[mh84]

Hi there, I tried to build my retro PC recently and unfortunately a I have serious problem with system stability with SATA disk and Windows 98.

My setup:
MB: MSI KT6 Delta (Via KT600)
HDD: Hitachi Travelstar 160GB (SATA II)

What works perfectly (system on IDE drive):
1) I can install and run system on IDE drive without SATA drive connected without any issues.
2) I can run system from IDE drive with SATA drive connected without any issues.
3) I can install Via RAID drivers when system is running from IDE drive.

What does not work (system on SATA drive):
1) When I try to install system on SATA drive setup crashes after first searching for drivers and after setting time zone. But it is possible to finish installation it even with these errors.
2) I get windows protection error while booting from time to time.
3) I can't install Via RAID drivers. There is a yellow exclamation mark in device manager with the message that device cannot be started.

I really want to use SATA drive in this PC and I'm desperate now. Any ideas what should i try? Unfortunately I don't have any other SATA drive for testing. Thanks guys...

[rloew]

mh84, on 05 June 2012 - 03:55 AM, said:

Hi there, I tried to build my retro PC recently and unfortunately a I have serious problem with system stability with SATA disk and Windows 98.

My setup:
MB: MSI KT6 Delta (Via KT600)
HDD: Hitachi Travelstar 160GB (SATA II)

What works perfectly (system on IDE drive):
1) I can install and run system on IDE drive without SATA drive connected without any issues.
2) I can run system from IDE drive with SATA drive connected without any issues.
3) I can install Via RAID drivers when system is running from IDE drive.

What does not work (system on SATA drive):
1) When I try to install system on SATA drive setup crashes after first searching for drivers and after setting time zone. But it is possible to finish installation it even with these errors.
2) I get windows protection error while booting from time to time.
3) I can't install Via RAID drivers. There is a yellow exclamation mark in device manager with the message that device cannot be started.

I really want to use SATA drive in this PC and I'm desperate now. Any ideas what should i try? Unfortunately I don't have any other SATA drive for testing. Thanks guys...

You will need my SATA Patch.
This motherboard has Gigabit Ethernet. This may lead to other issues at a later date.

[mh84]

Thanks rloew. Can you point me to you patch please? Also do you have any clue why everything is working fine with RAID drivers when system was booted from IDE drive?

So far I have no problems with ethernet. But I can disable integrated ethernet controller in bios and I have wifi and ethernet cards available so this should not be the problem. Thanks anyway.

[submix8c]

Google "R Loew"(with the quotes) - the patches aren't free and rloew isn't allowed to directly link due to that. The websites will immediately pop up.

[mh84]

submix8c, on 05 June 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

Google "R Loew"(with the quotes) - the patches aren't free and rloew isn't allowed to directly link due to that. The websites will immediately pop up.

Thanks.

[dencorso]

There is official support for SATA on KT600, and the latest driver to work correctly on 9x/ME is the Via's SerialATA_V220E.zip (direct download).
Now, you must be aware that KT600 does *NOT* support SATA II, and it is one of the chipsets that cannot successfully negotiate with SATA II for it to enter SATA I compatibility mode, and therefore it's one of the reasons for the SATA speed limiting jumper to exist... Any SATA II disk which cannot be jumpred down to SATA I speeds only cannot be used with the KT600.

[mh84]

dencorso, on 06 June 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

There is official support for SATA on KT600, and the latest driver to work correctly on 9x/ME is the Via's SerialATA_V220E.zip (direct download).
Now, you must be aware that KT600 does *NOT* support SATA II, and it is one of the chipsets that cannot successfully negotiate with SATA II for it to enter SATA I compatibility mode, and therefore it's one of the reasons for the SATA speed limiting jumper to exist... Any SATA II disk wich cannot be jumpred down to SATA I speeds only cannot be used with the KT600.

Thanks for the link to the drivers. However my drivers works correctly when system is booted from IDE drive and also I cannot complete Windows installation without few crashes when system is running from SATA so the problem is definitely not in the drivers.

Yeah I know about issues with SATA II drives on KT600 but I was so happy when I found that BIOS has no problems to find my SATA II drive so I thought that everything will be ok... well it is not unfortunately. There are no jumpers on that HDD and Hitachi Feature Tool (utility from Hitachi to set drive parameters) cannot set SATA mode in firmware for my HDD version. I at least tried to change capacity of drive to 128GB with the hope to fix crashes but without success.

One interesting thing. When I'm installing Windows on SATA drive there is one crash right after setting Time Zone and there is always some date which does not make sense like year 99 and wrong day of the month etc. This is not happening when I install system on IDE drive. So is it possible that there is some conflict with SATA controller and real time clock? Maybe some IRQ issues? I cannot understand why is this happening.

[dencorso]

After installing on the IDE HDD, including the SATA drivers I pointed you to, if you simply clone the full disk onto the SATA HDD, then remove the IDE HDD, does it work?

[mh84]

Good idea. I will try that. Thanks.

But it seems that it is a maybe a better idea to keep my old and very noisy IDE drive to keeps things stable anyway...

[dencorso]

Take care: two identical MBRs in two different HDDs may render your setup unbootable or force you into MS-DOS compatibility mode, unless you change the so-called mystery bytes to make each of them different the other.

[rloew]

dencorso, on 07 June 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

Take care: two identical MBRs in two different HDDs may render your setup unbootable or force you into MS-DOS compatibility mode, unless you change the so-called mystery bytes to make each of them different the other.

The "mystery bytes" do not need to be different but something does. The Checksums of the MBRs must be different or confusion can occur.
My RFDISK program puts it's timestamp in a different location.
Amigas use a different Format entirely. Connecting an Amiga Hard drive to a Windows 9x machine will corrupt it, as Windows will set the "mystery bytes" and break the Checksum.

In addition to the "mystery bytes", the Signatures in each Partitions Boot Sector must be changed so that they are all unique. Otherwise you may be accessing the IDE Drive when you think you are accessing the SATA Driver or vice versa. I added a feature to RFDISK to check and repair this issue.

This post has been edited by rloew: 07 June 2012 - 10:33 AM

[jaclaz]

rloew, on 07 June 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

In addition to the "mystery bytes", the Signatures in each Partitions Boot Sector must be changed so that they are all unique. Otherwise you may be accessing the IDE Drive when you think you are accessing the SATA Driver or vice versa. I added a feature to RFDISK to check and repair this issue.

Which "signature"?
You mean volume serial number?
I.e. the data that is @27h in a FAT16 and @43h in a FAT32 PBR ?

jaclaz

[rloew]

jaclaz, on 07 June 2012 - 11:01 AM, said:

rloew, on 07 June 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

In addition to the "mystery bytes", the Signatures in each Partitions Boot Sector must be changed so that they are all unique. Otherwise you may be accessing the IDE Drive when you think you are accessing the SATA Driver or vice versa. I added a feature to RFDISK to check and repair this issue.

Which "signature"?
You mean volume serial number?
I.e. the data that is @27h in a FAT16 and @43h in a FAT32 PBR ?

jaclaz

Correct.

[submix8c]

Wouldn't an easier "clone" method be to just boot to a floppy, use FDISK to remove all partitions, then FDISK /MBR that drive, then copy EVERYTHING from original EXCEPT the Page File (which is locked), then swap to booting from the "new" HDD? No MBR/PBS (sic) problems and the Page File gets recreated, right? I could have SWORN I'd done it that way before...

[dencorso]

Something like that will always work for Win 9x/ME, but not necessarily so for the NT-Family OSes. Since Win 9x/ME is the target here, it can be done even from a live system, using xxcopy (see XXTB#10 and XXTB#20). It should just work, provided the version of XXCOPY FREEWARE used is v.2.96.5 (xxfw2965.zip), which is the last version that works 100% OK in 9x/ME.

[rloew]

submix8c, on 07 June 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

Wouldn't an easier "clone" method be to just boot to a floppy, use FDISK to remove all partitions, then FDISK /MBR that drive, then copy EVERYTHING from original EXCEPT the Page File (which is locked), then swap to booting from the "new" HDD? No MBR/PBS (sic) problems and the Page File gets recreated, right? I could have SWORN I'd done it that way before...

You would need to copy everything including attributes and Short File Names to avoid problems. Most copiers do not match up the Short File Names under all circumstances. Also Directory Timestamps will typically be lost with most copiers.

My XFILE program preserves Short File Names and can Copy Directory Timestamps if run from Windows 98.

@Dencorso: Does XXCOPY preserve Short File names. The documentation does not mention if it does.

Another consideration is time. I have a standalone duplicator that can copy an entire 2TB Hard Drive in about 7 hours. It would take at least 24 Hours to copy the Partitions, even longer to do a File by File Copy. Afterwards I use RFDISK to eliminate all of the duplicate Checksums and Signatures.

This post has been edited by rloew: 07 June 2012 - 05:33 PM

[dencorso]

rloew, on 07 June 2012 - 05:32 PM, said:

Does XXCOPY preserve Short File names? The documentation does not mention if it does.

Yes, it does. It's documented in XXTB#03 (and XXTB#08). The full documentation is accessible from this index.
XXCOPY /Clone works very well in creating a working copy of a Win 9x/ME partition.
Of course, this is file-based cloning, not byte-imaging cloning, but it works really well.
If one creates an active partition in a second HDD, and ensures that it can be booted to DOS, then cloning a 9x/ME to this partition with XXCOPY will result in a bootable setup. The partition on the second HDD has to be of the same size as that of the original partition, or bigger, in order for the cloning to be possible, of course.

[jaclaz]

A lot of years have passed since the last time I had to do this, but - just for the record - I remember that it is perfectly possibly (on 9x/Me systems) to use "plain" Xcopy/Xcopy32, the good ol':

Quote

I SERVe Kentucky Fried Chicken Hot!

http://www.msfn.org/...er/page__st__48
of course target must be partitioned/formatted/SYSed, cannot remember if I used some additional tools/steps, exception made for temporarily disabling pagefile (no pagefile) and running in safe mode, original source:
http://www.duxcw.com...pyhd/cpyhd2.htm

The directory dates are usually of no relevance (keeping 'em or having them changed won't make a difference in normal operation).

jaclaz

[rloew]

jaclaz, on 08 June 2012 - 02:42 AM, said:

A lot of years have passed since the last time I had to do this, but - just for the record - I remember that it is perfectly possibly (on 9x/Me systems) to use "plain" Xcopy/Xcopy32, the good ol':

Quote

I SERVe Kentucky Fried Chicken Hot!

http://www.msfn.org/...er/page__st__48
of course target must be partitioned/formatted/SYSed, cannot remember if I used some additional tools/steps, exception made for temporarily disabling pagefile (no pagefile) and running in safe mode, original source:
http://www.duxcw.com...pyhd/cpyhd2.htm

The directory dates are usually of no relevance (keeping 'em or having them changed won't make a difference in normal operation).

jaclaz

Many years ago. I did an XCOPY of my Windows 98 System. The basic system worked OK but some *.LNK Files were jumbled.

[jaclaz]

rloew, on 08 June 2012 - 11:24 AM, said:

Many years ago. I did an XCOPY of my Windows 98 System. The basic system worked OK but some *.LNK Files were jumbled.

Yep , once I tried to use my long-time-trusted hammer to drive a nail into a wooden plank and the little bastard got one of my fingers instead .

The moral being:

Spoiler

jaclaz