Superpuppy 3 Setup

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
Jim
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Superpuppy 3 Setup

Post by Jim »

I have decided to defer construction of Superpuppy 4; and instead have used some of the parts to upgrade Superpuppy 3. As it stands SP3 now has :

Power Supply ... : 300 Watt AT.
Mobo ................ : K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 w/ 1Meg cache & 2x28mm chipset fans.
Note: Have acquired 2x2 Meg K6BV3+/66 Rev B1, & 1x2 Meg Rev B2; - will upgrade as soon as caps are changed.
Ram .................. : 2x256 Meg matching sticks of Hynix PC 133 (low profile).
CPU .................. : K6-3+ 450ACZ @ (temporarily) 6x100.
HDDs ................ : 20G 7200 Maxtor (P Master);
40G 7200 W.D. (P Master on CMD 649 card);
40G 7200 W.D. (P Slave on CMD 649 card).
EDIT : The 40G WD Drives are being replaced by 80G Maxtors in the currant rebuild.
Removeable Stge: 5.7G Castlewood Orb (P Slave);
1.44M Floppy w/ USB2 memory card reader & USB2 memory stick reader built in.
EDIT : The Orb Drive is being replaced by the "Enermax" in the currant rebuild.
ROM Drives ........ : 52/24/52/16 L.G. CDRW/DVD;
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 L.G. Super Multi DVDRW.
AGP Card ........... : ATI Radeon 9000 aiw.
PCI Cards .......... : CL Audigy 1 MP3 - (Sound);
CMD 649 - (IDE Controller);
LinkSys LNE 100 TX - (10/100 Lan);
NEC SD-FW72873-21 - 3 port (Firewire).
Parallel Port ........ : Standard 1x.
Serial Ports ......... : Standard 2x.
USB Ports ............ : 2x (1 used by built in readers in floppy drive), 1 available for scanner.

Having put this thing together, I set up a dualboot on it, - XP Pro & 98 SE. Had my problems doing that, because I don't like XP butting into other OSs partitions, and I don't use the XP boot menu.

What I did was create a partition for XP first, then load it. After that I used Partition Magic to set up the 98SE partition (3.2G) in front of the XP partition, moving the XP partition back by 3.2 gig.

I then used Boot Magic, which is the boot menu I prefer, to add the 98SE partition to the bootable partition list.

Next I used Partition Magic to set the 98SE partition as "active", and change its drive letter to "C". (This has the effect of hiding the XP and 98 partitions from each other, - they both use the "C" drive letter when they are active, thus enabling those programs which insist on being on "C" drive, to run on both.)

This step forces a reboot which comes up empty, and you have to use the Boot Magic rescue disk to reset XP as the active partition before you can get back in. (Its necessary though in order to change the 98 partitions drive letter to "C".)

After that I used the Boot Magic configuration utility to set the 98SE partition as the default partition, then disabled Boot Magic, without rebooting. I then used Partition Magic to create a new partition using the rest of the 20G Maxtor, labled this one "Software", and formatted it.

Finally I used Partition Magic to reset the 98 partition as "active", and rebooted.

That allowed me to load 98 into its own partition, free of any interference from XP.

The purpose of all this was to completely isolate the two operating systems. Otherwise XP will load some of its files, including "Pagefile.sys", which is a monster swap file into the 98 partition. Additionally, normally what XP will do in a dual boot like this, is take the drive letter "D", which causes problems with those programs which demand to be on "C".

Fine. Having done all that I have two operating systems, Both using "C"; both running fine, completely unaware of the existance of each other.

Great. The problems begin when I go to load my motherboard drivers. Some of the drivers seem to be in conflict with 98, and I am not sure which of the various update versions is best to use. I have downloaded and saved several.

Another problem is that the instructions with the mobo drivers say to load the AGP card driver before loading the Mobo AGP driver; while the instructions with the AGP card say to load the Mobo AGP driver before loading AGP card driver. Lovely - do wish they'd get their s--- together.

Already had to low level format twice because of unsolvable errors infesting my boot track.

Note: The low level formats were the only way that I knew to erase boot track errors caused by failure to follow the intricate procedure entailed in setting up this kind of dual boot correctly. I now have the correct method documented, so that should no longer be a problem; and once set up, it works beautifully. Used the same setup on my old Superpuppy 3.

Anyone know anything about these problems?
Last edited by Jim on Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:26 pm, edited 5 times in total.
flippedgazelle
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Post by flippedgazelle »

Hi Jim

I'm a long-time lurker here, and just now registered...

Could you please be a bit more specific about "Some of the drivers seem to be in conflict with 98..."? I've always liked the VIA 4.43's for applicable SS7 mobo's. AFAIK, mobo AGP driver *always* gets installed prior to video cards, been that way on over a thousand PC's I've configed.
Jim
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Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Thanks for the answer. Actually I phoned ATI and asked their technicians, about the right sequence for the AGP installs, and they said to go with the instructions with the mobo. i.e. "Load the AGP card driver first, then the mobo AGP Driver". Tried that and got a system crash, although the drivers did install. I think you are probably right. As for the Win 98 conflict, it has been long enough that I don't remember the exact details, - but I think it had to do with the busmaster IDE driver. -I will be finding out again when I go to reload 98, because I had to wipe the whole thing again.

Right now, I have XP set up, but it looks like I am going to have to start over unless I can figure out a way to solve a problem that cropped up as a result of a problem with a defective ORB disk.

The bad Orb disk caused a system crash, and since then whenever I right click a drive, I get "Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and must shut down - we are sorry for your inconvenience, would you like to send Microsoft an error report?" Oddly this only happens right clicking a partition, - right click a file and it works fine. I think I must have the drive letters screwed up. I have tried all I can think of to solve that one but my knowledge is limited and its no go. If nobody here knows how to solve it , I am going to wipe the primary master and start over.

Also the ATI XP drivers I am using are Catalyst 4.7, while the Via Hyperion XP is the 4 in 1 448 Beta. I think the 98 ATI drivers are Catalyst 3.9, and the Via still the 448 Beta.
Last edited by Jim on Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
flippedgazelle
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Post by flippedgazelle »

Have you gone into XP's "Disk Management" to check out the Volume letter assignments?
K6-2+/500 @ 600mhz
128mb PC133 CL2
9.1 GB Maxtor 7200rpm
LiteOn 32x CD
EPox EP-MVP3C w/512k cache
Savage 2000 64mb
3dfx Voodoo2 12mb
SB 64AWE
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Yes, but I am not sure I am going to get much out of that. (When the "Problem" described further on in here ocurred , I used Disk manager to reset my drive letters the way I had them)

The full setup I use, standard to all my machines, (to make it easier to copy filesets w/ shortcuts in them, - i.e. copy from one machine to another without having registry problems with regard to file location), is :
A:\ ......... (Floppy Drive)
B:\ .......... (Floppy Drive), (on some machines).
C:\ .......... (Currant boot drive) (some machines have as many as 3)
D:\ .......... (Software)
E:\ ........... (User Files)
F:\ ............ (Misc Temp)
G:\ ............ (Font Library & Word Perfect 9) (1300 fonts - not want to do over)
H:\ ............ (O.S. Backups)
I:\ .............. (Software Backups)
J:\ ............. (Storage 1) (10G mass storage partition)
K:\ ............. (Storage 2) (10G mass storage partition)
L:\ .............. (Storage 3) (10G mass storage partition)
M:\ .............. (Storage 4) (10G mass storage partition)
N:\ .............. (Storage 5) (10G mass storage partition)
Note: This setup is Superpuppy 3, other machines have fewer or smaller mass storage partitions, but the drive letters from C:\ through K:\ inclusive are assigned to the same function on each machine.

The next 3 letters are peculiar to Superpuppy 3:
O:\ ............... (PMCIA card reader)
P:\ ............... (Memeory Stick reader)
Q:\ ............... (ORB Drive) (5.7G Castlewood ORB removable storage)

The last 2 letters are the CD Drives.
R:\ ................. (CDRW) (CDRW\DVD only on SP3)
S:\ .................. (DVD) (DVDRW only on SP3)

In addition to this I also create a folder in each O.S. called (O.S. name Desktop) i.e. - XP Desktop. Within this folder I create the following folders :

Artwork ; Audio ; CD Creator ; Games ; Internet ; Utilities ; Video ; and Writing .
Within the Utilities folder I create 3 subfolders : Disk ; File ; and System .

I then go through all the programs on the machine including Windows looking for executables. When I find one I click it to see what it does, and if it is something that may be useful , I then create a shortcut to it in one (or more if applicable) of the folders above. Each folder gets a subfolder for help files i.e.- Video Help would be a subfolder within the Video folder. I also create shortcuts to help files in the appropriate Helpfile subfolder ; (Renaming both Help shortcuts and Executable shortcuts as necessary to insure that six months later I will know what they are.)

Where these shortcuts are associated with particular programs , I prefix the name with a source identifier e.g. "ATI CD Player" as opposed to "CL CD Play Centre 3" or "MS CD Player ". I then Create shortcuts to the main set of folders in the Windows Desktop folder ; and change the Icons to be representative of what the folder contains. For example "Audio" may get an Icon showing a musical note.This results in a single line of icons down the left side of the desktop , wherein each icon is a folder containing shortcuts to every related program on the machine, including help files.

I also rearrange the start menu in the same fashion. Given this , it should not be hard to see why I take an interest in being able to copy shortcuts from one machine to another ; and have them work right off the bat.

O.K. as you can see its a complex setup. But I like it because : 1) I like to keep the Windows partition as small as reasonable, (restore points), keeping programs elsewhere, because ATs are "speed challenged" machines; and Windows runs faster in a small partition. 2) as previously stated this setup simplifys copying files w/ shortcuts i.e. Lose my font library, no problem; fire up SP2, copy files from G:\Fonts on SP2 to G:\Fonts on SP3. 3) It is well organized and well diversified. This means its easy to wipe a single partition to correct a problem, without disturbing other things, 4) The "Mass Storage" areas are convenient for movie downloads, Music, holding zones for data from a drive that is going to be low level formatted to clear a boot track error, (the only way I know how to get rid of boot track errors) etc. The problem is that while this setup works beautifully, and puts everything right at my fingertips , out of the way , (not covered by the open window), therefore accessable ; it is a bitch to setup.

As you know any HDD that has a primary partition, is going to insert that partition into the Letter sequence prior to any logical partitions. This makes it awkward to setup a series of partitions like mine. To some extent you can get arround this by not using primary partitions on drives other than the primary master, but the Castlewood ORB is a joker in the deck. I am not sure it is possible to set up an extended partition and logical partitions within it (sans primary) on one of these things. It probably is, but I am not sure I want to. One Of the things I want to do with it is create a bootable Windows Orb Disk, so that in extremis I can disconnect the primary master, stick in the bootable ORB disk, and access my data.

The ORB Drive of course wants the "D" letter. No Way !! - I use diskmanager, partition magic, and drive mapper, to force the setup above. This entails reshuffling the drive letters considerably.

When the Orb drive crashed, (Delayed write failure) during a data recovery operation, was the original reason; (this resulted in a solid freeze - necessitating reboot) (resulting in ORB Drive head crash - and damaged disk - back half only) Stupid me continued to use the damaged disk (only using the fron half - 2.5G to complete the data recovery). Worked until I ran the ORB eqivalent of scandisk on the damaged disk, - then got another system crash , but this time the ORB Drive dropped out of the letter sequence when the system came back up, causing other letters to reshuffle, then when the ORB did come back up it did so as "D". This little maneuver I think has screwed up my Drive Letters to the point, that if I cant find somewhere in Windows a list of what windows thinks they should be, as opposed to what disk manager is showing, then I am going to have to start over.
Last edited by Jim on Sun Sep 04, 2005 8:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Wiggy
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Post by Wiggy »

Damn! Your a hardcore setter-upper. :lol:
SOLTEK rocks!
Jim
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Post by Jim »

You would be surprized Wiggy what little goodies both Windows and other programs have squirrled away in places you would never think to look. Some of the Windows items don't show up on the start menu. You have to be digging deep into oddball menus before you'd ever find them. And don't ask me to name them, cause right now my setup is a mess.
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punkrawker82
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Post by punkrawker82 »

Whoa, and I thought getting Mandrake 9.2 to dual boot with 98SE was a nightmare.....

I have to hand it to ya, you are one very organized person....
Past System
----------
Asus P5A-B rev1.05(Beta BIOS 1011.005)
AMD K6-2/CXT AFX @ 500Mhz(CPUCool 5 x 100)
128Mb PC100 SDRAM
VisionTek GeForce 4 MX 440 4x AGP @2x w/ 64Mb DDR
Creative Ensoniq PCI Sound Card
ADS Turbo Quad 4 Port USB PCI Card
Linksys NC100 v2 NIC
Western Digital 8Mb Cache SE 80Gb HD
Lite-On 52x32x52 CDR/RW
Lite-On 16x48 DVD

Current
----------
Athlon XP-A(Barton) 2600+ @ 1.91Ghz
Abit NF7-S v2.0
512Mb Kingston 3200 DDR(2.5-3-3-7)
VisionTek GeForce 4 MX 440 4x AGP w/ 64Mb DDR
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Hi PK! Long time no hear. Anyway, I finally gave up on trying to fix the "Right Click a Drive Error", wiped the sucker ; and started over. The upshot was the same problem showed up again. Turned out it wasn't scrambled drive letters causing it ; but rather a conflict between Nero's "In CD" software and the LG DVD/RW software. Gonna have to learn to live without "In CD". Got past that one now ; but no doubt you guys will have me asking for help again before this thing is fully functional.
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Would you believe I got the XP side about 90% setup; and was doing a backup, (before doing an install known to be tricky), when I ran into another problem.

Seems that Fat 32, (which I am using to keep both sides nicely compatable), does not support files bigger than 4 gig. This means that my software partition cannot be backed up in one go.

Worse than that was the fact that my file structure in that partition was horizontal rather than vertical. This meant that every time I did a backup in there I would have to individually select God knows how many folders to be backed up.

So,--Sigh!!--Start over again, after having redesigned the file structure into 3 vertical paths, so as to enable backing up the whole partition with 3 backup files each of which requires the selection of only 1 folder to be backed up.

i.e. ("98 Software" ; "Common Software" ; "XP Software")

Wherein "98 Software" contains folders for programs loaded on the 98 side ; "Common Software" contains downloaded install programs, which may be loaded on either side ; and of course "XP Software" contains folders for programs loaded on the XP side.

Just another "Setup Configuration" consideration I thought I'd pass along.
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Thought I would bump this to go along w/ the pics.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
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tazwegion
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Post by tazwegion »

Jim wrote:You would be surprized Wiggy what little goodies both Windows and other programs have squirrled away in places you would never think to look. Some of the Windows items don't show up on the start menu. You have to be digging deep into oddball menus before you'd ever find them. And don't ask me to name them, cause right now my setup is a mess.
Hmmm... like the resource meter (win98SE) for the system tray, I really like that feature :banana

Funny you should mention Nero's 'InCD' & LG RW hardware... though my burner IS CD/RW and not DVD/RW it seems to work together in harmony ;)

Pic's pic's more pic's! :P
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Misunderstanding there. What I meant is that Nero's "In CD" is incompatible w/ the, (Cyberlink), DVD burning software that comes w/ the LG Super Multi CDR/RW/DVDR/RW/DVDRAM drive. It even says so w/ the instructions.

Another hidden jewel is Corel's "Text Art" that comes w/ Word Perfect Office. No links to it anywhere, but go sifting through folders, and there it is. Lets you do fantastic 3D text, from any perspective, in a variety of styles, in a variety of textures, in any font, with widely variable lighting effects, using mutiple colours on each letter.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
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Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Thought I would give some examples of "Text Art" the executable that I found hidden away with no links, no mention whatever of it, buried 3 layers of folders deep in "Word Perfect Office 2000"
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Knocked those off in about a half hour. The angles, lighting, depth, texture, colouration, shape, font, and bevel of the edges of the print are all widely or infinitely variable. Not too bad for a hidden extra that they don't even mention is there.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
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Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

For those who are crazy enough to try to do an XP dualboot setup w/ the second OS completely isolated from XP, here is the way I did it.
Attachments
Superpuppy-3-Setup.zip
(8.1 KiB) Downloaded 849 times
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
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