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From: town@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Brian R. Town)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: formatting a miniscribe 3085
Message-ID: <6040002@hpspkla.spk.hp.com>
Date: 8 Nov 90 17:51:57 GMT
References: <1324@ria.ccs.uwo.ca>
Organization: Hewlett Packard Company, Spokane, Wa.
Lines: 23

>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.
>----------

I have a 3085 myself and have to use DMDRVR.BIN in order to see any partitions
that cross the 1024 cylinder mark.  I am running DOS 4.01, but the problem
lies in the BIOS.  Evidently the BIOS cannot handle cylinders greater than
1024.  BTW, this is a 71Meg drive (not 80Meg).

Also, I partitioned mine such that the 9 Meg that exists on the cylinders beyond
1024 is a separate drive.  This allows me to boot without DMDRVR.BIN at the
loss of seeing the last partition.  I did this because Windows 3.0 does not
like the DMDRVR.BIN unless you put a special entry in the system.ini file
(which slows things down.  ie. about doubled my windows load time).

Hope this helps.

Brian (didn't know about the 1024 cylinder problem before I bought mine) Town