[comp.sys.zenith] Two Drives under Zenith 3.3+

wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) (05/25/90)

Here's something that I find interesting.  Until recently, I had just (just,
he sez...) an 80M full-height in my Zenith Z-248.  Today I got my hands on
a Seagate ST251-1 for a very low price, because it would stick every once
in a while.  (Since I don't turn it off much, what do I care?  But, I ramble.)

When I got all done plugging in the hardware, I found out the following 
happened with the auto-partitioning under Zenith's 3.3+:

Partition       Physical Drive
---------       --------------
   C:                 0
   D:                 1
   E:                 0
   F:                 0
   G:                 1

Strange, I woulda thought all of physical drive 0, then all of 1, but no 
go...  (I really wanted drive 1 to be F: & G:, in case I decided to turn
that drive into a *NIX drive instead.)

Any comments?

Pete

-- 
Peter L. Wargo - wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu, amoung others...
"I don't believe it - I just spent 4 years at an expensive university-
 and I end up as a top-40 DJ..."

cs002@unocss.unomaha.edu (cs002) (05/26/90)

In article <1990May25.090543.22345@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes:
> 
> Here's something that I find interesting.  Until recently, I had just (just,
> he sez...) an 80M full-height in my Zenith Z-248.  Today I got my hands on
> a Seagate ST251-1 ...
> When I got all done plugging in the hardware, I found out the following 
> happened with the auto-partitioning under Zenith's 3.3+:
> Partition       Physical Drive
>    C:                 0
>    D:                 1
>    E:                 0
>    F:                 0
>    G:                 1
> Strange, I woulda thought all of physical drive 0, then all of 1, but no 
> go...

Yes, indeed, that's exactly what happens (as you might guess, exactly the
same thing happened to me). I have a Zenith 386 box which came with a 72M
drive and as I was using both DOS and MINIX, and had both filesystems in
different partitions, I needed more space, so I added a 80M drive as drive
1. Well let me tell you I was surprised when my MINIX filesystems showed up
in strange places! I tried very hard to make things look like what I wanted
(essentially what you wnated, too - C: D: and E: on drive 0 then F: and G:
on drive 1), but nothing worked. Good old ASGNPART doesn't exist in 3.3+,
so there's nothing to be done but live with it.

It surely would have been nice for Zenith (or Microsoft?) to include some
very visible mention of this behavior in the documentation ...

Stan Wileman
Math/CS Dept., U. of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68106

tomf@cms2.UUCP (Tom Fortner) (06/01/90)

In article <2975@unocss.unomaha.edu> cs002@unocss.unomaha.edu (cs002) writes:
>In article <1990May25.090543.22345@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes:
>>    C:                 0
>>    D:                 1
>>    E:                 0
>>    F:                 0
>>    G:                 1
>> Strange, I woulda thought all of physical drive 0, then all of 1, but no 
This is not unique to Zenith. We have a generic clone (I think it has a 
Charisma motherboard) with a Micropolis and a Microscience drive. Each is
MFM formatted to their capacity, the Micropolis with 3 logical drives, the
Microscience with 2. The same pattern of drive assignments occurred. 
This seems to be a characteristic of Dos's drive assignment routine.
Tom

-- 
    Tom Fortner                        ** The greatest gift a man can offer 
    Christian Medical & Dental Society ** his Maker is a repentant committed 
    UUCP: cms2!tomf                    ** life and a disciplined, diligent 
    INTERNET: tomf@cms2.lonestar.org   ** mind.

georgf@polari.UUCP (George Forsman) (06/03/90)

In article <208@cms2.UUCP> tomf@cms2.UUCP (Tom Fortner) writes:
>In article <2975@unocss.unomaha.edu> cs002@unocss.unomaha.edu (cs002) writes:
>>In article <1990May25.090543.22345@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes:
>>>    C:                 0
>>>    D:                 1
>>>    E:                 0
>>>    F:                 0
>>>    G:                 1
>>> Strange, I woulda thought all of physical drive 0, then all of 1, but no 
>This is not unique to Zenith. We have a generic clone (I think it has a 
>Charisma motherboard) with a Micropolis and a Microscience drive. Each is
>MFM formatted to their capacity, the Micropolis with 3 logical drives, the
>Microscience with 2. The same pattern of drive assignments occurred. 
>This seems to be a characteristic of Dos's drive assignment routine.
>Tom

You are correct. It is in the drive assignment routine, but it is really 
quite simple to change. (that is, if you don't mind re-partitioning)  DOS
first assigns drive letters to Primary partitions on all drives, then does
the logical drives in the Extended DOS partitions.  If you re-partition your
drive 0 to have a Primary and Extended partition (it is probably already this
way), and then change you drive 1 to have one Extended partition that
encompasses the entire drive (then broken into logical drives), DOS will 
assign drive letters in a more "natural" order.
  My system has 2 40meg drives, split 20/20 20/20, my C: & D: are on 0 and E:
& F: are on 1, by using the above method.

>    Tom Fortner 





-- 
George Forsman  |  georgf@polari.uucp | "I know that you think you understand
...!uw-beaver!sumax!polari!georgf     | what you thought I said, but I am not
--------------------------------------| sure you realize that what you heard
Disclaimer: Ask me! I'll deny it!     | is not what I meant."