Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:53608 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:145 comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer:2245
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!jcr108
From: JCR108@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: KILLER PROBLEM from HELL... *PLEASE* help!!
Message-ID: <90185.162114JCR108@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 4 Jul 90 20:21:14 GMT
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 24

Hi all, I've got quite a problem here, and I hope you can help.  I have an
Epson Equity II+ with a 20 meg hard drive, and 2 floppies.  What has happened
is this:  I was attempting to install 4DOS on my system.  I put all the 4DOS
files in a separate directory (\4DOS), then added the SHELL=c:\4dos\4dos.com
to my config.sys.  I rebooted the system to try it out.  Since the 4dos286
file was not in the home directory, 4dos.com locked up the system and said
to reboot the system.  Normally getting out of this would be no problem,
however, I had installed the PC-Lock Protection System Version 1.2f from
Johnson Computer Systems a few months back.  This protection system will
not allow any access to the hard disk EXCEPT by booting from the hard disk.
Now here is where my problem comes from.  I can't access the hard disk to
change the configuration, since I can't get to it by booting from a floppy,
and the hard drive dies on me in config.sys because of 4DOS.com.
I can think of a few possible solutions:

* is there any possible way to stop the config.sys file from being run?
  ctrl-break obviously does not work.

* is there any way to override the protection system, and allow dos booted
  from a disk recognize that there is a c: drive on my system?  perhaps
  an assembler routine?

     Thank you in advance for any help you can give.
                                               John