Re: Windows 98 : DMA support for LBA partitions

Posted on 2023-12-30, 15:38

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

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You can actually change the partition type from 0B to 0C and vice versa just by directly editing the type field directly in the MBR sector with DEBUG or whatever, nothing else is different Yes, I already tried something like that : create the partition in LBA mode with sfdisk, restore all Windows …

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Re: Windows 98 : DMA support for LBA partitions

Posted on 2023-12-30, 15:08

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

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Thanks ElectroSoldier and darry for the answers. @darry, I'm creating my partitions using a custom Puppy Linux CD with my backup scripts installed (boots and works well even with 256 MB RAM). I'm not using any disk geometry related options for sfdisk except for the size and start of the partition, …

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Windows 98 : DMA support for LBA partitions

Posted on 2023-12-29, 23:42

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by Louthrax

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Hello everyone, I'm wondering if anyone here has ever been able to enable DMA access for LBA partitions on Windows 98 ? I have DMA working fine for "normal" FAT32 partitions (creating them using Linux's sfdisk with the 'b' type), but if I enable LBA flag (that's the 'c' type in sfdisk), there seems …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-27, 11:17

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by Louthrax

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After some investigations (the StarMan's website mentionned by bakemono was really helpful), I think I've identified the "code only" portions of the Volume Boot Record for Windows 98 (it's split in 2 parts). This bash code seems to work for Windows 98: mbr_code=' …

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Re: Bricked P6BAP motherboard

Posted on 2023-12-24, 17:42

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by Louthrax

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, Windows 98 PC unbricked :) ! My final understanding of what happened is: * The flashing of the motherboard in AUTOEXEC.BAT went wrong because being called with a wrong CONFIG.SYS entry, which has not the right memory configuration for flashing. * My mainboard indeed has a "recovery" process that …

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Re: Bricked P6BAP motherboard

Posted on 2023-12-23, 19:39

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by Louthrax

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks Horun for your reply. I put this "reflash everything" entry in my configuration so that in case of bad issue (no display or something else), I simply have to go down 6 times after boot and validate. Then the BIOS and Video Card are reflashed and a reboot is done. I know it was working in the …

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Re: Bricked P6BAP motherboard

Posted on 2023-12-23, 16:35

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by Louthrax

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, I tried some other things and it's weird: If I remove my video card, the BIOS is starting and emits some beeps. If I then press a key, the floppy drive is running (and seems to look for something). Probably it's more my video card that got bricked and prevent the BIOS to boot. If that's the case …

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Bricked P6BAP motherboard

Posted on 2023-12-23, 15:14

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by Louthrax

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi everyone, I had lots of fun these days with my Windows 98 PC (improving network settings and backup tools), until I bricked it after a faulty motherboard BIOS reflash. Not sure what happened exactly, I have a "Restore BIOS" entry in my CONFIG.SYS / AUTOEXEC.BAT that I accidently executed. Maybe …

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Re: Old network cards compatibility on modern networks

Posted on 2023-12-23, 13:37

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by Louthrax

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Using RTL8139, ie. 100 Mbps, right? Then it's too good! In theory 100 Mbps = 12.5 MB/s, in reality the max is about 11 MB/s. You're right! It was late and I mismatched the file I copied from Windows : it was a backup file in the same directory and the same kind of of naming but with a size of 14GB …

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Re: Old network cards compatibility on modern networks

Posted on 2023-12-23, 01:56

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by Louthrax

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I did some speed tests to compare Linux vs. Windows when copying a 1.4GB file from NAS to my vintage PC: * Windows 98: 1m40s, that's 14MB/s, not so bad for an old machine ! * Linux: 4m13s. It looks to me that hardware / cables are OK as the 14MB/s speed on Windows 98 is really good (I think ?). …

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Re: Old network cards compatibility on modern networks

Posted on 2023-12-23, 01:41

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by Louthrax

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I googled and opened some tabs, and forgot about them. First kind of things that came up probably cover the reason. But I did forget IPv6 exists (I turn it off everywhere), and your interface is not configured for that. I now think the dropped packets will be IPv6 from other PCs, and the router …

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Re: Old network cards compatibility on modern networks

Posted on 2023-12-23, 01:30

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thanks for the reply ! Is the network cable in good condition? Basic, but worth considering. Yes, I checked with different cables, same results. If you are on an ethernet hub, then packets might have arrived for other machines on the LAN. You do say "same router", so I guess that is a contemporary …

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Old network cards compatibility on modern networks

Posted on 2023-12-22, 21:50

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thanks to the kind help on this site, I've finally managed to have a fully working network setup for my old Windows 98 PC. I can now backup and restore easily my different partitions (including the OS one) from my PuppyLinux CD to my NAS, everything is working well. I just had a small doubt when I …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-19, 14:26

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by Louthrax

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giantclam wrote on 2023-12-18, 23:22: I just use the clonezilla linux image, much easier =) Yes, I remember I had a look at the tool in the past (that was a long time ago) but decided to go for my own solution. I do not remember why ! Would it work on "old" PCs (~384MB RAM) and be easily customized …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-19, 14:23

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

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I finally have a working script using the "fatresize" Linux tool. It's only resizing the file system, but as mkfs.fat uses to whole available space to initialize a partition, that's not an issue. Also, this surprised me a bit, but no files are required in the dd | 7z raw image (they are present …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-18, 17:16

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by Louthrax

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@the3dfxdude : your suggestion looks very interesting indeed ! I'll probably need to not overwriting the existing files, that implies to have different RAW / dd images depending on the OS to restore. I'll check for the CLI tool that could do the resize automatically... EDIT: The GUI version of …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-18, 16:07

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

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I just did the following experiment: make a binary dump of my original Windows 98 partition (not diskà, then restore the partition with my tool, fix it with SYS.COM A: C: and do another binary dump of the partition. I then checked what has changed between the two dumps: * Byte at offset 36 changed …

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-18, 15:57

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by Louthrax

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I missed this part of the mkfs.vfat man page: BUGS mkfs.fat can not create boot-able filesystems. This isn't as easy as you might think at first glance for var‐ ious reasons and has been discussed a lot already. mkfs.fat simply will not support it 😉

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Re: Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-18, 15:04

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by Louthrax

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Thanks for your answer the3dfxdude! Yes, I considered modifying my backup / restore scripts to make a "raw" image of the partition, but it has some drawbacks if the partition size is different than the original one. Also, I like to be able to inspect or modify easily the files in my image (and yes, …

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Linux equivalent for Windows' "SYS.COM" tool

Posted on 2023-12-18, 14:21

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by Louthrax

in Milliways

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Hello everyone, I'm currently using a Puppy-Linux based solution to backup and restore my old machines partitions. It works quite well, and I'm also using it on my modern machines. No problems for ext4 & ntfs partitions, but I have this issue with Windows / FAT partitions: Linux does not restore the …

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