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DR-DOS and FAT32 - newbie question

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Boris

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Jun 23, 2002, 3:37:08 AM6/23/02
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Returning to DOS after 10 years - so a very silly question probably.

DRDOS is running, but I want it to be able to see FAT 32 partitions
(otherwise used by Windows Me).

I have found a file DRFAT32.zip on the net, and it contains just drfat32.exe
and drfat32.sys - no readme for newbies like me.

What on earth do I do with them to make them work?!

thanks
Boris


Martin Str|mberg

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Jun 23, 2002, 5:43:17 AM6/23/02
to
Boris <bo...@home.com> wrote:
: Returning to DOS after 10 years - so a very silly question probably.

Either change news group or change OS (to FreeDOS).


Right,

MartinS

Boris

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Jun 23, 2002, 2:37:03 PM6/23/02
to
on a point of correction, DR-DOS is actually free, so your NG is misnamed -
but I see I'll get no help here.

Boris

Spunk99

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Jun 23, 2002, 4:58:39 PM6/23/02
to

freedos is a dos like ms-dos and dr-dos not in like gratis.

the sys file you put into
device=filename.sys

the exe file i guess is for the autoexec.bat

just write the filename.exe or try to loadhigh

there is no group for dr-dos specific

Boris

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Jun 24, 2002, 4:49:27 AM6/24/02
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thanks Spunk99, I found the FAQ now, but it still doesn't work!!

Does freedos provide seamless reading of FAT32 partitions and long file
names? Do all device drivers work with it just as they would with MSDOS?

If so, perhaps I'll load freedos instead.

thanks
Boris
"Spunk99" <spu...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:7adchu030ggmqs9cd...@4ax.com...

Martin Str|mberg

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Jun 24, 2002, 9:48:48 AM6/24/02
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Boris <bo...@home.com> wrote:
: Does freedos provide seamless reading of FAT32 partitions and long file

: names? Do all device drivers work with it just as they would with MSDOS?

FAT32, yes. LFN, no. Device drivers bugs are for you to discover...


Right,

MartinS

asso.smia

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Jun 24, 2002, 10:15:58 AM6/24/02
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The OS DATALIGHT can read a fat 32.
It is a shareware, a demo can be download on the Web
It is a very good DOS

Martin Str|mberg <a...@speedy.ludd.luth.se> a écrit dans le message :
10248253...@queeg.ludd.luth.se...

Boris

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Jun 25, 2002, 2:56:09 AM6/25/02
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thanks, I'll look it up.

Boris
"asso.smia" <asso...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
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David Raleigh Arnold

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Jun 26, 2002, 3:30:33 PM6/26/02
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drfat32.exe is probably a sez, self-extracting zipfile. You
may have the necessary docs right there. :-)

Matthias Paul

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Jun 28, 2002, 6:58:20 AM6/28/02
to
On 2002-06-26, David Raleigh Arnold wrote:

>> I have found a file DRFAT32.zip on the net, and it contains just
>> drfat32.exe and drfat32.sys - no readme for newbies like me.
>>
>> What on earth do I do with them to make them work?!
>

> drfat32.exe is probably a sez, self-extracting zipfile. You
> may have the necessary docs right there. :-)

There is no documentation because DRFAT32.SYS + DRFAT32.EXE was
a solution for OEM use (for example for virus scanning and disk
maintenance), and as such it was used by Ontrack's Easy Recovery 4.
It was not intended for use by normal end users on desktop systems.

DRFAT32.SYS is a special device driver which should be loaded
in [D]CONFIG.SYS. This driver talks to the INT 13h interface of
the System BIOS in order to communicate with the disk. You can
control the behaviour of DRFAT32.SYS by a multitude of command
line options. If you specify an invalid option, it will even
display a help screen (shortened):

|DEVICE[HIGH] = DRFAT32.SYS [/Options]
|
| /A assume more than 1024 cylinders and less than 64 heads
| /B allow client sided asynchronous read/write buffering
| /C search for CHS FAT32 partition (ID 0Bh)
| /D:devname device driver name up to 8 chars (default: FAT32XXX)
| /E[:number] search for logical drive in ext. partition (1..255)
| /F force override of (some) sanity checks
| /G save guard by blocking write access on faults
| /H search for hidden FAT32/FAT32X partition (IDs 1Bh/1Ch)
| /L search for LBA FAT32X partition (ID 0Ch)
| /M always signal media change for removable drive
| /N relative sectors in logical drive chain are absolute
| /O try to use CHS addressing even for LBA partitions
| /P[:number] search for primary partition (number = 1..4)
| /R disable write access via driver
| /S[:number] use CHS multi sector access in /A mode (0,2,4,8,16)
| /U:min[,max] search on drive unit min to max (min, max = 128..255)
| /V[:level] display verbose messages (level = 1..2)
| /W force write with verify (default: system setting)
| /X use LBA entries and addressing even for CHS partitions

Without overriding options, the driver will log-in the first eight
matching FAT32 partitions found in a system by successively scanning
each drive unit for CHS / LBA (and hidden CHS / LBA), primary
partitions / logical drives. If you'd have more FAT32 partitions,
you would have to load multiple instances of DRFAT32.SYS and use
the /D:name option to change the name of the subsequently loaded
drivers to something else but the default "FAT32XXX".

In most cases, you don't need to specify any options at all.
However, in case DRFAT32.SYS would bail out with error messages
you may be able to change the interpretation of the geometry
data or the access method or even override some of the sanity
checks by trying various combinations of options like /X, /O,
and /F. In rare cases you may also need /A or /N, and there are
also a few cases, where DRFAT32.SYS will refuse to work with
a given FAT32 partition at all.

However, loading DRFAT32.SYS is only one part of FAT32 support.
DRFAT32.SYS provides a special device driver with a default name
of "FAT32XXX" (see MEM /AP) for other drivers to interface with.
Since it was a requirement for DRFAT32 to run with *any* DOS 3.3+
(or DR DOS 5.0+), there is no provision in the DOS kernel to
handle a FAT32 volume, on which the DRFAT32 solution could build.

Hence, an external filesystem driver is required for FAT32 support.
This is provided by the redirector driver DRFAT32.EXE, which gets
loaded in AUTOEXEC.BAT. By default DRFAT32.EXE tries to communicate
with a driver named name "FAT32XXX", but the name can be changed
using option /D:name (in case, multiple instances of DRFAT32.SYS
were loaded, you can repeat the /D:name option accordingly). Here's
an overview on DRFAT32.EXE command line options (shortened):

|DRFAT32 R1.00 Redirector Extension for FAT32 Partitions
|Copyright (c) 1997,1998 Caldera, Inc. All rights reserved.
|
|DRFAT32 [/Help][/D:driver...][/F:files][/L:letter][/M:buffers][/V]
|
| /D:driver name of FAT32 installable device driver(s) (FAT32XXX)
| /F:value number of file handles to allocate (5..99, <20>)
| /L:drive specifies start drive letter (default: 1st unused)
| /M:value number of buffers to allocate (1..64, <48>)
| /V print out debug information during initialization

As you see, this works very similar to the method used to install
CD-ROM support in DOS.
Of course, there are differences, NWCDEX or MSCDEX provide ISO 9660
and High Sierra file system support, not FAT32. And while the
hardware specific CD-ROM device drivers are also special CD-ROM
specific extensions of character device drivers, the internal
commands understood by DRFAT32.SYS differ from those understood
by CD-ROM drivers like ATAPI.SYS (for details see RBIL).
But keeping in mind how you install CD-ROM drivers may help
you to understand how DRFAT32 works in general.

However, there are several limitations which will render DRFAT32
useless in most situations for permanent use of FAT32 drives on
desktop systems (it just wasn't designed for this purpose):

- DRFAT32.SYS + DRFAT32.EXE consume much memory
(DPMS and EMS support is disabled in the public version)
- You cannot boot off a FAT32 drive
- The order of the drive letters changes
- You cannot use normal FAT32 enabled low-level disk tools to
repair FAT32 volumes mounted with DRFAT32. This is due to
limitations of the redirector interface.

One of the advantage is that DRFAT32 works on virtually any
non-FAT32-enabled DOS system.

For use on desktop systems, I recommend to either *not* use
FAT32 partitions at all (or at least not on the boot drive),
or use a DOS implementation which supports FAT32 natively,
not one based on external drivers.

For example, OEM DR-DOS 7.04/7.05 natively supports FAT32
and LBA without external drivers such as DRFAT32, but
unfortunately this OEM version has a few other shortcomings
which doesn't make it really useable on desktop systems as
well (see http://www.drdos.org) and it doesn't look, as if
they will be fixed in public versions so soon.

If you just want to use DR-DOS with disks larger than 8 Gb,
there are other options of peaceful coexistance with LBA-
enabled OSes without a need for FAT32. One possible solution
is the use of the "secured" extended partition type C5h
instead of the normal 05h type, and combine the C5h type
with a LBA-enabled extended partition type 0Fh. This will
give you up to 8 Gb per disk to be used by DR-DOS without
sacrificing the remainder of the disk for LBA-enabled systems.

Another "unofficial" option (which will only work if you do
*not* have any FAT32 partitions) is to combine the OEM DR-DOS
7.04/7.05 IBMBIO.COM with the DR-DOS 7.03 IBMDOS.COM. This
will give DR-DOS 7.03 LBA capabilities, but you should avoid
FAT32 then, because the DR-DOS 7.03 BDOS (IBMDOS.COM) does
not know how to handle it. See http://www.drdos.org for details.

FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org) meanwhile supports FAT32
as well, and it is actively being worked on. However, FreeDOS
is still in Beta and at the present stage not as mature and
compatible as DR-DOS is in general. However, this may change
in the future, and it shouldn't matter here anyway, as this is
mainly a FreeDOS forum, so I suggest to try out FreeDOS as well.

I think, there are also FAT32 enabled DOS implementations
available from PTS and Datalight, but I haven't tried them.

And, of course, you could upgrade from Windows ME to Windows 98SE
(IMHO the most stable version in the Windows 9x series, if you
apply the upgrades to it). This would give you much more complete
DOS and Windows support than the crippled ME does. Always keep in
mind that higher version numbers do not necessarily mean "better".

Hope it helps,

Matthias

--
<mailto:Matthi...@post.rwth-aachen.de>; <mailto:mp...@drdos.org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org

"Programs are poems for computers."


CyberSword

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Jun 30, 2002, 3:10:55 PM6/30/02
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Ok, it's simple, first check, if the partition you want to read, is visible,
by using fdisk.

if it is not hidden, you can usualy change that with your boot manager,
consult your manual for more information, other wise, feel free to post your
question about it on this NG.

if it is visible, copy the drfat32.sys and dfat32.exe files to the DR-DOS
directory and then add the following lines to the CONFIG.SYS file:

DEVICE=C:\DRDOS\DRFAT32.SYS
LASTDRIVE=Z

then add the following line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file

C:\DRDOS\DRFAT32.EXE

Now restart your computer and see what happends.
if every thing works correct, you will see during the boot sequence, that
one or more drive letters have been assigned to FAT32 drives.

If you have any more questions, just e-mail me.

Boris <bo...@home.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
uhaupfk...@news.supernews.com...

Matthias Paul

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Jul 1, 2002, 4:16:38 PM7/1/02
to
On 2002-06-30, Boris "CyberSword" <cyber...@dolfijn.nl> wrote:

> Ok, it's simple, first check, if the partition you want to read,
> is visible, by using fdisk.
>
> if it is not hidden, you can usualy change that with your boot
> manager, consult your manual for more information, other wise,
> feel free to post your question about it on this NG.
>
> if it is visible, copy the drfat32.sys and dfat32.exe files to
> the DR-DOS directory and then add the following lines to the
> CONFIG.SYS file:

No need to unhide any FAT32 partitions, in case the are hidden
for some purpose. Just specify DRFAT32.SYS /H and it will look
for hidden FAT32 partitions as well. See my other post for
further details.

Greetings,

CyberSword

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Jul 3, 2002, 5:57:02 AM7/3/02
to
Thanks, I didn't know that.

It would have saved me a lot of time configuring my own pc :-(

Matthias Paul <Matthi...@post.rwth-aachen.de> schreef in berichtnieuws
afr2ba$cv1$1...@nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE...

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