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From: ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: formatting a miniscribe 3085
Message-ID: <90310.152826ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 6 Nov 90 23:28:26 GMT
References: <1324@ria.ccs.uwo.ca>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Lines: 67

In response to:

>From: pruss@ria.ccs.uwo.ca (Alex Pruss)
>Subject: formatting a miniscribe 3085
>Date: 6 Nov 90 21:03:32 GMT
>
>I have recently purchased a Miniscribe 3085 drive.  (I bought it
>used)  I had it installed at a local computer store, and they
>happily did a low-level format leaving me with partitions of
>33 and 50 megabytes (approx).  I didn't think that this was legal
>under dos 3.3, so i used their dm.exe utility to reformat it.
>Unfortunately, it now only lets me format the first 1024 cyls (the
>drive has 1170) because it is missing some file swbios.com.  Is this
>commonly available?  (or is there a different way to format the drive)
>All I want is to be able to use fdisk and format to chop up the drive
>into 3 logical drives (c: d: e: say), and still have the full capacity
>of the drive available.  I've been told that I don't even need the
>dmdrvr.bin driver in config.sys under dos 3.3 - is this true???
>
>Any help (esp. the swbios.com file) would be greatly appreciated.

DM.EXE is part of Disk Manager by Ontrack Software.  So is the DMDRVR.BIN.
Disk Manager is often bundled with a disk when purchased new, usually with
a version specifically tailored for the brand of disk you have purchased.
There is also a generic version which one can purchase commercially.

There are several versions of Disk Manager.  Some versions come with a
SWBIOS.COM and some don't.  If you have DM.EXE and it calls for SWBIOS.COM
then you only have part of the package.  Had you bought the disk new, you
probably would have received a copy of the Disk Manager package.  Since you
didn't, it sounds like your local computer store only gave you part of the
package and probably a purloined copy at that.  I suggest you contact the
computer store that installed it or the place/person from whom you purchased
the disk to see if you can get the entire thing.

I believe that the basic difference between a version of Disk Manager made
for a specific brand of disk and a generic version is simply the table of
disk models it knows about when specifying the drive parameters (number of
cylinders, etc.) which you apparently already know.  This allows one to
specify the disk configuration by brand and model rather than by number of
cylinders, tracks, etc.  However, all of the versions of DM I have dealt
with allow the specification of the disk configuration specifically
without having to go through the table of disk models.  In short, you can
probably use a version of DM for another brand of disk if your computer
dealer doesn't have one for yours.

You probably don't want to use Disk Manager in the automatic mode.  When
you start it, type DM /M which invokes it in manual mode.  This allows you
to select various options on configuring it, formatting it, etc.  There
is also help available if you have the full package but if SWBIOS is missing
the help files may be missing too.

I believe that the SWBIOS.COM file is to set the disk configuration in the
BIOS.  You may be able to do that using other utilities.  A program named
SETUP or SYSSETUP or similar name may have been included with your machine
or with DOS.  Or you may have the option of changing what's in the BIOS at
boot time.  My current machine allows that as part of the power-up sequence.
If not, there are other utilities which can be used to set the CMOS
configuration.  There are probably ways to do that using DEBUG too although
I have never had to do that.

DMDRVR.BIN is a driver that allows you to partition your disk and run with
earlier versions of DOS (e.g. 3.1).  If you are running 3.3 and intend to
use FDISK, you probably do not need this driver.  However, you may find
that you need it instead of FDISK if the disk configuration is not one that
your BIOS knows about.  That would be the case for an early AT or clone and
maybe some others.