SOLVED: Duse - issues listed (usb drivers in dos)
jamesh...@yahoo.co.uk
DUSE issues
I don't plan on using DUSE again, I only used it for a day and a
night. But noted down the issues.
Dos boot disks have had 3rd party utilities to view NTFS, and now
USB.
Win XP PE (like windows itself, booted off a cd, a LIVE cd in linux
terminology) views NTFS, and USB too. I see no reason to do any of
this.
Easier than duse is to plug a drive in internally. All my so-called
usb drives are actually internal ones with a usb-ide adaptor. If
somebody really needs a fan, they can get an enclosure, and can then
take the drive out. There is no point having an extenral usb drive at
all.
Other options to view files on a USB drive would be install win xp or
find a win xp machine and plug the drive in, than bother with this!
Anyhow. Onto DUSE..
Setting it up is quite quirky.
www.bootdisk.com was useful in suggesting an autoexec.bat and
config.sys that worked. And linking to DUSE and its documentation.
this site was good. Giving an image of a disk. A Quick way to get
oneself started. Though autoexec.bat and config.sys require some
tweaking. And the disk doesn't have many useful dos files like
edit.com
http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/usbdoscd.exe
mr bootdisk.com , true to form, is expert in what works and what
doesn't, he probably gets many emails.
But he didn't mention what didn't work.. or technicalities. It's more
like, "this just works" "look, no hands". DUSE is quirky, so who
knows why certain things don't work. But he didn't mention what didn't
work.
In one example of getting it working , he mentions
[config.sys]
device=a:\himem.sys
device=a:\duse.exe
[autoexec.bat]
MSCDEX /D:USBCDROM /S /M:15 /V
from what I tried, I don't think that gets the CDROM working. So i'd
do it a bit differently to get the cdrom working, . First, no CDROM.
So no need for the mscdex line. So, can be blank autoexec.
[config.sys]
device=a:\himem.sys
device=a:\duse.exe
[autoexec.bat]
--
I'd add a few points.
a)
He didn't include emm386 - good
In config.sys, you do not want to put emm386.exe
If you do, DUSE can give an error like
'dos in protected mode'
b)
He didn't start DUSE from the command line - good
The DUSE documentation mentions that instead of starting DUSE from
config.sys , you can start it from the command line.
duseldr duse.exe
However, I found that when I do that, and I try something as simple
as
edit config.sys
I get an error about there not being enough memory .
If I load duse.exe from config.sys, I don't get that error.
BTW, if you included emm386, then the error you can get when starting
DUSE from the command line is "dos is in protected mode"
c)
DUSE will see your CDROM in a sense.
A popup comes up, and detects USB devices ..
like your usb hard drive, or usb cdrom.
This is without even any CDROM drivers.
The hard drive will be detectable readable.
The CDROM will not.
(Although I seem to recall the stefan2000 boot disk one time when it
worked, it saw my cdrom and not my USB hard drive. And it had no
generic cdrom driver. So I don't know how that happened. I look at
that as an exception, and however it happened, it's no use anyway 'cos
I couldn't see my usb hard drive, and i haven't been able to repeat
that)
Consider this a hypothesis!
What DUSE has done, is effectively made it a bit like as if you had an
internal cdrom drive.
You can't read it yet, you need a driver for it. And there are generic
drivers. An old one, is oakcdrom.sys
downloadable from here
http://www.computerhope.com/download/hardware/oakcdrom.sys
Any win98 boot disk with cdrom access, eg from bootdisk.com would have
that kind of setup on it, a working example.
In short, you'd do something like this in autoexec.bat and config.sys
autoexec.bat-
A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:USBCDROM /S /M:15 /V
(bootdisk.com used those switches besides the /D:USBCDROM Another
site mentions /M:15 , it's probably a good option)
config.sys-
DEVICE=A:\oakcdrom.SYS /D:USBCDROM
Traditionally, in autoexec and config.sys you can do /D: anything,
it's just an identifier so you can do e.g. /D:asdf The use of /
D:MSCD0001 seemed to be what generic cdrom driver installation
software did. THe important thing was only that they matched, that you
used the same identifier for config.sys and for autoexec.bat But with
DUSE, you have to use /D:USBCDROM
Also, I think devicehigh and loadhigh/lh only apply to when emm386 is
loaded. The computerhope site mentions using that, but with DUSE you
don't load that, as mentioned.
d)
bootdisk.com mentions
device=a:\usbaspi.sys in an example of using DUSE. But didn't mention
that that file is not part of DUSE.
Wikipedia in this article about some form of DOS, says
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
" external DOS USB drivers (such as DUSE, USBASPI and USBMASS) for
storage devices work with some effort and luck "
So according to that, USBASPI is an alternative to DUSE
Other pages on the web (posted by madmaxusb?) have mentioned
DI1000DD.sys(prob an alternative to duse, by Novell). And some have
used that with usbaspi.sys
One page somebody posting said you don't use USBASPI.SYS and DUSE
together. I presume he said that because they are alternatives.
e)
most of these points have been related to the bootdisk.com site
But the stefan2000 disk that I mentioned, loads emm386.exe and loads
duse from the command line, so if you used that disk you'd have to
amend that.
I don't think you need to use that though. You can just make a win98
boot disk e.g. with bootdisk.com, or from windows. And rewrite
autoexec.bat and config.sys accordingly. They only need be 1-3 lines.
autoexec, the mscdex line
config.sys, the himem.sys, cdrom driver(like oakcdrom.sys), and
duse.exe lines.
f)He referred to "A:" - good (though i did manage to boot C and refer
to C, but there were issues)
The issue is because of how DUSE operates..
Even if booting off a floppy, you'll notice this.
I think, NTFS drives become a bit visible, C now pointed to my NTFS
drive.
You can't read it.
dir c: gives "General failure reading drive C"
D is now my FAT32 USB hard drive.
That's no big deal to figure out. But there are issues if you are
booting from C.
Because as soon as DUSE is loaded, it become D !!
The config.sys ended by loading DUSE
Then you get an ERROR, DOS looks for command.com (it does that at
certain times or when loading some things), and it can't find
command.com , a classic error. It asks where to find it, and you have
to tell it D:\COMMAND.COM or if you have a boot disk on you, you
could give it A:\COMMAND.COM
I don't think you can easily stop that error coming up. I tried SHELL,
like SHELL=D:\COMMAND.COM and something like it, in autoexec, but it
didn't help.
Also..
If you want a USB CDROM to work, you'll probably want to add another
line in config.sys for a generic cdrom driver like oakcdrom.sys But
that line if it's after the DUSE.EXE will have to refer to D:
\oakcdrom.sys not C:\oakcdrom.sys
So it's easiest to just put that line for a USB CDROM, before the
DUSE.exe line. Then it can be device=C:\oakcdrom.sys instead of
device=d:\oakcdrom.sys
you'd either say
device=c:\himem.sys
device=c:\duse.exe
device=d:\oakcdrom.sys /D:USBCDROM
or
device=c:\himem.sys
device=c:\oakcdrom.sys /D:USBCDROM
device=c:\duse.exe
but if you do
device=c:\himem.sys
device=c:\duse.exe
device=c:\oakcdrom.sys /D:USBCDROM
then a config.sys error comes up.
('cos by the time it reaches the beginning of line 3, oakcdrom.sys is
on D! So is himem.sys and duse.exe btw! But the problem would be in
referring to a file that doesn't exist, which happens here with
oakcdrom.sys Whereas himem.sys and duse.exe were used/loaded from
files that existed, and now they're in RAM and don't need those old
files - i guess)