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Blu-ray under Windows 98


Multibooter

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Help files could be downloaded from Nero, but the old link is now 404:

ftp://ftp6.nero.com/user_guides/nero7/Nero7_chm_eng.exe

No idea where one could get the Help files for v7.2.7 now.

Thanks loblo, but I was there too already. The installer file for Nero v7.2.7.0 is digitally signed 23-Aug-2006, and the help files downloadable from the links above have a file modification date (inside the zip file of the "All in one download package") of 26-Oct-2007, over a year later. I would suspect that these currently downloadable Help files are different from those for v7.2.7.0 because there was a major developmental change after v7.2.7.0 (no Win98-compatibility anymore) and the currently downloadable Help files have a file modification date more recent than v7.2.7.0. The currently downloadable Help files should be good for a later build, e.g. v7.11.10.0, but I am not sure about v7.2.7.0.

Somebody who has downloaded the Nero 7 Help files around Sep-2006 could clarify the matter with a simple binary compare.

There are for example 2 different versions of Nero CD-DVD Speed v4.7.7.15, one has the modification date 22-Jan-2008 and runs under WinXP but not under Win98, the other has a modification date of 8-Jan-2008 and runs under Win98 (is the last version for Win98). User interface and features appear to be the same, however.

Update 8-May-2011: The version of Nero CD-DVD Speed v4.7.7.15 which works with Win98 has the filename "CDSpeed.exe", is not digitally signed, has 1,785,856 bytes, its MD5 hash is 5599933A466538F765CC66583EE4A6E9 and MiTeC EXE Explorer displays a timestamp of 9-Jan-2008. No idea where it can be obtained now.

The WinXP version of Nero CD-DVD Speed v4.7.7.15 has the same filename "CDSpeed.exe", is digitally signed 22-Jan-2008, has 2,598,184 bytes and MiTeC EXE Explorer displays a timestamp of 22-Jan-2008. It gets installed with Nero v7.11.10.0c into \Nero Toolkit\,

Any ideas about the Nero Blu-ray plugin? I have been looking quite intensively for it, to no avail. This seems to be a quite elusive butterfly.

Edited by Multibooter
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As for a blu-ray player running under Windows 98, for lack of the blu-ray plugin for the Nero Media Player 7, I think the choice is very limited, Zoom Player as far as I can see, not sure there is anything else.

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Web Install downloads have "empty" Help files that kind of say "To save space for download, we omitted the Help Text, so go get them and download/install them". They're a separate download. Chances are, the "more recent" ones are probably as close as you'll get.

As loblo said, just get the ones available - close as horseshoes and bombs...

Edited by submix8c
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As for a blu-ray player running under Windows 98, for lack of the blu-ray plugin for the Nero Media Player 7, I think the choice is very limited, Zoom Player as far as I can see, not sure there is anything else.

Not sure, but one has to go over lists like:

http://www.techspot.com/downloadid33by4.html

http://www.filetransit.com/files.php?name=Lossless_Backup_Blu_Ray_Disc_And_Dvd-1-2

and check out applicable packages and test them under Win98 with a Blu-ray burner.

Just in the 2 software lists above there are 4 other burning programs, which claim to work Ok with Blu-ray under Win98:

AV Burning Pro 3.0.4, TrueBurner 1.2, AVS Disc Creator 4.1.1.473 and KRyLack Burning Suite 1.00.

I would guess that a lot of older versions of players, etc. also work with Blu-ray under Win98. I'll try out PowerDVD 8 eventually, which may work with Win98 and Blu-ray, but my main interest is Blu-ray as a data storage media. Hopefully others will post here their findings about Win98-compatible Blu-ray software in their areas of interest.

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I have test-installed various versions of the CyberLink Power2Go burning software under Win98SE. The last build to install and run under Win98 is Power2Go v5.50.1626 (26Apr2006). Unfortunately, build 1626 could not burn a BD under Win98, at least on my Memorex Blu-ray burner, even if the software was supposed to have this capability, the menus include include Blu-ray. When I actually tried to burn a Blue-ray data disk, I got the err msg: "Data Disc - #0xEB020882. This drive doesn't support the desired operation". Maybe build 1626 works with a different Blu-ray burner make and model.

Later builds of v5.50 (2614, 2706, 3307, 3917) and of v6.0.0 (0929a, 1314) terminate during the installation under Win98, v6.0.0 terminates with the cryptic error message "Can't load SKUtil.dll". These later builds of v5.5 and v6.0 cannot be installed under Win98 with KernelEx v4.50 either.

Since I cannot burn with my Blu-ray burner a BD under Win98 with any build of CyberLink Power2Go, I have postponed testing the media player software CyberLink PowerDVD under Win98 with a Blu-ray drive.

On the positive side I was able to read under MS-DOS 7.1 (Windows 98 [Version 4.10.2222]) from a Blu-ray disk which was burnt with an ISO9660+Joliet file system (burnt with CyberLink Power2Go v6.0.0.1314 under WinXP) and from a Blu-ray disk with an ISO9660+Joliet+UDF 1.02 file system (burnt with ImgBurn v2.5.5.0 under Win98). The DOS driver which worked for the Memorex Blu-ray burner is the DVD/CD-ROM Driver Version 1.21 for ASPI by Matsushta-Kotobuke 1990-1997. I am using an Asus P5PE-VM motherboard. Accessing a Blu-ray disk burnt with only the UDF 1.02 file system produced the following err msg when I booted into MS-DOS 7, with the Matsushta driver in config.sys: "CDR103. CDROM is not High Sierra or ISO9660 format."

Edited by Multibooter
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Burn quality seems to be a major issue with Blu-ray disks. A Blu-ray BD-ROM movie disk just recently bought, for example, had a disk quality of just 16 out of 100, as measured by Nero CD-DVD Speed 4.7.7.15. When I burn DVDs for archiving stuff, the burn quality has to be between 93-98/100, anything below is put into the trash can.

I bought 2 more current Blu-ray burners last week, a LiteOn iHBS212 and an LG BH12LS35. I returned the Memorex MRX-800L Blu-ray burner, which I had bought initially, because I was not satified with its burn quality, it burnt the Panasonic LM-BRS25LU25 BD-Rs with 0/100 burn quality. The LiteOn iHBS212 has a better burning quality than the LG BH12LS35, at least with the Blu-ray media I have tried out up to now. The "Disc Quality" test of Nero CD-DVD Speed 4.7.7.15 is available for the LiteOn, but not for the LG. One advantage of the LG burner is that it can write BD-R at 2x, 4x, 6x and 8x, the LiteOn only at 4x. I am still looking for a burner which can write BD-R at 1x, 2x and 4x.

I have also bought 4 different spindles of BD-R disks. Unfortunately, the Kodak BD-R CAT 52125 [printable surface] and the ProHT by Inland BD-R stock no. 26001[not printable surface] were identified both as "PHILIP-R04-000", just different packaging and printable surface, and nearly all of the test-disks burnt with them on the Memorex and LG burners had a burn quality of 0/100.

Update 7-May-2011: I also tested the 25GB Polaroid BD-Rs, the 25-disc-spindle has the UPC bar code 8 55681 00232 0, they were also identified as "PHILIP-R04-000", just like the BD-Rs sold under the Kodak and Inland labels, and the Polaroid BD-Rs had a burn quality of 0/100 on the LiteOn iHBS212. The "PHILIP-R04-000" are Made in India. The 25-disk-spindles of Kodak BD-Rs cost me $25 as a special, the ProHT by Inland $25 minus a $12 mail-in-coupon, and the Polaroid ones, still sealed, $5 at a garage sale.

With the Verbatim BD-R (Verbatim #96769 0903-203, Made in Taiwan, hard coating) I burnt a 10.3GB test-disk with the LiteOn with ImgBurn under Win98 with a burn quality of 16/100, with:

LDC: Avg=4.18, Max=357

BIS: Avg=0.07, Max=7

The Panasonic BD-Rs (LM-BRS25LU25, 1-4x, Made in Japan, hard coating, marked "50 Years Archive Life" and quality seal of the German TÜV Rheinland), Disc ID MEI-T02-001 as displayed by ImgBurn, seem to be the best of the lot and work fine with the LiteOn Blu-ray burner. The burn quality at 4x writing speed of the LiteOn burner, with ImgBurn under Windows 98 , was 65/100, with:

LDC: Avg=0.54, Max=152

BIS: Avg=0.01, Max=3

The CPU on my desktop is a dual core E4500, 2.2Ghz. Burning Blu-ray disks at 4x is very CPU intensive, CPUIdle under Win98 fluctuates around 40% free, going occasionally down to 20% free. The system requirements for the LG Blu-ray burner are "Intel Pentium D 3.2GHz or equivalent (Recommend: Core 2 Duo E6600 or higher". The system requirements for the LiteOn Blu-ray burner are "3.0GHz Intel Pentium-D processor or equivalent or better". The LiteOn Blu-ray burner will probably produce better burn quality if I upgrade the CPU to an X6800, but I would then have to upgrade the power supply to maybe 800 Watts, and then the constant noise... Another possibility to obtain a good burn quality in the range of 93-98/100 might be to downgrade to an older Blu-ray burner which can burn at only 1x, but I am not sure whether such an old Blu-ray burner would work with currently available Blu-ray disks, e.g. "Blu-ray Disc Recordable Format Version 1.2".

Edited by Multibooter
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This website has trial versions of many old nero versions and 7.5.1 seems to be the lastest for 98.

Hi allen2, oldapps.com is a great site, but their description of v7.5.1.1 http://www.oldapps.com/nero.php?old_nero=24 is just wrong, v7.5.1.1 does not install under Win98.

When one installs v7.5.1.1 the following err msg comes up during installation, just after extracting: "Nero ProductSetup. This version doesn't support Windows 95/98/Me". One also gets this installer error when KernelEx is installed. So Nero Burning ROM v7.2.7.0 is definitely the last version which runs under Win98.

I have tried maybe a dozen Nero modifications (Lite/Micro from v7-v10), they all didn't install under Win98 with KernelEx v4.5. The only exception was "Nero v9.4.13.2 Micro", which installed Ok under Win98+KernelEx, but Nero then started with an error message: "There is not enough free memory to run this program. Quit one or more programs, and then try again". Before the installation of v9.4.13.2 Micro I had run the Nero Cleaning Too and installed Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable and MS .Net Framework v2.0 Redistributable Package (x86). I had installed v9.4.13.2 Micro on my old laptop (512MB RAM) and on my dual-core desktop (1150MB RAM available to Win98). Maybe Nero v9.4.13.2 Micro needs .Net Framework v3.0, or it is an actual RAM issue. Any ideas?

Edited by Multibooter
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I've tried to install "NERO LITE MICRO EDITION V9.4.13.2.rar" without success. The setup requires minimal WindowsInstaller 3.1. I downloaded it from mediafire.com. It seems the version you have is different.

Which version of  the "nero clean tool" do you have? All versions I tested fails to work. (missing Export-NETAPI32.dll:NetUserDel)

WinME / KernelEX / Net Fr. 2.0 / Visual C++2005red

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I've tried to install "NERO LITE MICRO EDITION V9.4.13.2.rar" without success. The setup requires minimal WindowsInstaller 3.1. I downloaded it from mediafire.com. It seems the version you have is different.
The single .exe file has 32,618,304 bytes, MD5 is 1591BE4E0A7F889DEFFAEDD9DD1A5201. MS Windows Installer 2.0 should be sufficient, the installation completed apparently Ok, without an error message.
Which version of the "nero clean tool" do you have? All versions I tested fails to work. (missing Export-NETAPI32.dll:NetUserDel) WinME / KernelEX / Net Fr. 2.0 / Visual C++2005red

I have 2 good versions of Nero CleanTool which work under Win98 (without KernelEx) and WinXP:

- Nero CleanTool for Nero 6,7,8 (Win98+WinXP, .exe digitally signed 31Jan2008) [i used this version to uninstall Nero v7.2.7, both under Win98 and WinXP]

- Nero CleanTool for Nero 6.6.1.5 v2.1.5.17 (Win98+WinXP, .exe digitally signed 2Jun2006) [i used this version to uninstall an earlier Nero v6.6.0.13, both under Win98 and WinXP]

No idea where to get them now.

The following version does not work under Win98 (without KernelEx), but works under WinXP:

- Nero CleanTool for Nero v7,8,9,10 v5.0.0.18 (WinXP, .exe digitally signed 5Jan2010)

I restored the system from a previous clean backup to clean Nero leftovers after test-installing Nero v9.4.13.2 Micro under Win98SE with KernelEx.

Edited by Multibooter
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My LiteOn Blu-ray burner iHBS212 was manufactured in Sept.2010, according to the sticker on it. It has Firmware 5L06, Firmware Date: 9-Sep-2010 (displayed by Nero InfoTool v4.0.3). The reputable firmware update page http://www.firmwarehq.com/Lite-On/iHBS212%2B2/files.html indicates 3 firmware updates for this burner since then. Since the burn quality for the PHILIP-R04-000 BD-Rs was an awful 0/100, I have decided to update the firmware, maybe the newer firmware has a better writing strategy for this media.

Before running the firmware update, I made backups, as recommended by mciahel http://club.myce.com/f44/looking-5l03-bin-file-ihbs212-316819/#post2561143 Both Flash Utility for LiteOn Based Optical Drives v6.0.1 http://club.myce.com/f44/flash-utility-plds-liteon-based-optical-drives-v5-0-0-new-190420/ and EEPROM Utility for PLDS-LiteOn-Sony-BenQ CD & DVD Writers v6.2.0 http://club.myce.com/f44/eeprom-utility-plds-liteon-sony-cd-dvd-writers-v6-0-1-new-112103/ [good info at http://club.myce.com/f44/liteon-eeprom-utility-110900/ ]seem to run fine under Win98, no installation necessary, although I have only created backup files with them, not yet restored the backups under Win98.

UPDATE 11-May-2011: Please see correction in posting #31

I then ran under WinXP the firmware update utility 5L09.exe, downloaded from www.firmwarehq.com. Under Win98 the firmware update utility 5L09.exe does not run, it displays the error msg: "Error Starting Program. The 5L09.EXE file is linked to missing export SETUPAPI.DLL:CM_Connect_MachineA"

I then burnt another PHILIP-R04-000 BD-R with ImgBurn under Win98. Unfortunately, the burn quality stayed at 0/100, due to several spikes, even if the Average and Maximum of LDC and BIS were substantially lower than with firmware 5L06. My testing does not confirm the positive evaluation by burnfreak http://www.movie2digital.at/index.php?page=Thread&postID=573001#post573001 (also in post #7 there) for the combo LiteOn+new firmware+PHILIP-R04-000 media. Maybe the manufacturers send the better-quality media to Europe and the low-quality stuff to the U.S. Or the hardware in my desktop is not fast enough, or...

Edited by Multibooter
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I then burnt another PHILIP-R04-000 BD-R with ImgBurn under Win98. Unfortunately, the burn quality stayed at 0/100, due to several spikes, even if the Average and Maximum of LDC and BIS were substantially lower than with firmware 5L06.
I repeated the Disc Quality test of Nero CD-DVD Speed v4.7.7.15 under Win98 twice, about 10 hours after the 1st Disk Quality test/the burning of the Blu-ray disk. The 2nd Disk Quality test displayed a burn quality of 26/100, the 3rd a burn quality of 22/100.

2nd and 3rd tests taken a while after the burning of the Blu-ray BD-R have resulted in most cases in better disc quality scores. Maybe the plastic has to settle for a while or the burner does some learning. No idea why later disk quality tests of burnt BD-Rs tend to show better scores.

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Before running the firmware update, I made backups, as recommended by mciahel http://club.myce.com/f44/looking-5l03-bin-file-ihbs212-316819/#post2561143 Both Flash Utility for LiteOn Based Optical Drives v6.0.1 http://club.myce.com/f44/flash-utility-plds-liteon-based-optical-drives-v5-0-0-new-190420/ and EEPROM Utility for PLDS-LiteOn-Sony-BenQ CD & DVD Writers v6.2.0 http://club.myce.com/f44/eeprom-utility-plds-liteon-sony-cd-dvd-writers-v6-0-1-new-112103/ [good info at http://club.myce.com/f44/liteon-eeprom-utility-110900/ ]seem to run fine under Win98, no installation necessary, although I have only created backup files with them, not yet restored the backups under Win98.

I have to correct my previous posting. It appears that the Flash Utility for LiteOn Based Optical Drives v6.0. does NOT work properly under Win98. The program could NOT restore under WinXP a .bin firmware backup file created under Win98. Also, the .bin firmware backup files created under Win98 and WinXP look like 2 different pairs of shoes with the Hex Viewer of Beyond Compare. Under WinXP the software does APPEAR to restore a .bin backup file created under Win98, and the message "FLASH write complete" is displayed, but the firmware of the burner seems to have stayed unchanged.

I was lucky that I did no brick my LiteOn Blu-ray burner by restoring under WinXP a .bin firmware backup file created under Win98.

I posted the problem at http://club.myce.com/f44/flash-utility-plds-liteon-based-optical-drives-v6-0-1-new-190420/index14.html#post2588006 yesterday.

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