of a SDHC card
WinImage v7.0.a.7009 was able to create under Win98 a .IMA image of the 4GB SDHC card, file size 3.927.104 kB (I don't know how good the created image was). It would be interesting to test whether WinImage can create an identical image of an SDHC card, including boot record. DCF, the classic predecessor, was pretty good at reproducing copy-protected floppy disks...

In a 3rd test, I formatted the 4GB SDHC card with Acronis to FAT16, 64kB cluster size. The same copying test under WinXP took only 90 seconds = 1.35 MB/sec. Using FAT16 instead of FAT32 does make a significant speed improvement.

I was able to read under Win98 the 4GB SDHC card formatted as FAT16, 64kB cluster size, using the Praktica card reader and the nusb v3.3 driver. So the nusb driver does support FAT16 filesystems up to 4095MB.

OT, but not much

Both FAT16 and FAT32 have by default two copies of the FAT tables.

The idea is/was that of having some means of recovery in case of something went wrong.

In real world, the two FAT mostly resulted in generating errors about the two FATs not being identical.

It is possible to make a FAT filesystem with just one FAT:
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/boot-download.html
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...13784&st=44

http://www1.mager.org/mkdosfs/


Again OT, these may be of interest also:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/

jaclaz

Thanks jaclaz, but I assume fat32format by ridgecrop & Fat32Formatter by tokiwa are not for Win98. I prefer to manipulate multiple partitions on removable media like SDHC cards under Win98.

Explorer under WinXP can access only the 1st partition of multiple partitions on removable media, unless you set the removable drive to fixed, with Hitachi Filter Driver v3.20. But this adds another layer of potential errors. Paragon Partition Manager 9.0, for example, can partition/format removable SDHC cards under WinXP. If you have one card reader set with Hitachi as "fixed", you can create multiple partitions under XP with Paragon on a normal card reader, then insert the freshly multi-partitioned card into the other card reader set to fixed, and all partitions on the SDHC card will be displayed by WinXP as "local disk".

The 32GB limitation for FAT32 of WinXP-Format may have been another reason why Panasonic made the Panasonic Formatter v2.0: maybe next year 64GB SDHC cards will be released, and WinXP-Format cannot format them (inefficiently) as FAT32. It looks like the capacity limit of SDHC cards may be 128GB. Since SDHC cards are quite slow (<10 MB/sec), it should be possible to use several card reader sticks together in a USB hub, without a noticeable loss of speed.

The Toolbox was moved to the front page of the topic

Yep , that's why I stated it to be a bit off topic.

However, in my experience both the Hitachi cfadisk.sys and Anton Bassov's dummydisk.sys filter drivers worked flawlessly under 2K and XP.

There is also a Freeware app that can access (and thus partition/format) Removable devices under 2K/XP, Swissknife:
http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm

Also, to identify a controller, you may want to use Chipgenius, that usually finds more info than other utilities:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4661
(cannot say how useful this can be with SD cards and the like or if it will even run on Win98)

In the same thread there are links to other similar utilities.

jaclaz

Interesting! Thanks for posting results. I'm going to download the Panasonic tool right away.

This is kind of a grey/overlapping area: SDHC cards are useful under Win98, but to prepare them properly, you need WinXP.

eMule is for me a must-run-on-Win98 application, for security reasons, but after 2 days to a week, eMule hangs. I suspect mainly because of physical failure of the HDD: reading & writing small amounts of data for very many threads, all over the HDD, and that uninterrupted for a long time, may just stress the HDD too much.

Maybe by using SDHC cards instead of a HDD as location of the Temp directory of eMule, uptime can be significantly increased. During the past 2 weeks the mule (on a dedicated old laptop) has been running with a 4GB micro-SDHC card as a 2nd Temp location, together with a 60GB Temp directory on the HDD, but I haven't seen a change in uptime. I will know for sure after having moved all Temp files onto SDHC cards.

Thanks for the links jaclaz, I'll be checking them out.

ChipGenius v2.64 (runs under WinXP, does not run under Win98)
Quite useful utility for SDHC card readers, for some card readers it identifies the chip used. Does not tell whether a card reader works with SDHC or just with SD cards. Very handy for documenting your card readers: in contrast to ListUsbDrives v1.7.8, the displayed info can be transferred with copy & paste. No installation, just double-click on the .exe Added to my toolbox. Download location: http://www.mydigit.cn/mytool/chipgenius.rar

An excellent list of controller chips, including chips in SDHC card readers, is contained in: http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/info-controller.html Amazing, 24 manufacturers of controller chips for card readers & memory cards. BUT: Knowing the manufacturer of the controller chip still doesn't give you a Win98 driver for the card reader.

When I looked with Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD v8.08 (NOT the Windows software, but the CD which apparently boots from Linux a different version) I made an interesting discovery: The Recovery CD saw a 4GB SDHC card, freshly formatted by Panasonic Formatter, as having 2 partitions! The 1st partition was displayed as File system: Free, Size: 4.0MB. The 2nd partition was displayed as File system: FAT32, Size: 3.7GB. Somehow the RecoveryCD kept Panasonic's code in a separate partition.

I then created with the RecoveryCD a multi-partition SDHC by just using the space originally occupied by the 2nd partition, leaving the Panasonic code in tiny partition 1 untouched. I created 3 primary partitions. When booting into WinXP, I put this 4GB card into a card reader which was set by Hitachi Filter Driver to fixed, and then copied my standard 122MB of photo files onto these fixed partitions. The speed increase was substantial:
Partition 2: FAT32, 1289 MB - 85 seconds = 1.43 MB/sec
Partition 3: NTSF, 2080 MB - 180 seconds = 0.68 MB/sec
Partition 4: FAT16, the remainder (about 480MB) - 105 seconds = 1.16 MB/sec

In a 2nd test I created an extended partition containing 3 logical partitions of similar size, each partition 32kb cluster size (=64 sectors/cluster)
Partition 2: FAT32 - 75 seconds = 1.63 MB/sec (FAT32 in the single extended partition is therefore faster)
Partition 3: NTSF - 200 seconds = 0.61 MB/sec
Partition4: FAT16 - 107 seconds = 1.14 MB/sec

In a 3rd test I created a similar extended partition containing 3 logical partitions, but this time each partition had a 16kB cluster size (=32 sectos/cluster)
Partition 2: FAT32 - 83 seconds = 1.47 MB/sec
Partition 3: NTSF - 210 seconds = 0.58 MB/sec
Partition 4: FAT16 - 132 seconds = 0.93 MB/sec

This contrasts with a previous similar test of Acronis Disk Director 10 under Win98: 132 seconds = 0.92 MB/sec as top speed of an SDHC card formatted by Acronis. Because the RecoveryCD somehow leaves the special code by Panasonic intact, it can create the by far fastest multi-partition SDHC cards. Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD boots into Linux 2.6.18.2-34-paragon & recognizes an SDHC card in an USB 1.1 port and in a USB 2.0 add-on PCCard. Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD is the TOP TOOL for creating multi-partition SDHC cards.

Maybe some more tricks can be found to bring the speed of multi-partition SDHC cards up to the 4.06 MB/sec of the class 4 SDHC card formatted as a single partition by Panasonic Formatter

As I post, this I'm using a 32GB Corsair Flash Voyager, which works perfectly, being recognized by NUSB without any problem. Now, if 32GB isn't large enough, I'm also using a 500GB USB IOMEGA HDD, partitioned in two 250GB partitions, one primary and the other logical, inside an extended partition. I have also used it as a single primary 500GB partition (that chokes NDD32, that's why I've split it in two). NUSB also recognizes the USB HDD without any issue. So, I don't think we have any problem with Win 9x/ME-compatible support for Mass Storage Devices at present (thanks to Maximus-Decim ). In my experience, all USB Flash Drives based on SMI's SM321/SM324 controllers are guaranteed to work flawlessy with the current NUSB, although many other controllers also work. It seems that even now another Corsair Flash Voyager is hitting the market, and it's a 64GB. Can anyone confirm it also uses the same family of SMI controllers as as all 8-32GB Flash Voyagers also use? (Older 1-4GB Flash Voyagers used Prolific 2518 controller, that also works with NUSB, but most machines refuse to boot from them). And what about the Flash Voyager GT, do anyone have experience with them and Win 9x/ME?
And, BTW, I'm using Chip Genius 2.64 with my Win 98SE and it works OK...
I must disagree here also: NUSB is a mature package, that you install once, and it returns you the true bliss of having device after device recognized and working thenceforward.

Please don't take me wrong: I'm not feeling particularly confrontational, and I do think this topic is relevant and that you're doing a great job with it. I do not intend to hijack the topic. SDHC & micro-SDHC rock, and you do too!

Hi dencorso,
Thanks for the correction, it should read "with manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers". NUSB is a great generic driver for USB-sticks, SDHC card readers, external HDDs, external floppy drives and other USB mass storage devices, especially for devices which are not supported by their manufacturers under Win98. So most large-capacity USB-sticks on the horizon WILL most likely be able to run under Win98 with NUSB, even when "Windows 98" is not on the box anymore.

I prefer however to use as much as possible manufacturer-provided drivers for mass storage devices, some stored data can be critical. When a manufacturer provides a driver for Win98, it (should) mean that the device has actually been tested by the manufacturer under Win98. NUSB has worked fine for me on unsupported devices, but don't forget the comment by Maximus Decim when you install NUSB: "Remember! You install it at own risk!"

NUSB will be put into my listing "Toolbox for SDHC cards" http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=802886 It's possibly the most important tool there, I will list it after being more informed about the uninstall, NUSB makes a lot of system updates http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=802886 You are particularly knowledgeable about NUSB, your info would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe some improvement in the readme.txt file, but which great programmer likes to document?

If you want a single driver for all your USB mass storage devices NUSB is truly great and simple. But when you want to use NUSB only for those USB devices which don't have a Win98 driver, and for your other USB devices you want to keep on using the manufacturer-provided drivers, it may get complicated, esp. for USB devices where you have to specify the location of the manufacturer-provided driver during installation.

Some manufacturer-provided drivers have special features, like the one for the BusLink USB floppy, which allows under Win98 the assignment of drive letter B: to the USB floppy. Then there are special drivers for USB combo eSata-USB enclosures, the MSI StarReader which can read SIM-cards and which updates the ASPI layer, etc.

The automaticity of NUSB can be overcome by (temporarily) renaming \INF\Usbstor.inf and usbstor.PNF before installing a device with its own manufacturer-provided USB driver.

Question: For the emtec card readers I want to use the manufacturer-provided driver, but that driver does not install an eject-utility in the system tray. How can I use the manufacturer-provided driver but have the emtec card reader included in the NUSB eject-utility in the system tray (i.e. use only the NUSB eject utility, but not the NUSB driver)?

Yes, that's the best way of doing it. On the other hand, if you want to exclude some storage medium more permanently, you always can comment (i.e. add a semicolon before) its entries in usbstor.inf. By comparing the usbstor.infs for NUSB 3.1 and 3.3, its easy to see how it's done. I've uploaded just the .infs here, for their easy retrieval.

I don't believe it can be done... Then again, for all storage media that identify themselves as "removable media", windows will add "Eject" to the context menu, so one can always right-click on the device icon in explorer or my_computer, and select "Eject", to attain that result. Or eject them from the command-line, using the handy Dave Navarro's freeware EJECT v2.02. On the third hand, for external USB HDDs (which always identify themselves as "non-removable", for Win NT/XP to allow them to have multiple partitions), things get nasty without NUSB, so I think it becomes mthe "Removable"andatory to use NUSB, even if just to have them appear in the eject-utility in the system tray. BTW, ticking the "Removable" checkbox in My_Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> Disk Drives -> <right-click the external USB HDD's icon> -> Properties -> Settings is required for Win 9x/ME to assign letters for all partitions. But even with "Removable" selected Win 9x/ME won't add "Eject" to the context menu of a the "non-removable" medium.

also, some programs from Uwe Sieber:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/drivetools_e.html
(haven't tested them in 9x, but should work )

jaclaz

Thanks jaclaz.

Nintendo will release on Nov.1 its Nintendo DS-I, available in the rest of the world early 2009:
- no GBA slot
- SD slot (=built-in SD card reader)
http://www.t3.com/news/nintendo-ds-i-confi...-in-2009?=36840

"They have ditched the GBA slot for an SD card one so people will download GBA titles from their online store which would be saved on the removable device. A smart move."
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?p=1038499

P.S.: Without a GBA slot, the add-on cards like R4-III DS, SuperCard & Co, will not fit into the new DS-I anymore. Nearly all Nintendo-DS games, about 2700 .nds files (=game images which run on these add-on cards) are currently available in the internet. So no more GBA slot, as an anti-piracy-measure?
And new games released on SD cards, making use of the copy-protection capability of SD cards?

@Multibooter and jaclaz
Since this side remark I did in a previous post seems to have passed unnoticed, I quote it here to ask you to test Chip Genius 2.64 in your Win 9X systems and confirm or deny my finding:
It may work in my system due to some of the numerous updates I've added, so your testing is important to decide whether it works or not.

Also Microsoft's own USBView (v. 5.1.2600.2180, from Win 2k DDK) works under Win 9X and provides useful information about the USB ports in a computer and the devices therein attached. It might be a worthy addition to the toolbox.

Will do, though I don't have a "plain" Win98 installed anywhere accessible right now.

jaclaz

Hi dencorso,
I have a nearly-unmodified Win98SE. When I double-click on ChipGenius.exe under Win98, the window with all the text comes up ok, but no device & no information is displayed:
PnP Device ID: VID = PID = (Invalid) (the same for Serial Number)
Revision: (Information not returned)
Chip Vendor: (No match record) (the same for Chip Part-Number & Product Vendor)

The program should run under Win98, but it might need a dll or a newer version of a dll since it works with you. I installed VB6 SP6, same problem. Then .NET 1.1, same problem. Then .NET 2.0, same problem. The chip info is in chips.wdb, probably a MS Works Data Base. The program calls MSVBVM60.DLL, which I put into the same directory as ChipGenius.exe, same problem. On his website http://www.mydigits.cn/chipgenius.htm the author states Win98 compatibility, so it's probably just a tiny little thing. Would be nice to have another Win98-compatible tool in the toolbox.

Hi, Multibooter!

Here are the versions I'm using of all files detected by Dependency Walker for ChipGenius:
Primary Dependencies:
CHIPGENIUS.EXE 2.0.0.64
KERNEL32.DLL 4.10.0.2226
MSVBVM60.DLL 6.0.98.2
Secondary Dependencies:
ADVAPI32.DLL 4.90.0.3000 *
GDI32.DLL 4.10.0.2227
OLE32.DLL 4.71.3328.0 *
OLEAUT32.DLL 2.40.4520.0
USER32.DLL 4.10.0.2233

I bet you're using a much earlier version of MSVBVM60.DLL, do get the above from MDGx's and try again.
And if that's not enough, I'd go for the ole files, from unofficial OLEUP. The files marked with * are from Win ME, but I sincerely doubt they are the one(s) that are critical. Good luck!

As a sample of what I see, here's what I get from my Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB:
====================================================
Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(USB Disk)

PnP Device ID: VID = 090C PID = 1000
Serial Number: A100000000000102
Revision: 1100

Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed

Chip Vendor: SMI(??)
Chip Part-Number: SM321/SM324

Product Vendor: USB
Product Model: Disk
=====================================================

Hi dencorso,

I had no success in getting ChipGenius v2.64 to run properly under Win98 on my old laptop:

I started with OrangeWare v2.4.1, then I updated Win98SE in the following sequence:
MSVBVM60.DLL 6.0.98.2, updated from 6.00.9782 with Unofficial Visual Basic 6.0 SP6
GDI32.DLL 4.10.0.2227, updated from 4.10.1998 with Unofficial Windows 98 SE GDI32.DLL + GDI.EXE 4.10.2227 Fix
KERNEL32.DLL 4.10.0.2226. updated from 4.10.2222 with Copy2gb.exe from Unofficial Windows 98-98 SP1-98 SE 2-4 GB Files Errors
OLEAUT32.DLL 2.40.4520.0, updated from 2.40.4518 with Unofficial OLE Update 2.40.4530 + OLEAUT32.DLL 2.40.4520
USER32.DLL 4.10.0.2233, updated from 4.10.2231 with Unofficial Windows 98 SE Animated Cursor (.ANI) + Icon Handling
ADVAPI32.DLL 4.90.0.3000 , updated from 4.80.1675 with extracted file from WIN_10.CAB of WinME CD
OLE32.DLL 4.71.3328.0, no update, DLLs were same version
but still the same problem.

Then I installed older OrangeWare v2.1 and v2.3, still the same problem. Finally I changed the screen fonts from Large fonts (125%) to Small fonts, this was a work-around for the display bug in ChipGenius, but still the same problem.

This is what was displayed during and after all the changes:
Device Name:
PnP Device ID: VID = PID = (Invalid)
Serial Number: (Invalid)
Revision: (Information not returned)
Device Type: Generic USB Host Controller - USB2.0 High-Speed
Chip Vendor: (No match record)
Chip Part-Number: (No match record)
Product Vendor: (No match record)
Product Model:
Tools on Web: (N/A)

The window "USB controller & device list" [Pick an item for details]: is BLANK. This is probably the cause of the problem, somehow ChipGenius under Win98 cannot see neither the USB 2.0 PCCard controller nor the built-in USB 1.1 controller of the laptop.

Under WinXP however, on the same laptop, the window "USB controller & device list" displays the following 4 choices when the USB 2.0 PCCard is plugged in:
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller
NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller
Intel® 82371 AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller

So ChipGenius somehow doesn't work under Win98 with this old laptop, while it does work with your desktop.

While reading this topic, I've tested the above-mentioned application myself, with the same negative results. I first suspected it may be due to the Unicode format of the database, however I haven't been able to convert it to ANSI (had 2 system freezes due to Notepad++, which I swear I'll never ever touch again).

But, after running a profiling in DW, I noticed the same thing that plagued other VB applications when run under localized Windows versions (in my case, regional settings other than English): it expects a localized version of vb6.dll; here ti asked for vb6ro.dll and vb6chs.dll (Romanian and Chinese Simplified, I believe).
It also calls for a missing sxs.dll, which I do have at hand but it has tight missing dependencies to ntdll.dll and other system files.

My conclusion is that this application is not meant to run on 9x and it probably never will. Can't explain dencorso's results.

Oh and please fix the link in post #26 - it's mydigit, without trailing 's'.

I hadn't thought about it before, but since the versions of all the files Multibooter is using are the same as the ones I'm using, as far as dependencies detected by DW go, the problem must lie elsewhere... and I think Multibooter just hit jackpot: the problem may be the underlying drivers. I'm using VIA's USB 2.0 EHCI driver, not the generic one from NUSB, nor Orangeware's. We need someone else using a VIA chipset and VIA's driver to test whether this is it. I can think of no other explanation right now.

Incompatibility between manufacturer-provided driver and nusb - nusb currently rejected

The MSI StarReader mini II card reader http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=pr...mp;prod_no=1161 is currently my top choice as card reader. It comes with a Win98 driver, which indicates that the manufacturer cares about a small customer group like the Win98 community and that the device has been tested by the manufacturer under Win98. The Win98 driver which comes on the mini-CD can also be downloaded from http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=do...mp;prod_no=1161 (file creation date on CD: 19-Sep-06; of website download: 3-Feb-2007, otherwise identical files). The card reader costs less than $10 and comes with a very handy USB extension cord (not a connection cable), allowing you to connect the card reader even to USB ports which are physically positioned very close to each other, without blocking a 2nd port. The USB connection cable is so useful that I have put it into the Toolbox for SDHC cards.

1) Version conflict of driver files
Unfortunately there is an incompatibility between the manufacturer-provided MSI driver and the generic nusb driver: Both drivers use driver files with the same name and location, but with different content. The following installed files are different, depending whether they are from nusb or from MSI:
- \Inf\USBSTOR.INF
- \Inf\USBNTMAP.INF
- \System\Iosubsys\USBMPHLP.PDR
- \System32\Drivers\USBSTOR.SYS

The 2 .inf files are not problematic, they could be renamed as required, but the other 2 files are problematic:

USBMPHLP.PDR: The Hex Viewer of BeyondCompare shows major differences between the 2 versions of USBMPHLP.PDR: the MSI-version shows "Special Build lyh728" and is dated 10-Sep-2003, while the nusb version shows "Microsoft Corporation" and is dated 12-Sep-2003. MSI must have had a reason to use this special build, especially since the MSI installer also installs optionally Adaptec ASPI v4.71.2.0 of 17-Jul-2002, what is unusual for card reader drivers.

USBSTOR.SYS: The 2 versions of USBSTOR.SYS (nusb creation date: 17-Feb-2003, MSI creation date: 8-Jun-2000, both identical version info) have minor differences, maybe patches by Maximus Decim (why?)

I have used the MSI card reader under either driver, both drivers seemed to work Ok up to now. But deviating from the manufacturer-provided driver may possibly cause problems in the future, problems currently irreversable since there is no nusb-removal tool; nusb currently sticks in your system like InCD or an Internet Explorer update. The version conflict could possibly be solved if the next release of nusb uses different filenames, e.g. nusbstor.sys, etc.

2) Installation problem
If you install first nusb and then the MSI-driver, the MSI driver installation will NOT overwrite the existing nusb driver files (e.g. USBSTOR.INF, USBNTMAP.INF, USBSTOR.SYS, USBMPHLP.PDR), maybe because the nusb files have a newer file modification date than the MSI driver files. In effect, if you have already nusb installed, you cannot install the manufacturer-provided MSI-driver.

If you reverse the installation sequence, installing first the MSI-driver and then nusb, nusb will overwrite several driver files of MSI (USBSTOR.INF, USBNTMAP.INF, USBMPHLP.PDR, USBSTOR.SYS)

This means that it is not possible to use the MSI-driver if nusb is also on the system. Either the MSI-driver or nusb.

3) Conclusion:
I will put nusb into the Toolbox after a future release has solved this driver conflict. I have removed nusb 3.3 from my own system since I want to use the manufacturer-provided driver for the MSI card reader. There are still SDHC card readers with manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers in the stores, and all my other USB Mass Storage devices are working fine with their manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers, even the recent Thermaltake eSATA-USB combo enclosure, which I have working fine with 750GB SATA & PATA HDDs on a 9-year-old laptop under Win98. The art of using Win98 today includes finding recent hardware with manufacturer-provided drivers.

Nusb could be a tremdous tool for me, if it were changed from a driver for all USB Mass Storage devices to a driver for USB Mass Storage Devices which do not have their own Win98 driver. As further improvement of nusb I would suggest that a special nusb-removal tool should be written.

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

jaclaz

Thanks for the link jaclaz. Your English translation at http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2411 is very instructive. Eventually I will check out the sometimes-working WinTricks Generic USB driver, it doesn't look like a big system update with its 3 driver files of the Lexar JumpDrive and comes with an uninstall.bat.

Since this driver works with Lexar, it might also work with Corsair (dencorso!) and then with Lexar BootIt v1.07 info under http://www.lancelhoff.com/2008/05/01/multi...ive-in-windows/ download location: http://files.filefront.com/lexar+usb+forma...;/fileinfo.html

I have not yet found a way to have an SDHC card reader or its card/partitions appear as a fixed drive under Win98; possibly one could set the removable media bit of the Lexar/Corsair under WinXP to fixed, so that when connected under Win98 the Lexar/Corsair appears as a fixed drive ( http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html in section "On flash drive only the first partition works")

I have tried out BootIt under WinXP with SDHC card readers of about 5 different manufacturers, with different SD/SDHC cards, BootIt reported that the removable media bit was flipped, but then the card reader/card/partitions were displayed in My Computer under WinXp as Removable. I couldn't find a store which had Lexar SDHC card readers http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1171400668.html But it should also work with SDHC card readers: "Works fine for me, my 4gb SDHC is now shown as a fixed disc" http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=65675

The only reason for which one would want a USB stick be seen as a Fixed drive would be to partition it from Windows 2K/XP/2003 and see multiple partitions in it.
Hence the need for "flipping" the bit or using either cfadisk.sys or dummydisk.sys filter drivers.

Under DOS and Windows 9x/Me there is not such a need, as you have direct access to the drive.




jaclaz

Well, the installer won't overwrite same or higher version files with same or lower version files, but you can do it by hand, from a true DOS session (not a DOS box). I believe NUSB3.3 will work quite contently with the .SYS and .PDR files from the MSI StarReader driver and vice-versa. Now, the .INFs are another story altogether... But, then again, they are just plain text ASCII files, which you can switch from a DOS box at will, and that you may consolidate into revised .INFs, working for both drivers, if you find it worth the effort. I've downloaded the MSI Win 98 driver and shall take a look at the files asap, and report back.

Meanwhile, and quite off-topic, let me recommend to MsiX.EXE, a fantastic command-line tool, able to extract files from .msi, .msm and .msp installation files. Find it here: Heath Stewart's Patch Files Extractor

Hi jaclaz, in general I agree with you, but there are some special situations where an SDHC card would be required to appear as a fixed drive.

Special situations: Why make an SDHC card appear as fixed media under Win98?:
- to run DCF (floppy disk imaging software) from an SDHC card
- Norton Disk Doctor only checks the partition table of SDHC cards set to fixed; the partition table of removable media is skipped
BUT: How can one make removable media appear as fixed under Win98?

Around 1995-1997 the Jaz & Zip removable media drives came out, and they are very much comparable to the SDHC cards of today. They had a Windows driver called "Iomega Guest", used in most situations. But there was also an advanced driver set called "Iomega SCSI Utilities for DOS" v5.0, which would only run under MS-DOS. These SCSI Utilities allowed setting a SCSI Zip/Jaz drive to non-removable ("lock/unlock"), for special situations.

Software then was sometimes programmed not to run from removable media/floppy disks, as a means of copy-protection. Software which would not run from or install-to removable media in 1997 included DCF, Alqalam Arabic/Farsi wordprocessor, WinFax Pro 4.1, Corel Draw 3.0 & 5.0E2, Gamma Unitype, OmniPage Pro, Statistica 4.0. When running EZ-Diskcopy Pro v3.30c from a Jaz drive, for example, the Jaz drive had to be set to non-removable, otherwise err msg: cannot run from diskette. At that time I used a Jaz disk in a similar way as people today who boot from a stick. If I remember right, I could install Windows 3.1 only onto a Zip drive if the drive was set to non-removable. Of all that software which would not work on removable media only DCF v5.3 is still in use by me today, it's the best software for creating images of floppy disks, I can run it from a full-sized DOS window in Win98, and even under WinXP! All my floppies are archived as .dcf files (BTW, WinImage v7.0 can also create .DCF image files even if it's not in Save as type -> All files -> enter file name as xxx.dcf, but I trust more the accuracy of .dcf files created by DCF )

I just made a test of DCF running in a Win98 full-size DOS window, with Dcf.exe on the internal (=fixed) HDD:
- DCF could create a disk image file of a floppy disk, writing it to the SDHC card
- DCF could read a disk image file from an SDHC card (also: from a 239GB partition of an ext.750GB HDD - DOS software!!)
and create the corresponding floppy disk (e.g. a bootable Partition Magic floppy from a disk image)

When I copied the \DCF\-directory to an SDHC card and repeated the test, but running from the SDHC card shown as removable media, DCF wrote a disk image file of the flpppy ok onto the SDHC card, but after clicking on Exit, the error msg Wifiusb [not responding] came up (I was connected at the same time to the Internet), and Win98 hung. So DCF cannot be run from a removable SDHC card, just as years ago it couldn't be run from a removable Zip drive.

Formerly, setting an Iomega Jaz drive to fixed, then installing copy-protected software (which used bad sectors) onto it, then using a sector-by-sector copier like Iomega Copy Machine, was an easy way to make backup copies of some copy-protected software. What about SDHC cards/Nintendo DS-I?

Another possible use of fixed-disk-SDHC cards, with current software, may be Norton Disk Doctor standalone: it does not check the partition table of removable media, only of fixed media. Under WinXP Norton Disk Doctor does check the partition table of single and multi-partition cards which are set to fixed with Hitachi Filter Driver.

I have restructured/updated the first page of this topic and moved less important information onto this page here

Other card readers with manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers which are not included in the List of Top Card Readers (on front page)

- CnMemory All-in-one Card Reader Pop-Art http://www.cnmemory.de/seite_84ger-0-a0.html Pros: uses up only one drive letter, and has multiple slots; it can be rotated to fit into cramped space at the USB connectors; the RTS5158 chip inside has been identified by HJ Reggel as a current Top Performer (see Reggel's list, in Tool Box). Cons: I didn't like the enclosure of the card reader, it's too big and too heavy for being connected directly to the USB connector of the computer; if it had come in a small box to be connected by cable, I would have put it into the List of Top Card Readers.

- emtec SD card reader K100 VID 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] PID 6335 SN 058F011111B1
http://www.emtec-international.com/en/driv...p;ss_gamme=K101 (sold together with a slow (class-2) 1 or 2GB SD card). The Wìn98 driver of emtec does not install a safely-remove-utility into the system tray so you should use it with the disk flusher Sync 2.2 (see Toolbox)
Reason for removal from top list: very slow chip, has half the write-speed of the top readers; no safely-remove-utility

- emtec micro-SD card reader K200 VID 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] PID 6335 SN 058F011111B1
Not listed on their website, sold together with a slow (class-2) 1GB micro-SD card plus an SD-Adapter. The Win98 driver on their website is the same as for the model K100 above, listed at their website as K101. Only complaints: the micro-SDHC card sticks out of the card reader, the card reader does not serve as a protective box of the micro-SDHC card. Also: no safely-remove-utility is installed in the system tray, so you should use it with the disk flusher Sync 2.2 (see Toolbox).
Reason for removal from top list: very slow chip; no safely-remove-utility; no status light to know whether the system is still writing to card

NOTE: you cannot have the emtec SD & micro-SD readers (K100 & K200) plugged in at the same time. Both readers have the same Vendor ID, Product ID and USB serial number, as checked with ListUsbDrives v1.7.8 (see Toolbox for SDHC cards), and therefore look identical to Windows, even if they look physically quite different.

- hama 55350 (multi-card reader) VID 0DDA [=hama] PID 2005 SN 000000000036
http://www.hama.de/portal/articleId*127947/action*2598
Is similar to the hama Easy Line 55745 in the Top list. If you use are Genesys-driven USB mass storage devices, this card reader is problematic because of the multiple-drive-letter problem: without a built-in USB hub there is only a complicated workaround.
One feature makes this multi-card reader interesting: It has a flashable ROM plus software to flash the ROM, which lets the technically inclined experiment with the ROM.
Careful when buying, there are 2 models with the same number 55350, but with a different chip inside. The manufacturer-provided Win98 driver only works for the model which has on the reader and on the box the SN 02822630600; the Win98 driver doesNOT work with the other model with the SN 32822630800 on the box (These SNs are NOT the USB SN).

SDHC card readers which do NOT have working manufacturer-provided drivers for Win98SE
The card readers listed here work with SDHC cards (i.e. >= 4GB). All of them ran fine with the generic nusb33 driver, but nusb is more for advanced users.
- hama 55310 V3 http://www.hama.de/portal/searchSelectedPr.../bySearch*55310 (on box: for Win98)
- ednet Multi Card Reader USB 2.0, 30 In 1 (on box: for Win98)
- Praktica Mini Card Drive II
- Kingston microSD card reader, which comes with a 4 GB microSDHC card plus 2 adapters (SD, miniSD), so tiny that it even fits into the USB slot besides big fat sticks, also for your key chain

SD card readers which do NOT have working manufacturer-provided drivers for Win98SE and do NOT work with SDHC card
The following card reader does NOT have a working Win98 driver and does NOT work with SDHC cards (only with SD cards <2GB). It ran fine with the nusb33 driver:
- T-Flash microSD reader in the box of the R4-III DS http://www.r4dsl.net

Items removed from the Toolbox

Near-Substitute for a Safely-Remove-Utility under Win98
For WinXP there are several third-party utilities, e.g. USB Safely Remove http://safelyremove.com/fullFeaturesList.htm which in another product description had listed WinME as system requirement (could it run under Win98 with upgraded DLLs?) - but for Win98 I couldn't find anything. Maybe programming this is easier under WinXP, where a 3rd part utility is much less needed: "I don't think the code can work or can be ported on Windows 9x" http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/usbej...Quick&fr=26 (with code and demo for download).

There is a near-substitute for a Safely-Remove-Utility under Win98: the disk flusher Sync v2.2 by Mark Russinovich of SysInternals http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897438.aspx With the parameter -r it flushes the disk cache of fixed and removable media. I have been using the shortcut D:\sync.exe -r under Win98 before physically removing the emtec card reader, it works fine with both single and multi-partition SDHC cards. I am not using the -e parameter because this would eject any floppy disks, CDs and virtual CDs/DVDs mounted on a virtual drive with Alcohol, and my drive letters change too much for entering them as parameters.

When I had another card reader connected, the MSI, and physically unplugged the card reader without having used the safely-remove-utility of the MSI card reader, but after having double-clicked on the Sync disk flusher, the same old warning message came up: "Unsafe Removal of Device: You have unplugged or ejected a device without stopping it which can cause your computer to crash and loose valuable data. Please use the hotplug icon in the status bar to safely stop devices before unplugging them." Since the disk cache was flushed and the computer didn't hang, I assume that this message can be safely ignored.

Sync v2.2 has been added to the Toolbox

Win98-compatible Emtec SDHC card readers K100, K101, K200
The emtec driver can be downloaded from http://www.emtec-international.com/en/driv...p;ss_gamme=K101
The emtec card readers have the Vendor ID VID = 058F [=Alcor Micro Corp.] and the Product ID PID = 6335

A card reader with the same VID & PID is also sold as Transcend TS-RDS2. Its manufacturer-provided Win98 driver can be downloaded from http://www.transcendusa.com/Support/DLCent...DLKeyWd=TS-RDS2 As expected, the Win98 driver from Transcend works fine with the emtec card reader, its setup.exe is much larger (14.8 vs 10.0MB) than the driver provided by emtec, and appears superior:
- it has 2-state icons in My Computer, which are red when an SDHC card is inserted, and a grey "-" sign when there is no SDHC card
- it does not have a safely-remove-utility in the system tray either, but when you physically unplug the card reader a msg pops up for about one second: "Multimedia Card Reader: Driver unloading, please wait" and then disappears. The emtec driver, on the other hand, does not display any message. I assume that emtec/Transcend have not included a safely-remove-utility because their driver does not need one. I have extensively tested the physical unplugging and then re-inserting of the emtec card reader, with single und multi-partition SDHC cards inserted, there was no negative impact on the system. But to be on the safe side I would recommend to double-click on the shortcut to the Sync disk flusher before physically removing the card reader, to be really sure that there is no data loss on the SDHC card.

There are other tools.

What I mainly use:
DCOPY/DcopyNT:
http://users.telenet.be/jbosman/applications.html

Try it.

jaclaz

Genesys MultiTool
The hama USB 2.0 Card Reader 55350 http://www.hama.de/portal/articleId*127947/action*2598 is an SDHC card reader with a flashable ROM and has been added to the list of card readers with a manufacturer-provided Win98 driver. What makes this card reader interesting is that its firmware update comes with a version of Genesys Logic MultiTool v1.4.4.4 http://www.hama.de/webresources/drivers/00...5350_fw9602.zip

The Genesys MultiTool needs no installation and runs under Win98. Its Firmware/EEPROM tool allows you to save the card reader ROM as a file and to re-burn the ROM from a saved file. It works, but be careful, the ReadMe First file of the MultiTool was not included and some buttons on the menu are poorly labeled, so that you may wipe out the ROM of your card reader inadvertently. Unfortunately this version of Genesys MultiTool is crippled, you cannot save an EEP file, which contains the Vendor ID, Product ID and USB serial number, it's greyed out; the button Dump EEP Data works. If one could modify the USB serial number, for example, one could have 2 of these card readers connected to the computer at the same time.

The Genesys MultiTool also contains a Format tool, which allows you to format CF, SM, SD & MS formats under Win98 with this card reader (and most likely on all other card readers with the Genesys chip GL819 and GL819-E), probably according to standard specifications since it comes from a chip manufacturer. I have test-formatted on this card reader a 1 GB SD card (class 2) with Genesys MultiTool, Panasonic SDFormatter, HP Format Tool and WinXP Explorer. Copying 197 jpg files, altogether 122MB, onto these SD cards took the following time if formatted by:
Panasonic SDFormatter: 49 secs
Genesys MultiTool 51 secs
HP Formatter: 67 secs
WinXP Explorer format: 63 secs
I haven't tried out formatting SDHC cards, only an SD card, with the Genesys MultiTool yet. MultiTool.exe has a modification date of 16-Feb-2006, so it should format SDHC according to specifications.

The Genesys MultiTool looks like a piece of software written by the chip manufacturer Genesys for internal use; it contains another tool "Read/Write test for Mass Production". Does anybody know more about this MultiTool? Any suggestions for fiddling around with this card reader ROM?

Hex Workshop, for example, displays the following string at the end of the ROM file saved to disk: !@.......H.a.m.a...C.a.r.d. .R.e.a.d.e.r. ...0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.3.6.CF SM SD MS ..............................
BTW 000000000036 is the USB serial number of this card reader, maybe there is no need for the greyed out function after all

After changing then SN to ...37, the card reader worked fine, ChipGenius recognized the new SN. And when I plugged in a 2nd identical card reader, but with the unchanged SN ...36: everything fine, 4 more drive letters in My Computer, data on both multi-card readers could be accessed fine.

BUT: when I tried to copy files from one card reader to the other, copying started Ok, but then stopped and then the system froze, under both Win98 (Genesys driver) & WinXP (MS driver). So you cannot connect 2 identical SDHC card readers to a computer by just changing the USB serial number. Uwe Sieber's article http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html (towards the end) needs an addition in this sense.

Hi dencorso,

Thanks for your effort with Dependency Walker regarding ChipGenius. Your guess that this program requires WBEM to run under Win98 was bulls eye. After downloading WBEM = Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) CORE 1.5 (Windows 95/98) from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en and installing it, ChipGenius displayed data under Win98. Win98 also appeared a little crisper with this irreversible update.

Unfortunately, the data that ChipGenius produced under Win98 differed (was wrong) when compared to the data produced under WinXP. ChipGenius possibly looks at specific keys in the registry, and what works for the WinXP registry may not work for the Win98 registry.

Example 1: (hama card reader 55350) displayed under WinXP: (is correct except for Chip Part-Number)
Device Name: ++++[L:][M:][P:][N:]+USB Mass Storage Device(Hama CF Card Reader USB Device)(Ha...
PnP Device ID: VID = 0DDA PID = 2005
Serial Number: 000000000036
Revision: 9602/9602/9602/9602
Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed
Chip Vendor: (N/A)
Chip Part-Number: DLX1611

Example 1: (hama card reader 55350) displayed under Win98 (erroneous)
Device Name: ++USB2.0 Card Reader(USB Storage Drive) [only ++ but reader has 4 drive letters; no drive letters;different text]
PnP Device ID: VID = 0DDA PID = 2005
Serial Number: 000000000036
Revision: [data missing]
Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 Full-Speed (USB1.1) [wrong info, is High-Speed]
Chip Vendor:
Chip Part-Number: DLX1611(????IC) [even this is different]

Example 2: (Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enclosure) displayed under WinXP nearly correctly:
Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(ST375064 0A USB Device) [wrong, device has 3 FAT32+1 NTSF primary partitions]
PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702
Serial Number: 6&&1CBCC30F&&0&&1
Revision: 0811
Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed
Chip Vendor: Genesys
Chip Part-Number: GL811E

Example 2: (Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enclosure) displayed under Win98:
Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(USB Storage Drive) [HDD drive model missing; wrong number of partitions;different text]
PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702
Serial Number: 0{B8139C20-CF94-11D5-AEF7-0002B30625C5}&&ROOT_HUB20&&PCI&&VEN_1033&&DEV_00E0&&SUBSYS_29280E55&&REV_04&&022100 [wrong]
Revision: [missing]
Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 Full-Speed (USB1.1) [wrong]
Chip Vendor: Genesys(??) [text differs]
Chip Part-Number: GL811E

ChipGenius should only be used under Win98 after the underlying causes of the errors above are fixed. Under WinXP ChipGenius runs fine, although the data base could need a little improvement, it contains errors: the hama card reader 55350 has definitely a Genesys GL819 chip inside, not a DLX1611 as reported by ChipGenius. Despite these weaknesses, ChipGenius is a very valuable tool in the Toolbox.

@Multibooter, I remember about a year ago having to manually disable Winmgmt\WBEM on Win9x to allow an important app to work. It was conflicting with CPU-Z by Delattre, so you may want to keep an eye out for similar breakage. It may have since been corrected for all I know. Not to hijack the thread here, just a heads up.

Well, I, for one, use cpu-z and WBEM for a very long time and never had any issues of the kind. However, WBEM is one of those add-ons lots of people get to hate... YMMV, of course. But thanks for the heads up, anyway.

Now, quoting myself:


and here's what I get from my Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB, under Win XP SP3:
====================================================
Device Name: +[Q:]+USB Mass Storage Device(Corsair Flash Voyager USB Device)

PnP Device ID: VID = 090C PID = 1000
Serial Number: A100000000000102
Revision: 1100

Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed

Chip Vendor: SMI(??)
Chip Part-Number: SM321/SM324

Product Vendor: Corsair
Product Model: Flash Voyager
=====================================================

@Multibooter:
Of course, there are problems with Device name, product vendor and product model. But seems better than your results. Please do try a pen drive, so we can see whether I'm really getting better results or not. And, BTW, there are 3 hotfixes known for WBEM: Q260710, Q282949 and Q285895. They are findable at MDGx's, as usual (in the WMI section).

Hi dencorso,
sorry, I don't have a pen drive around, just card readers.

Here a couple more instances where the program and the database of ChipGenius might need some fixing:
1) for the emtec SDHC card reader ChipGenius displays Chip Part-Number: AU6335, BUT:
- when the enclosure of the emtec SDHC card reader fell off (flimsy construction), I could see printed inside the card reader, on the board, "NT-AU6332"
- also: the driver downloaded from emtec is in a directory named AU6332
- BUT on the other hand: the PID detected by Windows/ChipGenius is 6335.

2) The revision number displayed is NOT necessarily that of the attached USB device:
for the USB enclosure of an external CD/DVD burner it indicated the revison of the burner inside, not of the enclosure

3) When a USB device is connected to a USB hub, the serial number displayed for the device may sometimes be that of the USB hub.

On the positive side, ChipGenius may also be used to correctly label (with a sticker) the port numbers of a USB hub. The port number is indicated by the "&&x" suffix at the end of the displayed serial number when you connect an external USB HDD to that port.

Here an example: an Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD enlosure with a 750GB Seagate HDD inside (ST375064 0A), connected to a hama-Easy Line 55350 card reader+3-port hub combo:
Device Name: ++USB Mass Storage Device(ST375064 0A USB Device)
PnP Device ID: VID = 05E3 PID = 0702 [is ok, is the info about the Adaptec ACS-100 enclosure)
Serial Number: 7&&2A6DA49&&0&&2
Revision: 0811
Device Type: Standard USB device - USB2.0 High-Speed
Chip Vendor: Genesys
Chip Part-Number: GL811E

The suffix "&&2" of the Serial Number means: attached to Port 2 (counting starts from Port 1) of the hub of the card reader combo. BTW, when connected to port 6 of a Belkin 7-port hub instead, the same device displayed a different serial number: 7&&2A9107BD&&0&&6

SDHC card readers under Linux
Here a little-OT note for those who multi-boot into Win98, WinXP and Linux:

The Paragon Partion Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD boots into Linux 2.6.18.2-34-paragon. This version of Linux, unlike Win98SE, did not need special drivers for my USB mass storage devices, incl. SDHC cards and external USB HDDs.

The bootable CD handled properly under Linux a quite complicated hardware configuration. The following devices were connected to a Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop of the year 2000, which had no BIOS settings for USB devices, all at the same time:
- an MSI card reader connected to the internal USB 1.1 port
- a USB 2.0 PCCard inserted into the PCMCIA slot
- a Wintech (=Genesys chip) single-card reader, connected to Port 1 of the PCCard
- a hama multi-card reader 55745 with a built-in 3-port-USB hub, connected to port 2 of the PCCard;
an SD card with 3 partitions (FAT-16, FAT32 and NTSF) was inserted
- a switchable Thermaltake Combo USB/SATA HDD enclosure, connected to the built-in hub of the hama multi-card reader;
the Thermaltake had a 750GB SATA HDD inside

So SDHC card readers seem to work under newer Linux without a manufacturer-provided driver, even if the box usually does not list Linux among compatible operating systems.

Here are 2 example links to Solid State Disks (SSD), with 6 slots for SDHC cards (4-32GBs):
http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/spei...s/index_en.html
http://www.markstechnologynews.com/2008/08...w-cost-ssd.html
These devices seem to function like an multi-card reader which can read 6 SDHC cards simultaneously and has disk-spanning firmware and a SATA interface. Hopefully an external device, with switchable USB interface and a Win98 driver, will eventually become available.

This Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter for 4 Compact Flash cards claims compatibility with Win98:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Buil...rds-69054.shtml

I have built myself a somewhat comparable device, using a Belkin 7-port USB hub plus various SDHC card readers connected to it. This arrangement works fine under Win98. Another self-built device, a hama 55745 multi-card reader with 3 built-in USB ports and 3 single-card readers plugged into it, has been working fine for me under Win98, as a download station for eMule with altogether 4 SDHC cards. My build-your-own devices connect via USB, the devices listed above require eSATA. Also, my 4 card readers have different drive letters, just like partitions of a HDD, there is no drive-spanning.

The main advantage of the SDHC cards over a HDD is their fast access speed, about 25x faster than a HDD. HDDs, however, have a much higher read/write speed than SDHC cards. Here a very good benchmark: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1096

The fast access speed of SDHC cards may be useful for applications like eMule, which has many threads reading and writing simultaneously at slow speeds all over the hard disk, but it doesn't read/write very much data per second. Other applications which might benefit from SDHC cards may possibly be identified by asking: Which of my applications performs substantially faster when the HDD is well defragmentated?

Has anybody in the forum experience with Solid State Disks (SSD) or drive-spanning under Win98?

A friend was having trouble finding a card reader that would work with her phones memory card. The store kept selling her either the wrong one or ones that didn't work. I bought her a universal reader, this one. Since she'd already had enough problems with this, I decided to try it on my PC before I delivered it to her. The package (and website) said it required 98SE or newer and also said that a downloaded driver would be needed for 98SE and ME. I plugged it into my 98FE box and went through all the "new hardware found" prompts. Everything appeared to proceed normally. Never did download the driver. In "my computer", 4 new removable drives appeared. I could read the memory card just fine. The "safely remove hardware" icon appeared in the tray (was installed by the external hard drive software, which wasn't supposed to be 98FE compatible either.) Everything looks good in the device manager.

I've run into this repeatedly with hardware on 98FE. The vendors claim that 98SE or newer is needed but their devices work fine on my 98FE box. So far, this includes the external hard drive, the card reader, the USB datafax modem, even my USB card, all from different vendors. If the website or packaging didn't mention 98FE, I'd assume that they didn't test it or forgot to mention it. But when a vendor says specifically that their product won't work on FE when in reality it works just fine, I have to wonder why they did that. When this many vendors wrongly claim incompatibility, I start asking who wants 98FE out of the picture so badly.
Rick

The question is not as much "who wants the 9x family out of the picture", but "why"... I have a feeling it's not only about money.

Hi Rick,
Perhaps you had already a generic USB driver like nusb 3.3 installed. A previous installation of nusb 3.3, for example, adds the key [HKLM]\Enum\USBREADER to the registry.

Also, the picture http://www.sakar.com/p-1966.aspx?categoryid=141 does not show that the reader is SDHC compatible (cards >=4GB). Another description at http://www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com/catalog/69/5394/ doesn't show SDHC compatibility either, although some devices not described as SDHC-compatible may contain firmware/newer chips which work with SDHC cards.

The multi-card reader by MSI can also read SIM cards, is SDHC-compatible and uses up only 1 drive letter.