karthur@codas.att.com (Kurt_R_Arthur) (01/27/88)
In article <31500002@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu> hychen@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu writes: > > My computer is getting weird now. When I boot the computer, I > got message saying "Bad or missing TM4A.SYS", but all the > softwares seem to still run properly. Can anyone explain what > TM4A.SYS is and what it is supposed to do? > Thanks in advance. > I don't know what TM4A.SYS does, but it is a device driver listed in your config.sys file. This (text) file is read by your PC at boot-up to determine the confuration of your machine. You receive the "bad or missing" message because your computer either cannot find the file or some sort of invalid operand was appended to the device=TM4A.SYS line, or the device=TM4A.SYS line expects an operand but is not given one. To fix this, search on your boot disk for a file called "TM4A.SYS". Write down the sub-directory the file is found in . Then edit your config.sys file and make sure the device= line has the correct full path name. The line will look like: device=c:\driver\tm4a.sys if the file is found in the c:\driver subdirectory. Then reboot your machine. If no error message comes back, you're ok. If an error message comes up, look around for some documentation to the driver (maybe in the same subdirectory, or a manual to a peripheral, or whatever). If you can find the documentation, just follow that (although some documentation is almost impossible to follow :-)). If you've got the config.sys file reflecting the right subdirectory, but it still gives error messages and no documentation is available, make a new boot disk (a copy of whatever you use), then (using the copy disk) delete the device=TM4A.SYS line from your config.sys and reboot (and see what doesn't work). At least this way you'll be able to narrow down where to search for. If you can't find the TM4A.SYS file on your disks, and/or nothing seems to be broken (or not working the way you'd expect), then assume (which can be dangerous) that the device driver when to a peripheral or package you don't need and delete the line from config.sys. This will eliminate the annoying message. :w Good Luck, Kurt Arthur Software Services of Florida, Inc.
hirayama@suvax1.UUCP (Pat Hirayama) (01/29/88)
in article <31500002@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu>, hychen@uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu says: > Nf-ID: #N:uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu:31500002:000:280 > Nf-From: uicsl.csl.uiuc.edu!hychen Jan 24 21:17:00 1988 > > My computer is getting weird now. When I boot the computer, I > got message saying "Bad or missing TM4A.SYS", but all the > softwares seem to still run properly. Can anyone explain what > TM4A.SYS is and what it is supposed to do? > Thanks in advance. > When you receive the message "Bad or missing SOMEDEVICE", it generally means that you've got some line in your config.sys which says device=SOMEDEVICE. It sounds like you've either deleted TM4A.SYS, or the sector on which it resides on your disk (hard or floppy) is bad. I don't know what TM4A.SYS is, but if you don't know need it, just delete that line from your config.sys