BL> Inside *which* executable? I looked in scandisk.exe,
BL> command.com, io.sys and msdos.sys... nothing!

JB> it's encrypted (compressed actually) Dos 6.22s Scandisk.exe

 Ow! I'd forgotten that M$ PKZIPS its executables! 

 That's okay, then. I thought the string was coming from the BIOS!
There's still the worry of how-come the Athlon identifies a beta
version but the 486 doesn't.... having booted from the same floppy
with scandisk on it too. 

BL> I don't understand. If I boot from a floppy there is no PATH.
BL> How is the hard drive(s) involved? The problem has to be in the
BL> sytem files or in scandisk itself... and since the old computer
BL> doesn't mind when I boot from the *same* floppy, doesn't that
BL> mean it's in the computer BIOS?

JB> pretty much unless it's peeking at the hard disk on the sly.

 I guess that's what it's doing. There *must* have been something put
on Drive C: when I loaded Win98! The 486 doesn't have Win98 anywhere.
It can't be in the boot sector.

BL> I thought there must be an error in Win98, but Linux is even
BL> slower to load files! Does it read the register first, or is it
BL> somethign to do with the disk controller?

JB> I'm not sure, Ive noticed that too, mainly on my old 486.

JB> It just sits there for a

BL> few seconds the first time you load a new program, then it
BL> loads. The next time (when it's already in RAM) it's pretty
BL> fast.

JB> it may need to load the bit that knows how to load the program
JB> first.... 

 There is no action on the hard drive... no lights. It just sits
there processing RAM or something.

Regards,
Bob
   

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5