[Multibooter]

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-siebe...btrouble_e.html (towards the end) needs an addition in this sense.

[Multibooter]

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.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 03 November 2008 - 06:34 PM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Multibooter, on Nov 3 2008, 08:32 PM, said:

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.

@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.

[dencorso]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Nov 4 2008, 05:57 AM, said:

@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:

dencorso, on Oct 25 2008, 02:56 AM, said:

As a sample of what I see, here's what I get from my Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB, under Win 98SE:
====================================================
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
=====================================================

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).

This post has been edited by dencorso: 08 November 2008 - 11:53 PM

[Multibooter]

dencorso, on Nov 4 2008, 01:02 AM, said:

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. 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

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 17 November 2008 - 05:05 AM

[Multibooter]

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.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 17 November 2008 - 06:25 AM

[Multibooter]

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.tabletpcr...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?

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 19 November 2008 - 10:20 AM

[herbalist]

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

This post has been edited by herbalist: 20 November 2008 - 06:52 PM

[Drugwash]

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.

[Multibooter]

herbalist, on Nov 20 2008, 05:33 PM, said:

The package (and website) said it required 98SE or newer and also said that a downloaded driver would be needed for 98SE and ME... 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.

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...?categoryid=141 does not show that the reader is SDHC compatible (cards >=4GB). Another description at http://www.bestprice...atalog/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.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 21 November 2008 - 02:40 AM

[herbalist]

I didn't see this thread until after I'd delivered the card reader. I don't have access to the reader or its package right now so I can't comment on SDHC compatibility. I think it was listed on the package but I'm not positive. Her phone uses MicroSD and the chip I was reading was a 4GB.

Regarding SIM cards, the CD installed a SIM editing tool so it should to be able to read them.

Quote

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.

I have Orangeware USB drivers ver 2.3 installed. Unless they were part of another install, I haven't installed NUSB. There's several USB keys in that part of the registry but no entries for USBREADER.

[dencorso]

@Multibooter:
Here is a link to PassingBy's generic USB ejector... (link) I think I've mentioned it before... Maybe it'll help you with those third-party drivers without an ejector solution. Extra care in testing it, though, for it's an initial beta. HTH.

[Multibooter]

dencorso, on Nov 22 2008, 09:51 AM, said:

Here is a link to PassingBy's generic USB ejector... (link)

This program looks interesting. I have posted my comment at http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry813314

[Multibooter]

I have further tested PassingBy's generic USB ejector. Except for a bug in its device selection menu, it works fine for SDHC card readers with US Best chips in them (e.g. single-slot card reader hama 55310 v3, multi-card reader hama 55350 SN 32822630800 [SN 02822630600 has a Genesys chip inside]). http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=813314

After using PassingBy's generic USB ejector for a longer time, I may include it in my Toolbox for SDHC cards

I hope PassingBy will still actively participate here.

[Qui-Gon]

Hi guys,

i was looking for a working Win98SE SDHC Cardreader and i found this website.

I wanted to buy the CnMemory SDHC PoP-Art Cardreader but Multibooter said the driver from the cnmemory website for Win98SE isnt working.

What can i do now?

Thanks for help!

Qui-Gon

[Multibooter]

Qui-Gon, on Nov 30 2008, 10:46 AM, said:

I wanted to buy the CnMemory SDHC PoP-Art Cardreader but Multibooter said the driver from the cnmemory website for Win98SE isnt working. What can i do now?

I had bought and then returned this card reader. ChipGenius had identified this card reader as follows:
PnP Device ID: VID = 0BDA [=Realtek Semiconductor Corp.] PID = 0158
Serial Number: 20060413092100000
Revision: 1.00
Chip Vendor: Realtek
Chip Part-Number: RTS5158
The Win98 driver which I downloaded from http://www.cnmemory....84ger-0-a0.html installed a file OCREADER.inf which was for a different VID [=Vendor ID] 0EA0 [=Ours Tech Inc], PIDs 2126,2136, 2118, 2153, 2156. Probably cnmemory put into the card reader a newer chip from another manufacturer, but continued to use the same packaging and didn't update their website accordingly.

I don't know of a Win98 driver provided by Realtek Semiconductor Corp. for this chip, but this does not necessarily mean that there is none, only that looking for one may be quite time-consuming. I myself had returned this card reader because I didn't want a big headache for an item costing $10. Look at the 1st page of this topic for suggestions about buying an SDHC card reader for Win98.

You may also look at Reggel's list of card readers http://www.hjreggel....fo-readers.html In his list look for "Genesys Logic" in the column "Vendor", there are about 25 card reader models under various brand names, maybe you can identify one which is available in your area. The Genesys driver (from the Toolbox on the 1st page of this topic) should work in most cases for readers with the VID 05E3 [=Genesys Logic], maybe you have to add 2 lines to Geneuide.inf for a new Product ID (PID) after installing the driver and before inserting the card reader for the first time under Win98. Under WinXP you can find out with ChipGenius the exact VID/PID of the specific card reader you buy, which you may need for updating Geneuide.inf, it's not printed on the box.

Good luck.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 01 December 2008 - 04:16 AM

[Qui-Gon]

Hello Multibooter,

i just wrote an email to CnMemory 2 days ago and got a reply today.

The Support gave me a driver for the PoP Art Reader for Windows98SE (about 2MB).

The driver you mentioned is NOT the correct one (its for the older black cardreader and not for the PoP Reader Series).

The driver is an Realtek 2.0 USB Driver. The Setup was finished after 1 second and i restarted the PC.

After that i put the Cardreader in the USB Slot and the System said "New Hardware found...".

Windows took and accepted automatically the Realtek 2.0 driver and a new drive (E:) was in my explorer.

The reader works perfect and is very fast (my reader from my HP printer is slow as hell).

I asked the Support to publish this great driver on the CnMemory Driver webpage. But i can give it to you too if you want :-)

I am happy now

Qui-Gon

[Multibooter]

Qui-Gon, on Dec 1 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

The Support gave me a driver for the PoP Art Reader for Windows98SE (about 2MB)...The driver is an Realtek 2.0 USB Driver. The reader works perfect

Nice to hear that the problem is solved and that there is a Win98 driver for Realtek card readers, Reggel's list contains about 6 different models/brands using Realtek chips. If you can find a download location, I will add it to the list of Win98 drivers in the Toolbox on the front page of this topic.

Added on 2-Dec-2008:
RTUsb.inf of the Realtek driver, dated 27-Jul-2006, lists 13 card reader PIDs, so as a ball-park first guesstimate I would speculate that Reggel's list covers about 50% of the card readers available world-wide.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: 02 December 2008 - 12:25 PM

[Qui-Gon]

Multibooter, on Dec 1 2008, 03:07 PM, said:

Qui-Gon, on Dec 1 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

The Support gave me a driver for the PoP Art Reader for Windows98SE (about 2MB)...The driver is an Realtek 2.0 USB Driver. The reader works perfect

Nice to hear that the problem is solved and that there is a Win98 driver for Realtek card readers, Reggel's list contains about 6 different models/brands using Realtek chips. If you can find a download location, I will add it to the list of Win98 drivers in the Toolbox on the front page of this topic.

At first i was confused where the support got the driver. But a friend said he found the same drivers with google

He said its in the CNMemory Forum, click here to get to the it.

As you can see, the correct driver is "Pop Art Card Reader" "Treiber" and you can see an url under the two words. Click here to get the download.

The "Multi Card Reader" "Treiber" (cardreader.exe) is for the older, black cardreader of CNMemory. You can find it on the website (you already mentioned).

Well, pretty sweet that CNMemory published a working driver...but not on their website

Qui-Gon

This post has been edited by Qui-Gon: 01 December 2008 - 05:44 PM

[dencorso]

"Treiber" is German for "driver". Thanks Qui-Gon, you rock!