[comp.windows.ms] FLOPPY disk problems

akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) (07/26/90)

I've been experiencing a funny problem with Win3, and I'd like to know
if anyone else has had the same problem. If I access a floppy drive
from *any* application, and there is no disk inthe drive, Windows
comes back with a dialog box telling me that there is a problem with
the drive, and asks if it should cancel or retry. Regardless of which
button I press, windows crashes and reboots my computer. I'm having
the problem on two machines, both of which are 

386, AMI Bios, Chips and Technology Chipset, Paradise clone card
running in 800x600x16 mode. I even have the problem from a dos/4dos
window. From the dos/4dos window, I get the impression that the window
tries to go into full screen mode, causing the system to crash. Based
on my experiences, I think that the whole of windows tries to go into
text mode when this happens, with disastrous results.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Thanks for any info

kartik




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Anant Kartik Mithal					akm@cs.uoregon.edu
Department of Computer Science				akm@oregon.BITNET
University of Oregon					

suess@smaug.cs.hope.edu (Alex &) (07/26/90)

From article <1990Jul26.051635.22374@cs.uoregon.edu>, by akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal):
> I've been experiencing a funny problem with Win3, and I'd like to know
> if anyone else has had the same problem. If I access a floppy drive
> from *any* application, and there is no disk inthe drive, Windows
> comes back with a dialog box telling me that there is a problem with
> the drive, and asks if it should cancel or retry. Regardless of which
> button I press, windows crashes and reboots my computer. I'm having
> the problem on two machines, both of which are 
> 
> 386, AMI Bios, Chips and Technology Chipset, Paradise clone card
> running in 800x600x16 mode. I even have the problem from a dos/4dos
> window. From the dos/4dos window, I get the impression that the window
> tries to go into full screen mode, causing the system to crash. Based
> on my experiences, I think that the whole of windows tries to go into
> text mode when this happens, with disastrous results.
> 
> Has anyone experienced anything similar?
> 
I had a similar problem while running DOS applications in 386 Enhanced
Mode.  While running WordPerfect if I did a directory of B:\, I would get
a drive not ready error and it would pop to full screen.  The problem has
disappeared since I turned Lock Application Memory on in the advanced
section of the PIF editor.

This is supposed to keep Windows from writing the active application to
disk in order to speed it up.  Don't ask me why this fixed the problem --
all I know is that it worked.

Hope this helps,

Alex Suess
Hope College
cs.hope.edu

ohst-ag@garnet.berkeley.edu (Timothy Moy) (07/27/90)

In article <1990Jul26.051635.22374@cs.uoregon.edu> akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) writes:
>I've been experiencing a funny problem with Win3, and I'd like to know
>if anyone else has had the same problem. If I access a floppy drive
>from *any* application, and there is no disk inthe drive, Windows
>comes back with a dialog box telling me that there is a problem with
>the drive, and asks if it should cancel or retry. Regardless of which
>button I press, windows crashes and reboots my computer. 
[Various details deleted]

I discovered the same problem last night, right after installing 
ScreenPeace.  My 286 hangs up (but does not re-boot on its own).  I
just talked to a friend who found a much more vicious variation on the
same problem: the absence of a diskette in the floppy drive hung the
system but also munged the root directory of his hard disk.  After
recovering (both his data and his composure), he un-installed ScreenPeace
(he was using only the clock spx), and found that the problem went away.

When you noticed this problem, was ScreenPeace running?

I'm at my office now, and haven't had a chance to try any of this on my
286 yet.  More later.  BTW, I AM running the version of ScreenPeace recently
posted at cica that supposedly fixes the clock.spx error.  Also, I think
ScreenPeace is (otherwise) a wonderful program.

Timothy Moy
ohst-ag@garnet.berkeley.edu

akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) (07/27/90)

In article <1990Jul26.184003.13470@agate.berkeley.edu> ohst-ag@garnet.berkeley.edu (Timothy Moy) writes:
>In article <1990Jul26.051635.22374@cs.uoregon.edu> akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) writes:
>>I've been experiencing a funny problem with Win3, and I'd like to know
>>if anyone else has had the same problem. If I access a floppy drive
>>from *any* application, and there is no disk inthe drive, Windows
>>comes back with a dialog box telling me that there is a problem with
>>the drive, and asks if it should cancel or retry. Regardless of which
>>button I press, windows crashes and reboots my computer. 
>[Various details deleted]
>
>I discovered the same problem last night, right after installing 
>ScreenPeace.  My 286 hangs up (but does not re-boot on its own).  I
>just talked to a friend who found a much more vicious variation on the
>same problem: the absence of a diskette in the floppy drive hung the
>system but also munged the root directory of his hard disk.  After
>recovering (both his data and his composure), he un-installed ScreenPeace
>(he was using only the clock spx), and found that the problem went away.
>
>When you noticed this problem, was ScreenPeace running?
>
>I'm at my office now, and haven't had a chance to try any of this on my
>286 yet.  More later.  BTW, I AM running the version of ScreenPeace recently
>posted at cica that supposedly fixes the clock.spx error.  Also, I think
>ScreenPeace is (otherwise) a wonderful program.

Tim, 

Thanks for your help. I uninstalled screen peace, tried drive B, which
has nothing in it, got the error message, and am still doing fine.
Incidently, I posted that version of screen peace to cicia, along with
scrnpeac.txt explaining why I'd posted it. So the problem persists. If
someone can send a message to the author, I'd love to see it fixed. It
is a really nice program, if it were not for the little problems it has.

kartik

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anant Kartik Mithal					akm@cs.uoregon.edu
Department of Computer Science				akm@oregon.BITNET
University of Oregon