nova

Wolf, I assume your \WINDOWS directory (from Win98) is on drive D:. There's probably no way to get these partitions to use the same drive letter under Win2k and Win98, EXCEPT giving the partition that's D: under Win2k a new letter so that D: becomes free and you can assign D: to your Win98 partition. If you want D: to become F: under Win98, no chance. You can't influence the way how Win9x assigns drive letters to hard disks (but you can for removable drives and CD-ROMs). (Maybe PM5 is able to assign letters to hard disk partitions, but I seriously doubt it!!) I hope this answers your question. nova.

slkh, you are right, I have been in error! After doing some research (including creating a 1GB FAT32 partition myself at about the position of 15GB on my hard disk and successfully accessing it under DOS 7), I see that DOS seems not to have any problems accessing files beyond the 8GB barrier. I've come to the conclusion that indeed it is a BIOS limitation in older mainboard or SCSI adapter BIOSes. Although the OS must support the INT13 extensions and use the LBA (Logical Block Address) addressing method (which DOS seems to do; I was in error here, too)! Newer OSes (Win95 SR2+, Win98, Win2k) should not have problems accessing partitions larger than 8GB, nor booting from them. NT4 does have a 8GB limitation that lies in the stupidity of the NT4 boot sector. See Q224526. nova.

Ok, everyone! I have decided that I will create a "Drive Letter / Boot Sector / Dual Boot Win2k/Win98 / Dual Boot Win2k/Win2k / NTFS vs. FAT / Recovery Solutions" FAQ. Please note that I'm really busy at the moment setting up a new Q3 mod (and a quite complex web site for it, including a yet-to-be-self-made message board, etc.), so I can't do the FAQ within the next 2 to 3 weeks. But I will make a post here when I've finished the FAQ. There seem to be so many misunderstandings about the above topics, and multiple people already have contacted me via email, so I see the definite need for a collective answering of all the questions. nova.

Ok, everyone! I have decided that I will create a "Drive Letter / Boot Sector / Dual Boot Win2k/Win98 / Dual Boot Win2k/Win2k / NTFS vs. FAT / Recovery Solutions" FAQ. Please note that I'm really busy at the moment setting up a new Q3 mod (and a quite complex web site for it, including a yet-to-be-self-made message board, etc.), so I can't do the FAQ within the next 2 to 3 weeks. But I will make a post here when I've finished the FAQ. There seem to be so many misunderstandings about the above topics, and multiple people already have contacted me via email, so I see the definite need for a collective answering of all the questions. nova. [This message has been edited by nova (edited 01 June 2000).]

CUViper, slkh: To access files beyond the 8GB limit, the OS needs to support the so-called INT13 extensions (which most new mainboard/SCSI controller BIOSes have included). DOS does not use these INT13 extensions and therefore must access the physical disk using the conventional sector addressing methods (LBA=Logical Block Address, CHS=Cylinders/Heads/Sectors) which only allow access to the first 8GB of the disk. Please read IBM Hard Disk Drive Knowledge Base - Getting Beyond the ATA 8.4GB Limit for further info. As soon as Win9x is started from DOS, you can access all your files, because Win9x supports the INT13 extensions. slkh: are you aware that you can make a boot disk with the NT/Win2k boot sector (just format the disk under NT/Win2k), and put your boot.ini on it? You then can use that boot disk to boot all your OSes if your boot sector or boot.ini ever become garbled! Besides there's the Recovery Console of Win2k, a sort of text-mode only mini-Win2k, which you can use to repair, recover, copy, etc. all of your files, even on NTFS disks, and you can enable/disable drivers if your Win2k won't start any more after you have fiddled with the drivers. This is a very powerful tool that comes with every Win2k CD. Install it with X:\I386\WINNT32.EXE /CMDCONS (X: is your CD-ROM drive.) It takes about 7MB on your boot partition (which may be FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS) and automatically makes an entry in your boot.ini! (The Recovery Console has saved my life more than once!) You can also always start the recovery console from a bootable Win2k CD if you haven't installed it on your HD or the version on your HD is corrupted! Another hint for the RC: by default you can only access files within the root directory of each drive and within the \WINNT directory. But you can enable full access to all files by opening "Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Local Security Policy --> Local Policies --> Security Options --> Recovery Console: Allow floppy copy and access to all drives and all folders" and setting the value to "Enabled". There seems to be a bug that requires you to do the procedure TWICE the first time you make any changes within the "Local Security Policy". Double-check that the setting is listed as enabled when you close and re-open the "Local Security Policy"!! As mentioned above, I don't believe that Win9x can boot if some of the files in the \WINDOWS directory are above the 8GB limit. But Win2k can. All that is needed is the "new" Win2k boot sector. I've done it myself on my 10GB Maxtor IDE drive, where the last partition was 1GB and at the absolute end of the disk (so it started at about 9GB). NT4 can't do it because the standard NT4 boot sector is too stupid. Regarding ext2fs/Linux/LILO (the Linux boot sector), I am not sure. nova. [This message has been edited by nova (edited 01 June 2000).]

Hi! First, you might want to read my post at: http://www.ntcompatible.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000204-3.html Then: why do you insist on CLONING your existing Win2k installation???? You don't really want to WORK with the copy, do you? If you just want to have a second Win2k to have a running backup system in the case of a failure of your main Win2k and to try out drivers and stuff, then you don't need an exact copy! It's sufficient to simply install Win2k a second time, but into the other partition. Of course you may still "backup" your main Win2k instance using a partition imaging or backup tool, but DON'T COPY such a backup into ANOTHER partition, it's not meant to work this way. And, to slkh: I'm not sure if it's such a good advise to use FAT instead of NTFS just to be able to use a boot disk in emergencies! If you use FAT for your Win2k system, you are missing A LOT of the enhanced features of the much more robust NTFS (including a better error recovery, see other post). Besides, for large FAT32 partitions (over 8GB), pure DOS (that's what a regular boot disk uses) CANNOT access files that are located beyond the first 8GB of the physical hard disk (yes, I know that Win9x can, but that doesn't fit on a boot disk)! So in most cases, a boot disk is not a very good recovery option anyway (add to it that DOS can't handle long file names!). IMHO the far far far superior backup/recovery solution is to have a second working Win2k installation on your HD. Yes, it eats another 1GB, but I think it IS affordable considering the advantages! Send flames to nova@mehnle.net... nova. [This message has been edited by nova (edited 31 May 2000).]

Ok, that's a long time ago since this thread had started, and I didn't expect anyone to write any more messages in it... but obviously I was in error... :-) Some more things on the topic: -- Dual boot Win2k/Win98: should be no problem as long as your boot partition (C is either formatted with FAT16 or FAT32. To avoid confusion, it's a good idea to keep all FAT partitions *physically before* any NTFS partitions, so the drive letters for the FAT partitions will be the same under Win2k and Win98 (except if you already have installed Win2k and then add FAT partitions before any NTFS partitions: then Win2k will not automatically reorder all its drive letters, you would have to do this by hand in the Disk Management console if you want to reorder them). -- Dual boot Win2k/Win2k: shouldn't be a problem either. Just be sure not to install both into the same partition (see below). And, AFAIK you can't just copy an existing Win2k partition (neither using file-wise copy nor using a partition imaging tool) over to another partition and expect it to work! Win2k exactly knows about the hardware configuration of your PC and will probably be confused if it suddenly finds itself on another partition. I suggest that you do an additional installation of Win2k into the other partition. -- And remember to NEVER install more than one OS into the same partition, be it Win2k/Win98 or Win2k/Win2k. This only makes trouble (which CAN be avoided, but that's not a trivial task; and WHY would you want to put both OSes in the same partition in the first place?) -- Disabling any disks in your BIOS will NOT HELP ANYTHING because Win2k doesn't access the disks via the BIOS! Win2k will find the disks anyway, regardless whether you disable them in the BIOS. I can't say for sure if Win98 does this, too, but I think it DOES. So, to sum things up: If you want a second Win2k installation to try out drivers, etc., then just install Win2k a second time into another partition. Don't use any partition copying tricks or the like, it will probably only cause you headaches. If you want to dual boot Win2k/Win98, the best way is to make your boot partition (C a FAT16/FAT32 partition, and either put Win98 on C:, or (better) make an extra partition (D to carry Win98. Then install Win2k into any further NTFS partitions you may create. Believe me, NTFS is more or less equally fast as FAT (if not faster in some occasions), and *WAY* better (automatic error recovery, even for bad sectors; you can set permissions for every single file; you can set comments for every single file (which you even can search for); etc. etc. etc.!). If you already have Win2k installed and want to install Win98 for dual booting, you may do so, but the boot partition MUST be FAT formatted UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, otherwise Win98 won't run (nor even install). After installing Win98 you may have to restore the Win2k boot sector in the FAT-formatted boot partition. You can use a bootable Win2k CD for that task (use the emergency recovery functions). nova. [This message has been edited by nova (edited 31 May 2000).]

I'll say only this: http://www.bootdisk.com nova.

RE: Apps open and then immediately close again. I've read the following MS Knowledge Base articles, and I don't think they'll help very much in your situation, but who knows? Q224432 - OFF2000: Program Quits Immediately After Starting Q236592 - OFF2000: Error Messages Starti...or Windows 2000 Good luck! nova.

Sensei, You must not format the disk under NT/Win2k, because these OSes put an NT boot sector on the disk instead of a DOS boot sector. Go to www.bootdisk.com to make DOS boot disks if you don't have DOS/Win9x installed. Good luck! nova.

Hi there! Maybe some of your printers are so called GDI printers? GDI printers contain far less intelligent electronics than normal printers, and the computer's CPU has to do most of the printer's calculations! See, I have a HP DeskJet 720C, which is a GDI printer, and when I print something, I also have 100% CPU load, but this is totally normal for this type of printer! The reason why GDI printers exist in the first place is that they are less expensive to manufacture, and can be sold for lower prices. If you have a fast CPU, there's nothing bad with having a GDI printer. nova.

DOH! SlaveDog, you've f u c k e d up your system! Repairing the registry won't help because Win2k overwrote some of its HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) files with the corresponding ACPI versions. You might be able to get your system running again by copying exactly these files from the Win2k CD to your system, but I do not know what files these are. MS explicitly warns from changing from APM to ACPI or vice versa in Device Manager. The only working way is to install "over" the existing installation and choose another mode during the installation by pressing F5 when it says "Press F6 to..." at the very beginning of the installation. Sorry to having to tell you that, but you need to totally reinstall Win2k. You can't even install it "over" the current installation, because for that you would need to start the installation from within that installation. nova. [This message has been edited by nova (edited 16 March 2000).]

Or, if Win2k is not running in ACPI mode, then you might be able to enable APM support under Control Panel -> Power Options. (But sometimes the APM tab is not there, especially on Server and Advanced Server systems, because MS took APM support out of these deliberately!) nova.

AFAIK this BIOS setting only affects whether the BIOS lets the OS reconfigure the resources (mainly IRQs), or configures them itself. Usually, you should leave it on if you're running a PnP OS (like the setting says) like Win98 or Win2000. The reason you might have needed to turn it off could be that it's an ISA network card, right? And by any chance an ISA "Plug&Play" card (not all ISA cards are PNP!)? These ISA PnP cards are EVIL! THEY MUST BE DESTROYED!!!!.......... Uhm, sorry for that.. But you need to DISABLE the card's PnP feature (there's often a jumper on the card for that purpose). And then you need to manually configure the card's resources under Win98/Win2k, as it won't detect them anymore without the card working in PnP mode. As always, you get a stupid (i.e. inpracticable) tip from me: get rid of any ISA cards in your system. That makes your system run even better, and often gives you additional power management features (like enabling the hibernate feature of Win98(!) or Win2k if you used uncertified drivers for the ISA cards before). nova.

One thing, though: you should run chkdsk under Win2k. Open Explorer, then right click your C: drive and go to the "Tools" tab and click "Check now..."! Because, if Win98's ScanDisk finds errors, I suppose there really ARE some! You could also run Win98's ScanDisk, but I guess you're afraid that this could screw up your Win2k. This should not happen, but anyways.... Good luck! nova.

Memory leakage? Nonsense.... Some badly written apps may have memory leaks (i.e. memory that has been allocated is not freed again by the application), but as soon as the application is terminated (either by closing itself or by "ending" it from task manager, etc.), Win2k frees all the memory that has been associated with the app and that has not been freed yet by the app itself. (But I'm only 99.999% sure on this one! ) The difference you see between directly after bootup and after starting and closing some apps is simply the disk cache. The disk cache can very well amount up to some dozen MBs. nova.

Yes I think that's normal. You forgot the disk cache I bet.... How much is the difference between the sum of all running tasks and the total task manager shows on the "Performance" tab? Aside from disabling all types of services (don't do this too excessively!), the next best thing you can do REALLY is to make sure that as few programs as possible are running in the background. That includes the virus scanner, which you shouldn't need as long as you're not on a larger network (LAN party?). Just manually scan files you download from the internet for viruses. No need for a resident background scanner.... Other than that, I guess we can't really help you freeing more memory. If you insist on having so and so many programs running on startup, well then you'll have to sacrifice the mem... nova.

Yes, indeed! slkh, you mean: "I don't think it is a cool feature at all FOR ME!" Please don't speak for the majority of this forum, who thinks that hibernation is a good thing. Besides, you don't need to USE it. It's always better to have a feature available, regardless whether YOU want to use it... ok? nova.

100MB is really very much! I have an Advanced Server machine with 128MB RAM here, and after startup it barely uses 70MB. I don't have "Indexing Service" installed, and neither do I have a virus scanner running, nor SETI@home or similar programs. If you use Win2k Server or Advanced Server (the option is not available -- and not neccessary -- on Professional), you can open the properties of your LAN connection, and then the properties of the "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" and then choose between 4 different settings: - "Minimize memory used", - "Balance", - "Maximize data throughput for file sharing", - "Maximize data throughput for network applications". The "Minimize memory used" should spare a large amount of memory, and besides, it oftem remedies CD writing problems (especially buffer underruns) on Server or Advanced Server machines! Otherwise, it's always a good idea to learn what all the services (under Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Services) do, and then disable (i.e. set to "manual" startup) the ones you don't need. In addition, do NEVER EVER use the Active Desktop feature, it's EVIL!!! It eats up your RAM and CPU time en masse!! (It's disabled by default, so if you don't know what I mean, then it's probably nothing to worry about for you.) The list is endless..... learn to know your system, and Win2k, and then you'll know how you can save memory. Especially most of the Norton crap (sorry if I'm disappointing you now) is not worth the RAM it needs. Norton Utilities.... learn to live without them, and you'll be happy! Good luck! nova.

1) AFAIK that's not possible. Although, there's another setting that affects how much memory is used by the OS: if you use Win2k Server or Advanced Server (the option is not available on Professional), you can open the properties of your LAN connection, and then the properties of the "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" and then choose between 4 different settings: - "Minimize memory used", - "Balance", - "Maximize data throughput for file sharing", - "Maximize data throughput for network applications". The "Minimize memory used" should spare a large amount of memory, and besides, it oftem remedies CD writing problems (especially buffer underruns) on Server or Advanced Server machines! 2) For OpenGL: you must edit the driver's .INF file, or use PowerStrip. For DirectX: run DXDIAG.EXE, go to the last tab and click the "Override" button. 3) Maybe you don't operate your CD-ROM drive in DMA (UDMA33) mode? Open device manager, open "Primary IDE Channel" or "Secondary IDE Channel" under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers", go to the "Advanced Settings" tab and choose "DMA if available" as the "Transfer Mode" for the appropriate device. Otherwise, I didn't notice any performance differences. And AFAIK there's no way to change any other CD-ROM performance related options! nova.

You can also choose manually which mode you want Win2k to install in: During the installation, when it says "Press F6 to install custom SCSI drivers", press F5! Then you select "Standard PC" or "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC", or the respective options for multi processor systems. "Standard PC" should ALWAYS work. If you select "ACPI PC" but your PC doesn't support ACPI 100%, then Win2k will let you know by displaying a blue screen. You'll then need to reset the PC, then you can continue the installation as usual (without pressing F5), it will install in "Standard PC" (APM) mode. nova.

Hi there! In the last weeks some people seemed not to get WinOnCD 3.6 working under Win2000. I have had already posted a possible solution: a registry fix that disables the ASPI driver that comes with WinOnCD 3.6. WinOnCD will then use the standard ASPI driver that is installed in Windows (most "CD writing" people will have Adaptec's ASPI driver installed). Here's the registry fix (which does nothing else than disabling the C2ASPI service -- you can to that manually by opening Device Manager, selecting "Show hidden devices" from the "View" menu, and then disabling the "C2ASPI" device under "Non-Plug and Play Drivers"): Code: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\C2ASPI]"Start"=dword:00000004 Save it with notepad as "Make WinOnCD 3.6 run on Windows 2000.reg" and then double-click it. Today I visited CeQuadrat's website and found a new patch/driver/update (whatever you want to call it). Its description says it enables WinOnCD 3.6 to run on Win2000. Here's the URL of the page: http://www.cequadrat.de/english/support/tools_e.html But as I'm using WinOnCd 3.7 (which runs fine on W2k straight from the box), I didn't test the patch. In general, I suggest first trying the registry patch (i.e. disabling the CeQuadrat ASPI driver to allow WOCD3.6 to use the Adaptec ASPI). Only if that doesn't help then you might try the patch -- but I don't know what it does: update the C2ASPI driver to a newer version which works with Win2000, or disabling it and thus essentially doing the same as the registry patch!?? Good luck! Oh, and please report which one of the solutions has helped you, if any! nova.

While you can boot from dynamic disks, you can not resize, mirror or RAID your boot partition, even if it's dynamic. This is because Win2k first needs to load the drivers to support these special features. I'd do it this way: if you have a second PC with NT4 (with SP4 (I thinkg) or later installed, else it doesn't support the new NTFS5 of Win2k) or Win2k installed, then just put both drives (old and new one) into that PC and simply copy all the files over. Otherwise, I suggest making an additional Win2k installation on your old HD, and then using THAT one to copy over all the files. The reason you can't copy all the files while the Win2k installation being in question is running, is that some files (registry, pagefile, and some other things) are inaccessible. That's different from what Win9x behaves like (except the pagefile). nova.

Hmm, here's the software I'm using with Win2000 (And, no, I don't have Win98 on my HD anymore!): Programs: ========== 4NT Acrobat Reader AQ2 Server Launcher AudioGrabber CD Speed Tools CDR-Win Common Files CuteFTP Delphi 4 DeskColor Easy CD Creator GhostView Hex Workshop ICQ Internet Explorer LameEnc Magic Packet Maple MatheAss MathType MButton MI Microangelo 98 Microsoft FrontPage Microsoft Office Microsoft Visual Studio mIRC NetChat NetMeeting O&O Defrag O&O Defrag MFT Outlook Express Paint Shop Pro PGP DS 6.5.2 PowerStrip PrintFile RegClean Registry Search SecureCRT SFB Terminal Services Client Tools Utils VC VisualRoute Win2k Support Tools WinAmp Windows Media Player Windows NT WindowsUpdate WinImage WinOnCD WinRAR WinZip Games: ======= Aliens vs Predator Descent II Doom I Doom II Dungeon Keeper GLDoom Half-Life Kingpin Mech Warrior III Quake I Quake II Quake III Arena Red Alert Starcraft Starfleet Command System Shock II Tiberian Sun All of these run fine under Win2000. Some of them needed a patch or some other form of tweaking to get them running, but ALL OF THEM RUN FINE! "Win2k is just another NT...." - Of course! And that's the main reason I don't use Win9x anymore! "Drivers for gamers suck or just don't exist" - I admit that much non-mainstream hardware is not yet supported very well, but that's not MS's fault. And, wait two months and you'll see that most manufacturers will offer Win2k drivers for their products. If a manufacturer does NOT offer Win2k drivers for their older products, well, that's bad luck for you, maybe next time you buy from a better manufacturer. More expensive hardware almost always is supported longer than just as long as the current MS OS is alive, cheaper hardware very often isn't.... that's life! "Microsoft screwed up yet again..." - If you want to see it like this, well then do it, but I (and I bet most others on this forum do as well) think you're wrong. Buying hardware being a bit more expensive from well-known manufacturers just pays off some day. Same goes for software. nova.

Yes, I'd love to have hibernation support, too. Unfortunately my Promise Fasttrak66 IDE RAID controller's driver prevents it... Although even a normal boot doesn't take very long (1-2 minutes, during which I can go visit the toilet or whatever), I'm missing that I can't leave all the applications open when shutting down the PC and immediately continue to work with them when turning it on again! I think THAT is the greatest advantage of hibernate, not the even shorter boot time... nova.