Curious about thumb drive

[Jim]

Sandisk 1GB Minicruzer/USB connection works fine in XP/ME/98SE.

Motherboard is AOpen AX4GE-N. Using onboard USB. USB 2.0 works.

When I enable USB mouse in Award bios, two unaccessible drives show up in
all 3 OSes mentioned. Lettered D and E, and move all other drive letters
down on the hard drive partitions.
Using System Commander for boot manager, displays ??? marks for OS type, two
instances.

If I use the format/copy system files option in 98SE with windows explorer
to the thumb drive working drive letter, under the same conditions, System
Commander shows two instances of 98 bootable OS, but cannot boot from it.

If I disable USB mouse in bios, all this disappears in both windows and in
system commander.

The bios has no boot from USB asset. So, I know I can't use the thumb drive
for booting.

Why are there 2 phantom drives as opposed to 1?

The USB mouse enabling let's me use the mouse in System Commander, dos
w/mouse driver, and Windows initial part of installation for instance. So,
I have to remember to disable and enable the USB mouse in the bios when
applicable if I intend to use the thumb drive later in a windows session.
Normally speaking, don't connect the thumb drive until the OS has been
booted.

Can't find a way around this. Sandisk.com with registered user help is of
no assistance.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Sandisk 1GB Minicruzer/USB connection works fine in XP/ME/98SE.

Motherboard is AOpen AX4GE-N. Using onboard USB. USB 2.0 works.

When I enable USB mouse in Award bios, two unaccessible drives show up in
all 3 OSes mentioned. Lettered D and E, and move all other drive letters
down on the hard drive partitions.
Using System Commander for boot manager, displays ??? marks for OS type, two
instances.

If I use the format/copy system files option in 98SE with windows explorer
to the thumb drive working drive letter, under the same conditions, System
Commander shows two instances of 98 bootable OS, but cannot boot from it.

If I disable USB mouse in bios, all this disappears in both windows and in
system commander.

The bios has no boot from USB asset. So, I know I can't use the thumb drive
for booting.

Why are there 2 phantom drives as opposed to 1?

Just a thought: Do you enable PS/2 emulation when you enable the
mouse? Then the second "drive" could be the keyboard.

The USB mouse enabling let's me use the mouse in System Commander, dos
w/mouse driver, and Windows initial part of installation for instance. So,
I have to remember to disable and enable the USB mouse in the bios when
applicable if I intend to use the thumb drive later in a windows session.
Normally speaking, don't connect the thumb drive until the OS has been
booted.

Can't find a way around this. Sandisk.com with registered user help is of
no assistance.

This is likely broken USB support in your BIOS. Sandisk is not
responsible for that.

Arno

 

[Eric Gisin]

Sandisk 1GB Minicruzer/USB connection works fine in XP/ME/98SE.

Motherboard is AOpen AX4GE-N. Using onboard USB. USB 2.0 works.

When I enable USB mouse in Award bios, two unaccessible drives show up in
all 3 OSes mentioned. Lettered D and E, and move all other drive letters
down on the hard drive partitions.
Using System Commander for boot manager, displays ??? marks for OS type, two
instances.

Windows 98/ME inherit all drives known to BIOS. Win XP never would do this.

If I use the format/copy system files option in 98SE with windows explorer
to the thumb drive working drive letter, under the same conditions, System
Commander shows two instances of 98 bootable OS, but cannot boot from it.

Two instances of a drive is a known problem with Win98. One is in compatibility mode.

If I disable USB mouse in bios, all this disappears in both windows and in
system commander.

The bios has no boot from USB asset. So, I know I can't use the thumb drive
for booting.

The BIOS certainly has USB drive support, as System Command sees it.