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From: kperson@plains.UUCP (Kerry Person)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: DOS 4.01 compatibility problem
Keywords: MS-DOS 4.01, PCTools, Optune, MiniScribe 3650, Adaptec 2372B
Message-ID: <4910@plains.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 90 20:07:51 GMT
Reply-To: kperson@plains.UUCP (Kerry Person)
Distribution: usa
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo
Lines: 34


Sorry for the long history on my machine, but it may all be pertinent.

I have a Packard Bell PB286 AT clone computer with 640K RAM, running 10MHz.
It came with a MiniScribe 3650 MFM drive formatted to 42 Meg with a Western
Digital WD1003-something or other controller.  Under MS-DOS 3.3, I had to 
partition the drive so the boot partition was under 32 Meg, so I set it up
as 31 (C:), and 11 (D:).  I got tired of this after a while, so I bought and
installed MS-DOS 4.01.  I reformatted and partitioned the entire 42 Meg as
drive C:.  This worked fine, but as is not uncommon, I then started to run
short of room on the drive.  I found out that the 3650 can be safely formatted
as an RLL drive, so I got myself the Adaptec 2732B 16-bit RLL controller and
reformatted the drive to 67 Meg at 1:1 interleave, and tried to install 4.01.
It wouldn't recognize the Install floppy as a system disk.  I reinstalled 3.3
and all ran fine.  Turns out my ROM BIOS, the new controller, and 4.01 didn't
get along together.  I replaced my BIOS with Phoenix chips, and 4.01 installed
fine.  Here's where it gets weird. 
PCTools and Gazelle Systems' Optune now can't recognize the media type.  The
2372 controller uses sector translation to fool applications into thinking that
the drive still has 17 sectors per track instead of the 26 it really has.  This
wasn't a problem under 3.3, why now?  Who knows?  Well, I reformatted the drive
AGAIN - this time disabling the 26-to-17 sector translation.  Norton previously
was fooled into thinking there were 17 sectors per track, and now indicates 
that there are 26 - so the translation IS disabled.  But PCTools (R3.24) and
Optune STILL don't recognize the media type.

If you've read this far, any ideas?  Can PCTools R3.24 run with 4.01?
Or how about Optune?  Neato program, the optimization works fine, but it
can't do any of its analysis tricks.

Thanks for any and all input. 

Kerry Person
(kperson@plains.NoDak.edu)