Problem Installing Card Reader [Solved]

[Dave-H]

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.

Done that.

When it's detected again, it still detects as two separate drives, which appear as I: and J: in "My Computer".

Neither can be formatted as "there is no disk in the drive"!

[dencorso]

I think I know what's happened... But it'd be a long-winded explanation, and I may be wrong.

So... let's skip it for now.

Download the Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) 2.40 from here.

Extract it to it's own private directory.

Boot to DOS with the pendrive inserted, run CWSDPMI then PART240 (or PART). In case RPM can see it do nothing and get back to me here, and I'll tell you how to partition and format it with RPM. Good luck!

N.B.: Take care, RPM is as dangerous as fdisk, if not more, because it's more user-friendly.

[Multibooter]

Download the Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) 2.40

HDD Low Level Format v2.36 may also be of use to wipe an unruly USB stick.

The following applies to HDDs, I mention it here just in case that a bit in the USB stick was set to make the USB stick appear fixed/non-removable. Acronis Disk Director Suite v10.0 build 2089 has helped me clean up corrupted HDDs (right-click on Disk 1 etc -> Clear Disk), with which Partition Table Doctor and other partitioning software had problems (e.g. HDD is simply displayed as "Bad disk"). PowerQuest PartitionMagic v8.05, for example, cannot clear HDDs. I have only used Acronis Disk Director for clearing a disk; Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 can -> Hard Disk -> "Update MBR" ("overwrites the current bootable code in the MBR by the standard bootstrap code", I am not sure how that differs from Clear Disk in Acronis Disk Director). The disadvantage of clearing the disk with Acronis Disk Director is that partitioning software will not show make, model, etc of the HDD afterwards, it's a tool of last resort. Disks which I cleared in this way (incl. 1TB) do function fine afterwards.

Maybe Dave should connect another single-partition USB device (camera, mp3 player), just to see whether nusb works.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Multibooter

[Multibooter]

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.

I had encountered something similar during my experimenting with partitioned SDHC cards a year ago, with Windows seeing things which didn't exist, I was amazed at the time, but I don't remember the details anymore. I vaguely remember having deleted a partition on an SDHC card under one opsys (WinXP?), but it was still there under another opsys (Win98?, or vice versa?), but I couldn't access the files on the non-existing partition. The ghosts may have been gone after all physical devices and the SDHC card were unplugged from electricity for a few minutes, maybe it had something to do with a cold vs warm reboot, but I just don't remember anymore. I put the whole affair into the category of unsolvable multiple-drive-letter problems/phantom drives. My SDHC cards are fine now, and I probably used Panasonic SDFormatter to get a clean single-partition SDHC card. Edited October 26, 2009 by Multibooter

[Dave-H]

Thanks again guys.

I actually already had that version of Ranish Partition Manager on my system, which I had completely forgotten about as I haven't needed to use it for so long!

Anyway, the USB stick is seen by RPM, as a single 2GB partition, as I would expect.

So, what's the next step Den?

Going off topic, I'm now having the very devil of a job getting the sound to work again on Windows 98.

The driver for the sound hardware (on-board Realtek AC97) will not load.

Everything else seems to be back to normal.

I did try restoring the registry back to as it was before, but this didn't fix the problem.

I am also rather worried that four out of the five backups I had from scanreg don't work.

If I use scanreg/restore in DOS, I'm offered all five, but four of them just throw up a "system restore failed" message, no reason given.........

[jaclaz]

There may be something "sticky" in the Win2K Registry.

See here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-device-not-r...63.html&hl=

Check also (Upper and Lower) Filter Drivers in your 2K (like virtual drives, some Acronis, and various software may install)

Instead of a full low-level format, 00'ing out the first few sectors makes sure the drive can be re-partitioned/formatted clean, but I doubt this is the case:

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-booting-issu...63-page-13.html

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

There may be something "sticky" in the Win2K Registry.

See here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-device-not-r...63.html&hl=

Thanks jaclaz! The guy you tried to help on that thread wasn't too helpful himself was he!

I have just tried removing the registry entry for the USB stick under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBSTOR

No joy there though, when I rebooted and put the stick back in, it just reinstalled as two "dead" drives again!

Check also (Upper and Lower) Filter Drivers in your 2K (like virtual drives, some Acronis, and various software may install)

Instead of a full low-level format, 00'ing out the first few sectors makes sure the drive can be re-partitioned/formatted clean, but I doubt this is the case:

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-booting-issu...63-page-13.html

jaclaz

I'm curious, what exactly are "Upper and Lower Filter Drivers"?

Not something I've come across before.

[jaclaz]

Well, as well , out of several suggested steps, you did just one....

And of course, and out of the blue, FIFTH step of THIRD suggested set.

First:

First thing try same USB stick on ANOTHER computer and report what happens.

Second:

See if the info here helps:

http://www.msfn.org/board/logical-disk-man...pid-873733.html

Third:

http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-device-not-r...-7.html&hl=

I'm curious, what exactly are "Upper and Lower Filter Drivers"?

Not something I've come across before.

Roughly it is a mechanism that allows to "override" some behaviour or "add features" to certain devices/drivers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_driver

Examples:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18379

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/driverssuppo...owerfilters.htm

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9105

Probably completely unrelated but I remember a similar behaviour to what you report in good ol' DOS with SUBST drives.

jaclaz

Edited October 26, 2009 by jaclaz

[Multibooter]

four out of the five backups I had from scanreg don't work.

If I use scanreg/restore in DOS, I'm offered all five, but four of them just throw up a "system restore failed" message, no reason given

I thought that Win98 creates only a new backup rb0##.cab after scanregw considered the registry Ok. Did you recently create any manual backups by running scanreg /backup ? My own \Windows\SYSBCKUP\ folder contains an old file rbbad.cab with a set of bad registry files, my rb00x.cab files however should be Ok. Maybe the files restored from your rb0##.cab don't work with other .ini files, which were not backed up??? Interesting to hear that Win98 can create registry backups which don't work

I am using plain-vanilla Win98SE, you installed SP2.1, I dont know what impact that may have.

I also keep all my complete backups of \Windows\ and \Program Files\, maybe a 100, since I initially installed Win98. I also have a file with a shortcut on my desktop named "Win98 Install Log.txt" (and "WinXP Install Log.txt"), which contains a chronological log/diary of all my installations, system changes and backups since November 2003.

This backup procedure has allowed me to identify the best old backup version from which to install nusb. I restored Win98 as it was about 17 months earlier (backup file W98_049.rar of 3-Mar-2007), did a lot of cleanups, and then installed nusb. 17 months of software and hardware installations had to be redone, which was feasible because I am keeping a very detailed installation log.

[dencorso]

@jaclaz: Welcome to this thread! Your arrival here is very good news, because Dave's problems at this point are somewhat hairy... Now, on to the most pressing issue: Dave's pendrive was originally divided in two partitions. While 9x will accept this gladly, XP will treat such a pendrive as removable and refuse to show more than one partition, as you know full well. I've got very little experience with 2k, but I suppose it'd behave like XP. If so, Dave is bound to have a filter driver installed, since he was able to access and use both partitions under both 2k and 98. So I think you've hit jackpot, there. FYI, Dave has a working 2k installation and a working DOS 7.1 installation, but his alternate 98 system is the source of the original problems, after a messed-up driver installation.

@Dave: jaclaz's other suggestion is in line with what I thought should be the next step: to wipe (write 00s) at least the first 512 sectors of the pendrive, beacause it will clean whatever mess may have been left there. But I'd use the HDD Low Level Format v2.36 and fully wipe it, instead of using dsfok (as jaclaz suggested) to do it. Both methods work, jaclaz's method is faster, while Multibooter's is more user-friendly, albeit slower. And then, repartition and reformat with RPM, as needed. But even before doing all this, follow jaclaz's instructions in hunting for a filter driver, because your pendrive may be OK already and all that remains is a 2k registry problem to be solved, for it to work equally OK across 2k and DOS. Then, with this solved, we get back to troubleshooting your 98 installation.

[Multibooter]

Roughly it [filter drivers] is a mechanism that allows to "override" some behaviour or "add features" to certain devices/drivers.Examples: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18379

HI JACLAZ, great that you joined, I am pretty much at the end of my 2 cents.

Great link, I didn't know that Acronis TrueImage, Acronis Disk Director and PartitionMagic might be possibly conflicting, I got them all on my system, but TrueImageMonitor has been kept from regular startup with Startup Organizer, I don't like unnecessary startup processes. I only allow TrueImageMonitor to load at startup when I make a disk or partition image with TrueImage.

BTW and a little OT, TrueImage v9.1.3887 could not even make an error-free image of the original HDD of an Asus Eee 1000HE, I eventually may uninstall it. Is there any Win98 software which could make a correct image of a modern HDD, i.e. with XP/Vista/7 partitions? Any recommendation?

Edited October 26, 2009 by Multibooter

[Dave-H]

I thought that Win98 creates only a new backup rb0##.cab after scanregw considered the registry Ok. Did you recently create any manual backups by running scanreg /backup ? My own \Windows\SYSBCKUP\ folder contains an old file rbbad.cab with a set of bad registry files, my rb00x.cab files however should be Ok. Maybe the files restored from your rb0##.cab don't work with other .ini files, which were not backed up??? Interesting to hear that Win98 can create registry backups which don't work

My understanding is that Scanreg runs when Windows 98 starts, and if it's happy that the registry is OK, it makes a backup, on the first boot of each day only. All backups should be "startable" therefore, but I have had problems in the past with scanreg backups that won't restore, and never found out why.

I have one rbbad.cab in my \SysBackup folder, generated late on Saturday evening.

I haven't done any manual backups using scanreg for a long time, although I always do it if I've made a large change to the system.

[Dave-H]

@jaclaz

Sorry it seemed that I wasn't co-operating with you, it just seemed that looking into the registry was the way to go as a first line of enquiry.

I was also a bit loathe to go down too many other avenues while still in the middle of troubleshooting with dencorso.

I was worried that things were going to get horribly confused if I wasn't careful!

I don't have access to another computer to try the drive on I'm afraid.

@dencorso

I've downloaded and installed the HDD Low Level Format v2.36 program, but it doesn't seem to be working properly.

When I run it, a message box pops up saying "Error accessing device: incorrect function."

If I click OK another box pops up saying "Cannot change Visible in OnShow or OnHide".

If I clear that, the program's windows comes up, but no devices are shown.

Not having a lot of luck at the moment...........

Edited October 26, 2009 by Dave-H

[Multibooter]

I have had problems in the past with scanreg backups that won't restore, and never found out why.

It may be a little far-fetched, but have you recently made a virus-check with an up-to-date virus checker? (I haven't made on my system a complete virus check for maybe a year or two, but I am restoring very frequently clean backups of \Windows\ and \Program Files\, so this might have wiped out hidden infections). Running a complete virus-check on all your files overnight may exclude this possibility.

You might still have some good, old registry backups: C:\System.1st (the 1st system.dat after installing Win98). If you installed Norton Utilities and created a Rescue Disk, it probably includes a copy of the registry then. If you installed other utilities like System Suite, Fix-It Utilities etc possibly they also included a copy of the registry on their rescue disks.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

[OT]@Multibooter: There are numerous free options, that IcemanND has collected in his list of Disk Imaging Software. Now, in what regards commercial software, there is Norton Ghost 2003, which may still be be found new at eBay for about $50. It does rock! I'm a longtime user, and own one licence of NG 2003. For most purposes, NG 2003 is good enough and it's still the easier to get version of Ghost. But then, suddenly, Symantec decided that another software altogether would be best for their home clients and began marketing it as "Norton Ghost", although it's a totally different animal (those are versions 9, 10 and 12-14) and it sucks. The true Ghost, however, is still sold by Symantec as "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite", but you have to buy at least 5 licences of it as a minimum.[/OT]

@Dave-H: Your pendrive is working in DOS and seen as correct by both fdisk and RPM... I think you should put everything on hold and search for the filter driver, to have it working OK in 2k also. But, it just crossed my mind, when you created the partitioned pendrive, did you perchance use Lexar Boot-It to flip its "removable" bit? And, BTW, which pendrive is it, exactly? Also, do you have the Norton Diskedit v. 2002 at hand, and can it see the pendrive (in DOS, of course)?