[comp.sys.zenith] "Zenith-386 Windows/386-SMARTDrive-PageMaker Problem"

icsrb@caesar.cs.montana.edu (Ray Babcock) (01/20/90)

I have a Zenith 386/25 with 3 Mb of memory, 70 Mb ESDI disk and 2 floppies.
SETUP is 640Kb base, 2432Kb extended, 0Kb expanded.
I have installed Microsoft Windows/386.  If I install SMARTDrive.sys
in CONFIG.SYS, re-boot, and do a memory.exe (from PageMaker package)
I get 526K available base memory.  If I remove the SMARTDrive.sys
command from config.sys, re-boot, and check memory, I show 584K
available base memory.  I am trying to run Aldus Pagemaker, and I show
a substantial reduction in performance when I install! SMARTDrive
due to the reduction in base memory available.

Question:  Does anyone know why SMARTDrive is eating into my base memory?

I have tried EMM.sys and putting a /a option on the SMARTDrive command
line, but I still get the base memory reduction.  According to the manuals,
SMARTDrive should take its memory from extended memory.
I have read all the READ.ME files mentioned in all the guides.

ALSO, when I examine the "ABOUT MS-DOS" entry in the Windows/386 MS-DOS window,
it makes no mention of SMARTDrive being there.  Norton Utilities SI
reports a significant improvement in disk I/O factor when using SMARTDrive
but Pagemaker gets much slower!

Anyone who can give me some help can email me a response and I will
summarize anything useful to the net.  Or maybe, I should just wait
until version 3.0 of windows386 comes out.

Ray S. Babcock, adjunct assistant professor, Montana State University,
Bozeman, MT  59717  (406) 994-4780 email: icsrb@caesar.cs.montana.edu