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From: bt@eng.auburn.edu (bt garner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Help: Finding legal drives on system
Message-ID: <bt.910311112036@netman.eng.auburn.edu>
Date: 11 Mar 91 17:20:36 GMT
References: <3815@ac.dal.ca> <8795@plains.NoDak.edu>
Sender: bt garner <bt@eng.auburn.edu>
Organization: Process Modeling Group
Lines: 20
Nntp-Posting-Host: netman.eng.auburn.edu

In article <3815@ac.dal.ca> merrett@ac.dal.ca writes:
>Is there any way of checking for 'legal' drives on a particular system, in
>C, without actually having to read from the drive?  (i.e. I don't want it
>plopping that 'insert floppy' message in the middle of my pretty windows)

and in article <8795@plains.NoDak.edu> (Jim Nelson) responded:
>About the only way to do it is to check the biosequip word for number of
>floppies.  I don't know it's memory address at the moment, but TC has a
>function to find it for you, then you do a little bit manipulation to do the
>rest.

The equipment list is in [0:410H], if bit 0 is set, then floppies do
exist on the system (bits 6 & 7 will tell you the number-1).  To check 
for the presence of hard drives, the best way (that I've found) is to use
Int21, Function 36H (Get Free Disk Space) until AX returns FFFF (Invalid
Drive Specification).

bt garner (bt@rng.auburn.edu)
mutant systems programmer, process modeling group
chemical engineering department, auburn unversity