Hard Drive Label Problem

[justacruzr2]

OK. Thanks for the tip. I see it in \Windows. I'm going to run it to see what it does/finds. Hope left clicking it is all that's required. If not, let me know how it's run/used.

[The Dude]

Yup left clicking..... Its amazing what you can do with it!!

But Since then I have also discovered I can set the 'SYSTEM' ATTRIB from DOS also!! (+s) -- I didnt know that before a few weeks ago!

[justacruzr2]

Yeah...found that out by trying it. Looked like an earlier version of Explorer so I "Googled" it and that's exactly what I found out. It was what was used in Windows 1, 2 and 3.1 and then MS replaced it with Explorer in Windows 95 but continued to supply it with the Windows 9x series of OS's. Put it on my Start menu anyway for what it's worth. Thanks. Other problem not solved yet...sighs!

[The Dude]

Yes its quite an amazing program!!!! (I dunno if XP has it but 2000 and below do)

[justacruzr2]

XP doesn't have it. I checked my XP system...no WINFILE.EXE. They probably decided to retire it. While investigating my ME problem I ran across a website that has most of the original MS updates available for download and descriptions of the problem they correct. I think you said you have ME. 2 of the problems were ones that I'm familiar with. The first sometimes happens during an install. You get into this endless loop of the system creating an unending stream of oem0.inf's. The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on. The install seemed to be taking longer than it should so after about a couple minutes I aborted the install and cranked up Explorer to see what was going on. In that short amount of time the system had created over 2000 oem0.inf's. The other is when you try to delete too many files at once in Explorer...it just locks-up. Did you ever experience those? I'm surprised that MS never addressed these issues with an update for Windows Explorer.

[The Dude]

Im sorry you had issues like that bud... No im on Win98se,I just saw your thread and wanted to try and help

[justacruzr2]

Originally Posted by The Dude

Im sorry you had issues like that bud... No im on Win98se,I just saw your thread and wanted to try and help

Yeah, Windows can be lot's of fun. The oem0.inf problem was solved by 1 of the updates I did. Turns out, from the MS description of the problem, that it was a memory leak. The other 1 remains (but I have found a website that has an un-official fix for it - it was a well known problem) but the workaround is to just not delete so many files at once...do it in a couple of steps. The original label problem is still a mystery. I haven't finished checking everything yet, but have eliminated the RAID controller card. I removed it to test my theory and then restored the registry but the capitalized drive name re-appeared so that's not it. All the updates I did I downloaded from the MS Windows Update site you go to when you click on Windows Update. They give you the option of running the update on line or downloading it and running it off-line. I did the latter and before I ran the updates I used Winzip to view the contents of each one and print them out so I could see what files were going to be involved. I burned all those updates onto a CD so I could always have them. Figured that one never knows when MS might pull them from their website and then you have to try to hunt them down if you need them again in the future. I kept those printouts too and most of them involve Internet Explorer...fixing security issues. Nothing I see directly involves Windows Explorer or any file involved in reading the hard drive at boot. Even so, Internet Explorer does share some of the functionality of Windows Explorer, since it can show the directory tree and search for files and folders, and maybe uses some of the same dll's. So I guess it's possible that something IE updated did not sit well with Windows Explorer. And I still haven't re-run the Intel Application Accelerator update yet. This one does directly involve the hard drives and it was the one that I think caused the problem in the first place. Even if I re-run it and then uninstall it, it's only going to put back what I already have on the drive and registry which is not working right anyway. One thing I might do is partition my junk drive and re-install the original system on it and then compare registry entries for the hard drives and Windows Explorer and see if I can find anything that doesn't look right. Anyway, I appreciate you having taken the time to jump in and try to help. If I ever figure this out I will post it.

[The Dude]

Well I think its nice to try and help others,especially on a site like CTH which is a computer help site mostly.......... (Its sad hardily anyone comes here to help others,THEY ALL COME HERE TO HELP THEMSELVES then they split which is sad)

[justacruzr2]

Originally Posted by The Dude

Well I think its nice to try and help others,especially on a site like CTH which is a computer help site mostly.......... (Its sad hardily anyone comes here to help others,THEY ALL COME HERE TO HELP THEMSELVES then they split which is sad)

Finally figured it out. Came to me when I noticed something funny in XP. If you put a DOS label on the hard drives it overrides the Windows supplied label. When I deleted the DOS labels, everything went back to normal. Must have been something that Intel Application Accelerator update did. The install tracking program wouldn't catch that 'cause it's looking at additions, deletions, and modifications to the registry and the contents of the disk drive (files & folders). It's not looking at DOS level cjanges to the drive such as the label. Ha! After all this time it was something that simple. Learning something new all the time. That's again for pitching in.

[The Dude]

Your welcome!!!

Sometimes the solution IS SIMPLE yet we dont realise what it is!!!!

[justacruzr2]

Originally Posted by The Dude

Your welcome!!!

Sometimes the solution IS SIMPLE yet we dont realise what it is!!!!

One last thing I forgot to mention. Starting with ME and up, detailed information about the drives attached to the system, for Windows Explorer's use, are stored in the registry under the key : HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Exp lorer\MountPoints. That's why the problem. The registry entry conflicts with what DOS reports for the drive label. This problem would never be experienced in 98SE and below because that key does not exist in those versions of the Windows registry (checked my 98 registry...not there).

[The Dude]

What if you deleted that key??

Im curious what would occur if that key wasnt there....... (Well the mountpoints entry that doesnt exist below ME)


I just scanned my registry for "mount" and got 2 entrys for "Mountpoints"

"IHardwareDevicesMountPointsEnum" (1 in CLASSES ROOT the other in LOCAL MACHINE)

[justacruzr2]

That was one of the first things I tried when trying to diagnose that problem. Thought if I deleted it, it might refresh it with new, and correct, data. So if deleted in ME it just recreates it the next time you boot up. The key I mentioned is under HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU):

(HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ex plorer\MountPoints).

I didn't check for Mount Points, in 98, under any of the other major keys. So it would seem, by your investigation, that 98 stores this info in a different location than in ME. Should have done a search in REGEDIT. I was curious to see what 98 did and compare it to ME. MS must have moved it from CLASSES in ME 'cause there's nothing there for Mount Points. In ME the registry files were expanded to SYSTEM.DAT, USER.DAT and CLASSES.DAT. In 98 it's just SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT. MS must have been cramming all the CLASSES info into SYSTEM.DAT in 98 and decided with ME it was time to break it out into it's own file (my best guess), therefore the new file CLASSES.DAT. Here's some additional info on WINFILE. I have a friend who is still using Windows 95 OSR2 and he says there is no Windows Explorer in 95...only WINFILE (File Manager). So I guess that Windows Explorer was introduced in 98 as the replacement for WINFILE. He also says there's no UPnP in 95. Every piece of hardware you add to 95 has to come with it's own driver files and be installed manually. Good luck these days. Nobody is supporting 95 anymore...well 98 and ME too, but there are ways to make things work with 98 and ME. I've had to manually make the registry entries for some new hardware I've replaced that wore out. It's a pain but it's the only way I know of so far. Wish they would just make hardware universally compatible. Heck, you'd think they would just for the extra sales.

[The Dude]

Well it is pretty useless compared to WINFILE as nothing I did was able to correct my problem EXCEPT WINFILE.exe which someone told me about...... Talk about stuff getting worse huh?? (Luckily this file was on my computer)

Heres my thread about it: www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,11917571

[justacruzr2]

For 98 that's probably true. There were some nice improvements in Explorer in ME. The best is the integrated Search Pane. 98 doesn't have that. You already know that to search for files & folders you have to use a seperate program from the Start Menu...Search and then click on For Files & Folders. That still exists in ME but brings up Explorer. In ME you can customize the Explorer toolbar and put a button up there for Search and that opens the Search Pane in the same place as when you change the view to Folders. In ME you never have to leave Explorer to do a Search for Files & Folders. So, at least in ME, Explorer is a little better than WINFILE. Don't get me wrong though...I like WINFILE too and have put it on my Start Menu since you mentioned it. It has it's uses for me too. I guess maybe you didn't know that you can also do associations with the Folder Options - File Types tab. This is where I normally do it. I guess it's a little better to do it all in one place using WINFILE.