[TELVM]

Sure, here they go: Dino System Files


Got another little drawback, I made two FAT32 partitions in the HDD, the first 32GB one for Win98SE and a second 80GB one for future WinXP. Problem is, these partitions are now named C: and D:, and the CD/DVD driver was displaced to letter E: . That's not good, some old games only work fine if CD driver is D: .

There is any way to switch letters so that 80GB HDD partition is E:, and CD/DVD is D: again?

Were that not possible, can we 'hide' or 'deactivate' somehow the 80GB partition for Win98SE eyes only, so that ignores it, doesn't assign letter, and gives letter D: directly to the CD/DVD?

Attached File(s)

•  Dino System Files.zip (1.86K)
  Number of downloads: 20

[jaclaz]

TELVM, on 23 March 2012 - 04:52 AM, said:

There is any way to switch letters so that 80GB HDD partition is E:, and CD/DVD is D: again?

YES.
http://homepage.ntlw...no-answers.html

Easiest :
http://www.msfn.org/...os/page__st__77

jaclaz

[M()zart]

About system freezing when connecting USB drive to USB 1.x port - may be that occurred because Windows 98 needs to read FAT table and freezes until the FAT table is read completely. USB 1.x has low speed and reading FAT can take some time. I had the same issue. My 320 GB USB HDD freezes my system for more than 3.5 minutes. My 4 GB flash drive freezes my system for 3-4 seconds. However after this time span system works OK and I can read/write files on my USB drives. I have USB 1.1 ports. I have tried many things - rebooting, reinstalling NUSB, etc. - before I learned that I need just to wait for a few minutes. USB 2.0 is much faster, so FAT table is read almost instantly with it.

[TELVM]

@ Jaclaz: Thanks a lot for the link to Letter Assigner, it's exactly what was needed and works like a charm . Also for the grammar lesson .

@M()zart: Thanks for your advice, USB 2.0 runs fine now in the dino and pendrives are recognized instantly. Seems it was some IRQ/drivers conflict, now solved.

[dencorso]

You said it crashes DOS. I doubt it. I think it crashes Windows. Let's see who's right.
Set BootGUI=0 and Logo=0 in MSDOS.SYS, and try to boot substituting your current config.sys by the one attached.
If you get to the DOS prompt without a crash, do a DIR command to make sure dos is working, then do a WIN command, for Windows to load.
If it crashes only after the WIN command, pay attention to any message that it may flash and report it, or tell us there's no message at all.

Attached File(s)

•  CONFIG.zip (367bytes)
  Number of downloads: 6

[TELVM]

dencorso, on 23 March 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

... Set BootGUI=0 and Logo=0 in MSDOS.SYS, and try to boot substituting your current config.sys by the one attached.
If you get to the DOS prompt without a crash, do a DIR command to make sure dos is working, then do a WIN command, for Windows to load.
If it crashes only after the WIN command, pay attention to any message that it may flash and report it, or tell us there's no message at all.

Used your config.sys and modded the msdos.sys, got to DOS prompt, did a DIR OK. Then a couple of seconds after entering WIN command, it just froze with no message at all .

[dencorso]

TELVM, on 23 March 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Used your config.sys and modded the msdos.sys, got to DOS prompt, did a DIR OK. Then a couple of seconds after entering WIN command, it just froze with no message at all

Well, that's good news! It means Windows is crashing due to exhaustion of the System Arena.
For more info about it, read this post and those that follow it.
On the other hand, were it DOS to crash instead of Windows, I wouldn't have the faintest idea of what the problem might be!

So, let's troubleshoot it radically:
1) Set, in both system.ini and system.cb, MaxFileCache=114688 ; 112 MiB
2) Reduce the XMSDSK to 64 MiB.

Try again and let's see whst happens after the WIN command.

[TELVM]

Shrinking both vcache and ramdisk size didn't make any difference, dino keeps freezing on boot as before. Seems system arena exhaustion is not the problem.


I'm exploring another ramdisk software, Cenatek Ramdisk9X/Me v1.5:



Has some nice options, formats in FAT32 with 512K clusters, and works seamless thus far with 128MB of ramdisk and 256MB of vcache. I like this software, it's very much like its Dataram descendant which I use in modern comps with Win7.




Son unless you tell me that xmsdsk.exe is decisively faster, I think I'll stick with the Cenatek.



Keeping in mind that, in this hardware context, 'fastness' is a very relative concept :

This post has been edited by TELVM: 24 March 2012 - 05:37 AM

[dencorso]

No, there's no reason to prefer XMSDSK. Since the CENATEK RD works OK for you, you should stick to it and move on. This means you've reached the definitive setup for the dino, doesn't it? If so, congratulations!

[jaclaz]

dencorso, on 24 March 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

This means you've reached the definitive setup for the dino, doesn't it?

I see this achievement NOT as an arrival point, but rather ....
http://reboot.pro/2398/page__st__1



jaclaz

[dencorso]

[TELVM]

dencorso, on 24 March 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

No, there's no reason to prefer XMSDSK. Since the CENATEK RD works OK for you, you should stick to it and move on. This means you've reached the definitive setup for the dino, doesn't it? If so, congratulations!

Well there is always some potential fiddling remaining , but the 98 is now running fairly well in the dino .

I installed XP Pro SP3 in the second partition and that went very smoothly, without any problems neither with the USB 2.0 card nor with a recently inserted RTL8029AS Ethernet card. Working now on the internet connection. I'm surprised how decently the old PII Deschutes 350/100 @434/124 with 768MB RAM moves XP ; I was expecting a barely bearable slowness at best, but it runs reasonably well with not too much disk scratching .

To flog the old horse a bit more I tried this ancient trick to increase voltage in Slot 1 CPUs. It worked, raising from 2.0 to 2.2V ...



... but although the dino POSTs and boots at 466/133, both 98 & XP freeze on desktop. Time for a PIII Coppermine closer to 1GHz I think .



BTW, I'm searching for some game recording software (à la FRAPS) that works under Win98, without success thus far. ¿Where can I find it?

[TELVM]

Finally managed to connect the dino to the internet. With the latest Firefox it browses at an irksome pace, but does browse . Only from XP though, as to keep traditions the RTL8029AS card generates IRQ conflicts and I've had to disable it in 98 .


BTW to remove the well entrenched 'Network Neighborhood' icon from the 98 desktop, we go to registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\ , (if as in my case there isn't an 'Explorer' folder under 'Policies', we just create it), then under 'Explorer' we create a new DWORD value called ' NoNetHood ', set its value to 1 , and next boot that icon is gone.

This post has been edited by TELVM: 01 April 2012 - 03:53 AM

[TELVM]

Got some dinosaurian steroids. First a PIII Katmai 450/100, which overclocked like a champ to 600/133:




Then a Coppermine 1000/133 with MSI slotket:

. .




Windows 98 runs fairly well now .

However I think I'm gonna try to hunt some Tualatin 1400S, got wind they can be hacked into 440BX mobos .

[Drugwash]

Do you happen to have a manual/datasheet for that MSI slocket? Mine is v2.3 and the only manual I could find does not match the actual jumpers on the PCB. I think I might have fried a couple CPUs while testing it, because of wrong jumper connections (unless it was already defective when I got it).

[TELVM]

There is this online pdf: MS-6905 CPU Converter Board

Some more good info here: MS-6905 meets the Tualeron Mod


Are you trying a Tualatin in a 440BX board, Drugwash? If so maybe it's the pin mod scheme what is giving you trouble, there are several different schemes and some work better than others on each different board.

[Drugwash]

Thanks, I found that japanese site soon after posting here. Apparently the jumpers match but there's still no mention about J2, whether it should be open or else - they only say "reserved", but nothing about its default state.

I'm not trying anything fancy because that's the only adaptor I got (and I read a lot about those Tualatin mods these days, I know about cutting pins, nail polish, drilling through, etc) - all I want is a working setup for a potential replacement of my Slot1 667MHz CPU. However, al I got here is a 1000MHz Celeron with 100MHz FSB which is not worth the bother since the 667 has a 133 FSB and it's a PIIIE Coppermine not a Celeron. I do have a Tualatin Celeron (Tualeron, Celertin as they used to call it as overclockers.com and elsewhere) but that one is also a FSB 100 (@ 1300MHz speed) and I wouldn't want to destroy my adapter for it. The only worthy replacement would be the Coppermine 1000/133 in my HP Vectra, but I've not yet decided whether I'll downgrade that machine.

Besides, my board is a Soyo SY-6VBA133 which is VIA-based and I read the guys didn't have much luck with modded Tualatins on the VIA chipsets anyway. But being my main machine I'd rather play it as safe as possible.

(just fixed a minor typo) (somebody should fix the board - it's inserting plain HTML tags when Quick Edit is used under IE).

This post has been edited by Drugwash: 12 June 2012 - 04:52 PM

[TELVM]

Can't find any info on J2 jumper function, it's always 'hanging' or directly missing in these slotkets.

Short of the Tuallys I'd get a 1000/256/133 Coppermine. Larger cache than Celeron, higher FSB as is, and decent OC potential.

.....

1 MHz Coppermines Slot-370 are aplenty and cost nothing nowadays.

[Drugwash]

TELVM, on 12 June 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

Can't find any info on J2 jumper function, it's always 'hanging' or directly missing in these slotkets.

One shallow mention I found on the Lunchbox page you linked to above, but it may be related to the mod. My hunch is that it may be the one that enables lower voltage range but in this domain we work with certainties, not hunches.

TELVM said:

Short of the Tuallys I'd get a 1000/256/133 Coppermine. Larger cache than Celeron, higher FSB as is, and decent OC potential.

That's what I got on the Vectra. That used to be a good machine but the HDD crapped out, developed 4000+ bad sectors and not even multiple repair sessions with HDD Regenerator and HDAT2 couldn't fix it back. Freakin' ironically, after years of usage, few days ago I just found out that the HDD is actually 40GB not 20GB as the additional label said! And this appears to be (or have been) common practice for many OEMs when they had a large order and no direct match at hand.

TELVM said:

1 MHz Coppermines Slot-370 are aplenty and cost nothing nowadays.

Not in this country, amigo. Not in this country...

[TELVM]

Coppermines 1000 socket370 at Ebay.be



Here's an unconventional solution for replacing the HDD in old IDE comps (aka 'The Poor Man's SSD'):





Works like a charm in my dino.

This post has been edited by TELVM: 12 June 2012 - 08:59 PM