Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:24:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] When EZ-Drive is a >must< for W98 * W2K installations
After a several approaches at resolving the problem of W98 on C: >8GB not
seeing files & folders properly on a >8GB G: partition without EZ-Drive,
I'm becoming more and more convinced that with some systems, drive overlay
may in fact be necessary. In my case, I'm still guessing that it may be
due to the extremely large numbers of files & folders, and long filenames
involved in my backed up data that the FAT32 file system has to deal with.
Short Story:
-----------------
* Re-installing Windows 98 to the 1st primary partition did not resolve the
issue.
* Creating a new G: logical partition >8GB in Windows 2000's Disk
Management and restoring ~19,000 files & ~3600 folders from backup did not
resolve the issue.
Long story:
-----------------
Note: No drive overlay was present through all of these tests.
Re-installing Windows 98:
* Booted 110 from FDD, and reformatted primary C: partition as FAT32
* Ran E:\Win98\Setup.exe to install fresh copy of Windows 98
* Ran Windows 98's Scandisk on >8GB G: partition.
* All errors found previously were still present.
Deleting G: partition and creating a new one in Windows 2000 Disk
Management:
* W2K balked at deleting the partition saying it was in use by some
program. Though I had none running
* Put the HDD in desktop and booted from FDD
* Ran Ranish part.exe and deleted the G: partition
* Put the drive back in 110 and created a new G: partition with W2K Disk
Management
* Booted 110 from FDD and ran part.exe to confirm logical partition G: type
0c
* Rebooted 110 to W2K, and created folder tree for one of the files/folders
with a pre-existing problem:
G:\My Downloads\File Management\Virtual CD Drive\DAEMON Tools 3.47\
* Copied file daemon347.exe to the folder created
* Rebooted into W98 and ran Scandisk on G:
* Scandisk reported no problems at that point.
* Put the HDD in desktop as slave
* Booted the system and copied all previously backed up data from G: back
onto G:
* Put HDD back in 110 and booted W98
* Ran Scandisk which found seemingly un-ending problems with files and
folders.
At that point I could use Windows Explorer to look at G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop
and found about 10% of the folders had corrupted names displayed with
program characters.
* Booted to W2K, and both chkdsk and Windows Explorer there saw no problem
files or folders in G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop
* Deleted the entire G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop folder as well as 5-6 other files
W98's Scandisk had found problems with
* Rebooted W98 and ran Scandisk which found no problems.
* Booted W2K again
* Connected 110 to desktop and copied over the G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop folders
and files from backup via ethernet connection
* Rebooting 110 into W98, I could immediately see about 70% of the files
and folders in G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop were corrupted
New approach
---------------------
While I was using Ranish Partition Manager, I noticed that the full
extended partition was listed as:
Type 0f: 'VFAT Extended LBA"
But each individual portion of the extended partition that contained type
0b <8GB and one 0c >8GB was designated:
Type 05: 'Extended"
* So I decided to change the portion of the extended partition area where
the 0c G: lives from 05 to a type 0f, and repeat most everything up to this
point. But in the long run, the results were the same.
* But during this test process, I copied over files bit by bit. I started
by just copying over the folder that had been seeing the largest numbers of
errors: G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop So I copied that and nothing else.
* Scandisk in W98 on the 110 found no problems
* Back in the desktop I copied over all files from \My MP3s and \My
Downloads
* Scandisk from W98 in the 110 only found one MP3 folder problem at \My
MP3s\Classical Instrumental\E. Power Biggs... and 2 problems in \My
Downloads I'd seen before.
* Rebooted 110 to W2K and deleted the files & folders W98's Scandisk had
found problems with
* Rebooted top W98 and ran Scandisk to confirm it found no errors on G:
* Put HDD in desktop and copied all remaining backed up data to G: (J: on
desktop)
* With the drive back in the 110, and W98 booted, I found the file system
had really gone nuts. Scandisk found file after file from folders on one
branch of the directory tree cross-linked with files on other branches of
the tree.
At that point I gave up... installed EZ-Drive again... ran Scandisk from
W98, and it found no errors at all.
Since MS-DOS wasn't able to see the G: drive from the DOS prompt with the
area of the extended partition it was sitting on set to 0f, I put the HDD
back in the desktop (actually >before< installing EZB) and reset it to 05.
Here's one last interesting observation that shows how confused the FAT32
was, and how W98 saw the same data on G differently than W2K did. Early one
after the 1st attempt to re-install W98, create a new 0c G:, and restore
the data from backup I saw this:
* W2K reported seeing 42 objects in the \My MP3s\\Rock-Pop folder. All
were folders.
* W98 reported the same 44 objects. 42 were the same folders W2K saw. But
W98 also saw one hidden folder with a corrupted name, and one hidden file
with a corrupted name.
Just what's going on with W98 and W2K reporting contents of the same FAT32
file system differently is a puzzlement.
End of story (for now?)
Matt
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