Problem Installing Card Reader [Solved]

[dencorso]

Did you mean HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum ? Or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USBSTOR ? On the other hand, wiping out all the hardware currently installed may be useful house-cleaning.

@Multibooter: I mean the whole HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum, of course!

It's pretty radical. But my intention is to try to obviate the need for a full system reinstall. And, in any case, since Dave preserved the back-up copies of the registry (system.ant and user.ant), he can always return to the point where we started, in case things go wrong. So I think it's safe enough. In any case, since the .infs are already there, win 98 ought to locate all the drivers it needs, so all should be normal after a longish device redetect. But all the trash will be left out, or so I hope.

@Dave-H: in case you didn't start yet, copy also autoexec.bat, config.sys, msdos.sys, control.ini, system.ini and win.ini to corresponding .ant files, just in case, so we'll have a full backup of the configuration files, although I doubt they'll ever be needed, in the present case.

[Multibooter]

It's pretty radical

Dave's system and nusb will then most likely work, but what about his external devices? I have a lot of external devices for my laptop which are entered under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum. Re-installing the software and drivers for my external devices would be quite time-consuming (PCCards [sCSI, USB 2.0, Ethernet], USB devices [Printer, scanner, USB DSL-modem using NDISWAN], parallel port devices [iomega zip, Jaz Traveller parallel-to-SCSI converter, Micro Solutions floppy disk drive, parallel port printers] and SCSI devices [iomega Jaz/zip]). Dave is lucky if he doesn't have that many external devices.

If Dave's computer works with an old serial mouse, then the corruption of his system may be limited to USB/SCSI. Hopefully Dave can solve his problem, but if nothing should work, Dave has then a 3rd alternative: installing a clean 2nd Win98 opsys with nusb, and continue using his original Win98 opsys for everything which does not involve USB.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

@dencorso, Please apologize my constant comments here. This topic is very important, it might even be renamed to "How to repair a failed nusb installation".

There's nothing to apologize about, Multibooter: on the contrary, your constant contributions to this thread are very much appreciated! But, as regards to renaming the thread, I prefer to wait until we have achieved the complete repair, before any such move, although I do hope we'll be there soon.

Now, on to your next question: I plan to have Dave-H redetect all his USB devices again, but in a quite controlled way, after we get his machine working properly without them. And there are more advanced levels of registry-surgery in store, if needed be. I believe all the non-USB hardware will be detected correctly and the relevant software installed from what windows had already saved previously. When this point is reached, I think some sort of back-up will be in order, perhaps by the method you suggested. After securing the back-up, we can then proceed to install the USB mouse, and then try nusb 3.3 once again, but this time standalone. That's, in brief strokes, my general plan. Fortunately, Dave-H has a working Win 2k second bootable partition, from which he can safely do all types of difficult procedures to restore Win 98SE, which is a great asset in the present situation.

[Multibooter]

What about trying to restore an old registry backup in \Windows\Sysbckup\ ? My Windows98 has several files like rb000.cab of the last 5 days. Maybe Dave should back these files up also, before they get replaced. Dave posted his problem 4 days ago on 20-Oct-2009. My oldest backup file rb004.cab has currently a modification date of 20-Oct-2009, so there might be a chance that he still has a pre-nusb version, if he makes a backup of these files under Win2k before starting Win98 tomorrow.

I would also check with data recovery software for any old deleted files rb*.cab. I am content with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard v4.3.6 under WinXP (it doesn't run under Win98, but Win2k is supposedly ok)

Edited October 25, 2009 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

Great idea, Multibooter! I didn't even imagine there still might be a usable registry back-up there, but you're right, of course: there may still be one, and if he doesn't save it now it'll be lost. If he finds it (and it's easy to recognize it by its date and time), after making the back-up copies you just suggested, he ought to try to restore it, using SCANREG /RESTORE and ascertain whether it fixed his machine, or, if not, how better it is as compared to its present state, before doing anything else.

[Multibooter]

Maybe Dave should, before he starts up Win98, edit under Win2k the file \Windows\Scanreg.ini and change the value of MaxBackupCopies. The default is MaxBackupCopies=5 [=make backups once a day, for a maximum of 5 days]. Maybe by setting "MaxBackupCopies=10" he won't loose his oldest backup when he starts up Win98. The maximum value of MaxBackupCopies is 99.

I would restore the 4 backup files not under DOS with ScanReg, but under WinXP with a simple extract, then file copy (about Win2k I am not sure, I don't know whether Dave can access ok the Win98 partition). But ScanReg under DOS is a little cleaner, file copying under WinXP changes access dates, which may not be good prior to making a partition image.

If Dave doesn't find an rb*.cab file dated prior to the installation of nusb, maybe he should, before any further fiddling, make an image of the Win98 partition, maybe an old rb*.cab file can be recovered lateron. A recovered rb*.cab file is most likely good if it tests and extracts ok under WinRAR (a "recovered" file is often different from the original file).

Given Dave's experience I have just set MaxBackupCopies=10 in my system. This will add about 10MB to my \WINDOWS\ directory (5x2MB), 5 backups look too little to me.

BTW, my oldest backup file is rb004.cab, the most recent backup file is rb005.cab. I have no idea why the naming of the backup files on my system is out of whack.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

(about Win2k I am not sure, I don't know whether Dave can access ok the Win98 partition).

Yes, he sure can.

BTW, my oldest backup file is rb004.cab, the most recent backup file is rb005.cab. I have no idea why the naming of the backup files on my system is out of whack.

ScanReg cycles the names, so it's never obvious from the name which is the oldest (or the newest, for that matter) file in the set.

I agree with all your suggestions in the above post: its better to ascertain which is the oldest file under 2k, and extract it manually with WinRAR or 7-Zip and then install them manually, all this also under 2k. Then, reboot into 98, and see how it goes. Also edit scanreg.ini to 10 is a great idea. At the moment, I use 9 myself, in my system.

[Dave-H]

Hi guys!

Thanks so much for all this, and sticking with it.

Just to let you know where I am now.

I had already used scanreg to restore previous backups of the registry when I was experimenting with this much earlier on. It is an excellent facility which has saved my bacon several times over the years, and it's always puzzled me as to why NT based systems don't have it. Maybe the backup files would be too large or something.

I have a Windows 98 Resource Kit utility which allow parameters such as the number of backups and which files are backed up to be changed using a graphical interface.

I expect you're aware that no matter how high you set the number of backups to be, the DOS version of scanreg will still only display five of them. Very silly!

Anyway, I tried restoring the backups of system.dat and user.dat that Den had me make.

Unfortunately they wouldn't work, on boot up I got a screen saying that registry corruption had been detected and telling me to run scanreg. If I ignored that, after a series of BSODs the system loading never completed.

So, I did run scanreg as Bill told me to, and of course it just restored a backup, presumably the last one that started successfully.

Once the system was up and running again, I exported the Enum registry key to a backup, deleted it, and restarted.

I then went through all the automatic and manual device installation procedures, which took ages of course, but I've now got everything installed again apart from a few peripherals that I seldom use. I'll deal with them later!

The only thing still not working is the sound, so I've got to sort that, but it can wait too.

So, I put my pen drive in the slot (I'm using that for all the tests now as it's the simplest device, if that works I'm sure the card readers will too.)

I was very disappointed to find that nothing had changed!

It's doing exactly the same as it was before I reinstalled all the devices.

I put the drive in the USB slot, it says it's found a "Mass Storage Device".

That installs correctly, all well and good.

It then says it's found a "Removable USB Disk", then a "USB Disk".

It then does this again a second time, as my pen drive is partitioned into two drives.

Unfortunately, as soon as "USB Disk" comes up the second time, the system freezes.

No error messages or anything.

Sometimes the hourglass keeps going round and round, but the keyboard is immediately completely dead.

The mouse carries on working for a short while, although clicking on things does nothing, and eventually that freezes too. It's as if the whole operating system has just stopped running, and I have to do a hard reset.

After this, putting the pen drive in just freezes the system immediately.

If I try and boot with the pen drive in, the GUI never loads, it just hangs on a flashing cursor.

So, all that uninstalling and reinstalling seems to have done nothing.

The driver being used seems to be USBMPHLP.PDR, in the System\IOSubsys folder.

If I disable this by renaming the file (I usually disable files be replacing the middle character in the file extension with a tilda (~) BTW) the detection and loading procedure for the pen drive does complete.

I then have two USB Drives in Device Manager, as I would expect, but non functional with yellow marks on them of course as the driver file is missing.

If I reactivate USBMPHLP.PDR the system freezes agian as soon as I put the pen drive into the USB port.

So, it seems that the loading, or attempting to load, USBMPHLP.PDR is freezing the system.

Why? Well, over to you two again.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Dave-H

[dencorso]

Which version of USBMPHLP.PDR do you have on your machine?

Anyway, do a full backup of the Windows (and also Program Files if you have space to do it) directory and all it's subdirectories, like Multibooter told you to above.

Then install the genesys driver. Reboot. Then uninstall the genesys driver. Reboot. Then install NUSB 3.3. Reboot.

Tell us then how is it working at this point. But even if the machine becomes unbootable after this procedure, be sure to discuss it with us first, before reverting to the saved previous windows dir.

[Multibooter]

I put my pen drive in the slot (I'm using that for all the tests now as it's the simplest device, if that works I'm sure the card readers will too.)...

I put the drive in the USB slot, it says it's found a "Mass Storage Device".

That installs correctly, all well and good.

It then says it's found a "Removable USB Disk", then a "USB Disk".

It then does this again a second time, as my pen drive is partitioned into two drives.

Unfortunately, as soon as "USB Disk" comes up the second time, the system freezes.

A USB stick with 2 partitions may not be that simple. What happens if you insert a USB stick which has only 1 partition, or another USB drive with only 1 partition? (external USB HDD, camera, etc?) I just want to make sure that the problem is not related to/caused by partitioning. Edited October 25, 2009 by Multibooter

[Dave-H]

Thanks for the quick response guys!

The USBMPHLP.PDR file version is 4.90.3000, which I think is correct for a Windows ME file.

It's paired in the driver list of the devices with IOS.VXD, whic id 4.10.2225, a Windows 98SE file.

Is that OK?

I will do a backup of Windows 98 as it now is.

As I have Windows 2000 on the machine as well, would it be adequate to just use Windows 2000 to copy the Windows and Program Files folders to another drive?

I have a drive E: archive drive where I store all my documents, with no system files on it, I could store the backups there.

I could re-partition my memory stick to a single partition using Windows 2000 too if you think that would eliminate one possible problem.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Dave-H

[Multibooter]

I will do a backup of Windows 98 as it now is.

As I have Windows 2000 on the machine as well, would it be adequate to just use Windows 2000 to copy the Windows and Program Files folders to another drive?

Yes. I create with WinRAR a single rar file from these two Win98 folders, to make sure that no files inside \Windows\ and \Program Files\ were somehow changed since making the backup. This also maintains the original folder dates when I restore the backup. If you have enough space on your HDD, however, using just file copy to create a backup folder on a different partition is Ok.

I could re-partition my memory stick to a single partition using Windows 2000 too if you think that would eliminate one possible problem.

Yes. If your stick came with some reformatting software for Win2k, I would use that instead of Windows Format. SDHC cards (which differ from regular USB sticks), for example, are not properly formatted with Windows Format.

The USBMPHLP.PDR file version is 4.90.3000, which I think is correct for a Windows ME file. It's paired in the driver list of the devices with IOS.VXD, whic id 4.10.2225, a Windows 98SE file. Is that OK?

Yes. That's what I have on my system with nusb.

I have also used nusb without any problem with a patched version of \Windows\SYSTEM\VMM32\Ios.vxd. Installing the old Micro Solutions Backpack parallel-port floppy disk drive under Win98 requires patching ios.vxd with iosfix.exe plus manually adding a line in \Windows\ios.ini in section [safeList], otherwise I would get at boot-time an error while initializing IOS: "Windows Protection Fault". nusb seems to be able to digest quite a few changes - provided you installed nusb properly.

I have my own little method of installing and using nusb, which has worked for me so far:

1) I first create a directory, e.g. \nusb33\ and put nusb33e.exe into it

2) I extract all files in nusb33e.exe into \nusb33\

3) I run (double-click) nusb33e.exe to install nusb

4) after nusb has been installed and when I connect a new USB device:

- when the Add New Hardware Wizard comes up and asks to Specify a Location:

- if it is a device for which I want to install nusb, I indicate the path to \nusb\

- if it is a device for which I want to install a manufacturer-provided driver, I indicate the path to that driver, not to \nusb\

Currently I am not using any manufacturer-provided USB mass storage drivers, only nusb, because nusb seems to be the best driver.

Here one example of the superiority of nusb: Recently I installed a Kingwin EZ-Dock EZD-2535 SATA HDD docking station under Win98, with a manufacturer-provided driver (I always test a new Win98 device with its manufacturer-provided driver first, before re-installing it, under nusb, after a system restore). With a new 2.5" 500GB Hitachi SATA HDD inside the docking station, Beyond Compare eventually froze when accessing the HDD in the docking station. ScanDisk with the Thorough (=surface test) option also froze after an hour or two, no msg, big puzzle.

When I eventually used the docking station under nusb, ScanDisk displayed: "Failed to read data from the disk, sector...." plus identified the bad sectors when it was done, without freezing. I immediatley returned the 500GB Hitachi HDD and got a working replacement, thanks to nusb. The manufacturer-provided driver of the EZ-Dock docking station was probably never tested by the manufacturer how it works with defective hardware.

When buying USB hardware, I try to get hardware with a manufacturer-provided Win98 driver, so that I actually have 2 different drivers, for testing in case of problems.

Here another example which shows that nusb is more resilient to error conditions than manufacturer-provided USB drivers: When you pull-out, without safely-remove, a USB mass storage device driven by nusb, then re-insert it, and then run ScanDisk or NDD, they are likely to work Ok; when you repeat the same under a manufacturer-provided driver, ScanDisk or NDD are likely to freeze.

Dave, I'm writing all this about nusb, to encourage you with nusb - when you get it to work, it's great!

Edited October 25, 2009 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

I couldn't be more glad to read you too think nusb rocks, Multibooter!

I know it gave you a hard time, in the begining.

But it sure is worth the effort.

[Dave-H]

I'm now trying to re-partition my memory stick as a single drive, but I'm running into a puzzling problem.

To cut a long story short, I deleted all the volumes on the drive, and it still shows as two drives in Windows 2000 Explorer, but with "no disk in them".

I eventually resorted to going into DOS (I can access USB drives in DOS) and using fdisk to delete all the partitions on the drive.

I then used fdisk again to create one primary DOS partition, and formatted it with the DOS format command.

It now appears in DOS as one single 2GB drive, which is what I want.

However, Windows 2000 still insists on seeing it as two separate drives, with no file system on them.

Do I need to install a third party drive partition utility to get this to work?

The "DISKPART" command in Windows 2000 Recovery Console doesn't see the drive at all.

I have tried it again in Windows 98 BTW, but with the same result, two drives detected followed by a system freeze.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Dave-H

[dencorso]

Go to Win 2k. Insert the pendrive. Then go to device manager and delete its entry under Disk Drives. Remove it without stopping. Reinsert it and, after it's detected anew, format it again from Win 2k. If that doesn't work, more labor-intensive procedures will be needed. But don't worry, it's not serious and we'll overcome this problem fast.