v105mahs@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Peter P Donohue) (01/12/91)
This question isn't about Windows per se, but about a few of the drivers that came with MS Windows 3.0. The problem I am having is with SMARTDRV (which came with Windows) and PKZIP (the archive program by Phil Katz). I was going through trying to improve the performance of my machine by installing the disk cache program that came with Windows. I installed it as: DEVICE=C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.SYS 2048 512 When I add that line to my CONFIG.SYS and leave everything else the same, it causes PKZIP to freeze. Everything else seems to run fine, even PKUNZIP. I have tried using a fresh copy of PKZIP, but to no avail. I have also tried allocating smaller cache sizes for SMARTDRV. My machine is a 386 with 4 meg of memory (high memory is extended, not EMS). The only drivers and TSRs that I install are DMDRVR.BIN (the driver that comes with Segate disk controllers), HIMEM.SYS (comes with Windows), and my mouse driver. Any ideas? I would really like to be able to use a disk cache program. Please reply by mail. I will post a summary if people desire it. Thanks in advance for any info. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter P. Donohue - University at Buffalo, Graduate School of Management bitnet: V105MAHS@UBVMS . "Education is a journey internet: V105MAHS@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU . not a destination..."
gram@uctcs.uucp (Graham Wheeler) (01/17/91)
I remember a time when I used PKZIP on a machine running PC-Cache (part of PC Tools I think). The ZIP files created were all corrupt as well. It must have something to do with how PKZIP accesses the disk. Perhaps Phil Katz (if he's on the net) can shed some light. These days I use LHARC... although PK software is great, LHARC has the advantage of being in the public domain, including source, and thus usable across operating systems. Whether it suffers from the same problem I don't know, but I doubt it. Graham. Graham Wheeler | "Don't bother me, I'm reading a `Crisis'!" Data Network Architectures Lab| Internet: <gram@uctcs.uct.ac.za> Dept. of Computer Science | Fidonet: <gram.uctcs@f4.n494.z5.fidonet.org> University of Cape Town | BANG: <...uunet!ddsw1!olsa99!uctcs!gram>
ghenzie@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Gregory M. Henzie) (02/06/91)
I have had the same experience that you seem to be having. I have a 386 with 2 hard drives. The C: drive works perfectly, but every time I try to create a zip on d: I get a sector not found error. I also traced it back to smart- drive. The error only appears when Windows and smartdrive are loaded. Either one of them alone does not cause any problem. I called Microsoft and they were useless. They suggested putting my swapfile on d: (which didn't help) and they also suggested putting the line "virtualhdirq=off" in the 386enh section of my system.ini file. This also didn't help. Fortunately, I have 8 megs and simply changed to another 3rd party cache which is actually faster than smartdrive, but doesn't use memory cooperatively. According to Micro- soft, this problem should not exist unless you have a drive that has more than 1024 cylinders and you are using partitioning software other than fdisk. (Neither of these applies to me.) Call Microsoft and tell them about this!!! Sorry about the random characters here ---> hnpesODt I am using a friend's Mac and the terminal emulation won't let me delete characters for some reason... these were my typos that I just pushed along. Good luck. If you figure out the solution, please let me know.