USB help

[spyone]

Simple little question:
does Win95-B support USB?

The guy at the local computer store says allegedly yes but actually no. But they're not always right.

I'm hoping he's wrong, since I want to add an USB port to my Win95 machine. (So I can use an external CD-RW drive, so I can clear some space on my harddrive, possably enough space to upgrade to Win98. )

[SIR SIG]

Yes it does.

Although to enable it you'll probably have to run a USB driver.

Microsoft downloads being the first place to look.

Off the top of my head I can't remember the best place for windows drivers except the update/download part of MS site.


...SIG the Computer Tech...

[spyone]

Well, I trust Sir Sig a lot more than I trust the local guy.

Thanx.

[Paul]

...what SIG said.

Win95 does support USB...but not on its own. It'll need help.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Win 98...you'll be laughing. Win98 has native support for USB.

[SIR SIG]

Originally posted by spyone
Well, I trust Sir Sig a lot more than I trust the local guy.

Thanx.

You trust the judgement of someone you've never met in a country far, far away. Over that of your local techie?

Truly I am a God

Atleast of mapmaking...

[spyone]

It may seem odd, but the techies at that particular store I have learned to not trust.
It seems they develop an opinion, like that everyone needs to upgrade from Win95 to something else, and then they modify the facts to suit.

Sir Sig, otoh, generally does not speak unless he knows what he is speaking of.

As an example of these guys pig-headedness, about a year ago I brought them a hard drive and my Win95 CD and asked them to install Win95 on the drive (since my efforts to do so at home produced lackluster results). They flatly refused.
Now, I was offering to pay real cash money for this, at their standard Repair rates, but they insisted that it would be of no use to me, since all the hardware setting would be wrong. They were totally unmoved by my protestations that I DIDN'T CARE if the hardware setting would all be wrong, and I would regard this as a significant improvement over my present situation. They said I should put the drive into my machine and bring the whole thing in.
My computer is going to stay on this desk until it develops something truly fatal. No tech-wonk is going to pry it from my hands for endless days until he gets around to a 5 minute job.

Below I explain why I wanted them to format a harddrive for me.

Ever have one of those problems with a computer that you know cant possably be happening, but it is?
I have 2 hard drives. They are hooked up as my C: and D: drives, and we will call them 1 and 2, respectively. 1 is a 2 gig that houses Win95 and a few select program files and has virtually no free space on it. 2 is an 8 gig drive that was luxuriously huge when I got it, but is now crowded with junk that I'd rather not throw out (like the ebooks from TrekRPG.net. ).
So, I went out and bought drive #3, a 30 gig one.
Now, I want to move #2 to C: and put #3 in as D: and not lose any data. Good Luck.
I develop a plan: First, I remove #2 and replace it with #3. Then I format #3 and copy all of #1 onto it. Then I remove #1, replace it with #3, and put #2 back in as D:. Then I copy all of #2 onto #3, then reformat #2 and copy all the stuff that was on #1 onto it. Then put #2 in as C: and #3 in as D: and voila!
except.
I can't make the new drive boot windows. I can't make the new drive boot. I tell it to format it as a boot drive, and it says it is putting all those dandy "hidden files" onto it, but then the ()*&@&@# thing WON'T BOOT.
So, I try just running Win95 off the new drive (using a floppy boot disk). No dice. Windows complains it is missing a file, despite the file being right where it is supposed to be. Crude copy protection, I'll bet.
So, I try installing Win95 from the CD onto the new drive.
From MS-DOS, I cannot get my system to admit it has a CD-ROM drive. Thus, I cannot run files on that drive. So, I must run the installer while running Windows.
Which doesn't work either.

So, I revised my plan.

THE NEW PLAN!

I am going to buy another computer and put the *($#(*@ 30 gig drive into IT as a second drive, then make an ethernet network between the two computers.

But not very soon, as computers tend to be expensive.

[Paul]

I think you'll find that your problems installing Win95 on a 30GB drive stems from the fact that, even using LBA mode for the hard drive in the BIOS, 30GB is too big for Win95 to cope with.

If you use FDISK to break the HDD into smaller partitions (say 2 of 15GB each), then you should be OK.

It's one of those other limitations of Win95 (and I think Win98 also) - it just can't cope with HDD sizes of over 20GB.

You'll also need to ensure that your Win95 boot disk contains CD-ROM drivers, and that the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files on the boot disk include/load the drivers so that you can use the CD-ROM - the Win98 boot disk does this automatically, but the Win95 boot disk does not. Your boot disk will also need the MSCDEX.EXE file.

Your CONFIG.SYS file should ave the following line in it:

DEVICE=MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD001

Your AUTOEXEC.BAT file shoul have the following line in it:

A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

Note that where I have typed MTMCDAI.SYS, you would insert the name of your own CD-ROM driver. Make sure that the switch (the "/D:") is the same in both files, as I have done above.

That should set you right.

- From a former PC technician...

[C5]

Did you try using a ghosting utility ? I'm by no mean an expert, but it seems you're having a problem with bootable partitions here.
You may try something like this : format disk #3 (with large enough primary partition). Create a ghost of #1 on #3. Then try to run Windows 95 from #3.
I think that some ghosting utilities allow to preserve booting partition. Sadly, I don't know much more about them.

Oh, and just in case : be sure to have #3 declared as master disk (not slave) when you try to boot on it. This could help.

[ EDIT ] : Your problem may probably be what Paul said... although I managed once to install a 60 GB disk in Win 98, but it was a more recent computer.

[SIR SIG]

As C5 said, a ghosting utility like Norton's Ghost is a life savior at work

Assuming the partitioning doesn't work.

And what happened to the customer being right/knowing what they want? I'd gladly take your money for a relatively easy job (for a techie) to install windows. Heck a couple of switch commands and Win98 installs in just under 30 mins