Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!rutgers!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixd.cc.columbia.edu!srg From: srg@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Steven R Gerber) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Avoid mangling your hard drive with DMDRVR.BIN Summary: Just to clarify a few things Keywords: disk drive DM Message-ID: <1990Apr11.185813.19467@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Date: 11 Apr 90 18:58:13 GMT References: <18605@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <10343@portia.Stanford.EDU> <2549@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <187@usafa.af.mil> Sender: news@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Daily News) Reply-To: srg@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Steven R Gerber) Distribution: usa Organization: Columbia University Lines: 44 In article eggbert@bucsf.bu.edu (Eugene Wang) writes: >>>>>> On 5 Apr 90 21:47:48 GMT, geoff@usafa.af.mil (Capt Geoff Mulligan) said: > > >> So then what is dmdrvr.bin for? What does diskmanager do different >> from fdisk when you partition a drive? I have used diskmanager to >> low-level format a 320 Meg drive into a single 120 Meg dos partition >> and a 200 Meg Unix partition and everything works just great. Can >> someone explain why i need dmdrvr.bin? > >> Also where are the partition names stored? > >DMDRVR.BIN contains the partition information for your hard disk. Try See below... >removing it from your CONFIG.SYS file. If you try to access anything except >the C: drive, DOS gives you the `Invalid drive specification' error. > > The only advantage that I can see from using Disk Manager is that you >can create partitions greater than 32MB for DOS 3.3 and lower, except on >the boot drive, and you can low-level format your hard disk without >going through DEBUG. If you can live without this, FDISK is fine. > >FDISK stores the partition information on the disk, while DM does it in >the driver, but then the driver only takes up 2-4K anyway. > >I think the partition names are stored in DMDRVR.BIN but I'm not sure. > >Eugene Wang >eggbert@bucsf.bu.edu Eugene, close but no cigar. The partition table is always stored on the disk. The driver (dmdrvr.bin) handles the translation? from native disk requests in DOS to extended requests and executes them for large (>32M) partitions. **************************************************************** * Steven R. Gerber - PAL (Programmer At Large) * srg@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu * Tel: 212-794-8721 * UUCP: ...rutgers!columbia!cunixd!srg * FAX: 212-794-8722 ****************************************************************