Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a523
From: a523@mindlink.UUCP (Frank Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DOS 4.01 compatibility problem
Message-ID: <1925@mindlink.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 90 19:50:33 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 63

> kperson@plains.UUCP writes:
> 
> Msg-ID: <4910@plains.UUCP>
> Posted: 27 May 90 20:07:51 GMT
> 
> Org.  : North Dakota State University, Fargo
> Person: Kerry Person
> 
> 
> 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)


I believe that you will need PCTools Version 5.5 or higher to work properly
with DOS 4.01.  I think that PCTools Version 5.0 even had problems with DOS
4.01.  The difference with DOS 4.01 seems to be in the File Allocation Table
(FAT).  My older office version of VOPT (Disk optimiser and de-fragmenter)
wouldn't even load with DOS 4.01!

Frank Murray
# 523
@MindLink!
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