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REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:08 pm

Bout 5 years ago I hacked a 32-bit driver to make it work in x64, took me maybe couple of months to work that whole thing out ; but I've not been using that rig for ooooh 3-4 years.

Now, three massive IT crashes further down the road, that backup rig's looking very sweet all of a sudden, but heck -- does our friendly neighbourhood specialist x64 drivers forum where I uploaded that junk as a community service even still exist ???

HECK NO !!!! :bashhead

Meanwhile even the basic x86 drivers seem to have followed mine into AWOL, or wherever the mythic burial ground of the obsolete drivers is located ...

-----

Cripes that'll teach me to upload hacks anywhere other than PROnet !!!!
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby shreader » Sat Aug 25, 2012 5:22 pm

I still have the oold decomissioned x64 rig sitting in the corner, built for testing XP x64.
I was wondering about the instructions on "Decorating" a x86 driver to work in a x64 rig awhile back.
I found the paper but also came to realize that a decorated x86 drive will not be signed & probably wont work on newer OSs, I think that happened around the Vista testing days.

Anyway I do sytill have copies of my 1 - decorated driver in case I ever recomssion that old rig.

Its for a 3COM 3C940 ethernet controller.
Actually I think before MS finished the Vista RTM I suggested they include that driver w/ their driver package & they did, though I never extracted it.

Maybe your Vista disk has a copy of that driver you need too?
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 27, 2012 9:13 am

OK --- I *think* I've remembered how to hack the working drivers, as I think they came out of one of the Vista RC builds... so basically, pretty much what JD was saying.

^^ nvm, I am a hoarder :lol: :whistle

Will be time-consuming to find which one, I'll even have to install it I guess to extract the drivers, but IIRC that's how I got this rig working at the time...

---

JD it *is* actually possible to digitally sign your own hacked driver, though it's a bit fiddly, and you need to run the OS in testing mode.
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:41 am

Gotcha !!!! ^*^ :witch:

Vista Beta 2 5472 had the stuff
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 27, 2012 12:33 pm

Was forgetting how difficult it is to install Vista on this machine though ...
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby shreader » Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:24 pm

I'm glad you found it Julian ^*^

Thanks for the reminder, I have a Vista install on a test gig that hasn't been updated in ages, I really need to do that soon.

*Before I decommissioned that ooold test rig I wiped it then did a Windows 7 clean install on it. Reflecting back it seems that everything worked on that install so I'm thinking MS included that old 3COM driver w/ that driver package too.
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:19 pm

This rig has *always* been ultra hard to install ...

bad news with this fact is that configuration and drivers search and install has always been a PITA

good news was that it was a superb learning tool for me 5-6 years back !!! :uhhh

I've got, I *think* all the drivers I need now (well, not just those I found this last week, but my own hacked ones on my own DB now I have a working rig again), but it was a battle even to just install vanilla XP 32-bit ... :bashhead

Performance is still surprisingly smooth, for a single core Socket 939 config.

(haven't used the thing AT ALL for about 5 years)

I'll probably set up Vista x64 at some point, but frankly I just want to leave it as is (AKA - functional) for a little while at least.

Still need to get my principal data out and safe from a failing HDD, which clearly is a priority versus non-XP-ness
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby yeshuas » Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:49 pm

did you say it is a single core 939, how you going to fooling it into thinking its a dual core, to install Vista X 64
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:37 pm

yeshuas wrote:did you say it is a single core 939, how you going to fooling it into thinking its a dual core, to install Vista X 64


???

There are several single core x64 capable CPUs, including the one that I own.
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Re: REALLY REALLY Annoying !!!

Postby JabbaPapa » Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:38 am

Well, the ONE thing that XP 32-bit/FLP/W2k are all MUCH better at than any other Windows version is handling hard drive errors.

Unfortunately, this lets me see I've not one, but *two* failing data hard drives ... knowledge is always, I suppose, better than ignorance ; but it does mean my core data is now very much at risk, because I simply no longer have enough reliable storage space to do even a basic backup...

So -- next step is get a new hard drive.
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