[comp.os.msdos.programmer] MS DOS 5 problems

acook@athena.mit.edu (Andrew R Cook) (06/25/91)

I just set up MS DOS 5 on my box and am having some problems getting DOS
to load high.  I have a 286 w/ 4MB RAM, 80MB of hard disk.  What I did was
initially re-low-level formatted the drive, then used DOS 5 fdisk to set
up partitions, then formatted.  (I used to be using DOS 3.3 and some
ancient disk partitioning software, which I wanted to get rid of, for it
used up RAM, and was no longer really necessary).  So my hard disk is totally
clean.  In the config.sys file, I put the commands :
	device = himem.sys
	dos=high
	files=20
	buffers=40
and that's it.  When  the computer boots up, Himem returns a message saying
"High Memory Area Available", but when it attempts to load dos high, I get
an error message saying "HMA not available, loading dos low".  What gives
here ?  Any ideas?  Or should I just bite the bullet and call MS tech 
support and wait on the phone for 30minutes to an hour for a technician? :-)

Thanks

Andy Cook
acook@athena.mit.edu

rider@geloser.CAM.ORG (Serge Ayotte) (06/27/91)

acook@athena.mit.edu (Andrew R Cook) writes:
[part deleted]
> clean.  In the config.sys file, I put the commands :
> 	device = himem.sys
> 	dos=high
> 	files=20
> 	buffers=40
> and that's it.  When  the computer boots up, Himem returns a message saying
> "High Memory Area Available", but when it attempts to load dos high, I get
> an error message saying "HMA not available, loading dos low".  What gives
> here ?  Any ideas?  Or should I just bite the bullet and call MS tech 
> support and wait on the phone for 30minutes to an hour for a technician? :-)
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Andy Cook
> acook@athena.mit.edu

Andy, this is coming from someone that's not TOTALLY in the know, but I
have a 286 too and your config.sys is close to mine.
NOw for the $1000 question...
What type of MEMORY your 4 megs are, 'cause himem works ONLY with
eXTended memory. And are you sure that the driver IS in your root (or
simply but the path, i.e. device=c:\dos\himem.sys).

That's the only thing that comes to my mind after 2 weeks of playing
with DOS 5 and reading the post on CI$ in their section...

Hope this help, and if you wan to comment to me, please do so in EMAIL
since I'll be loosing my phone 'cause of moving for a week and my feeder
will not let news accumulate for a week... MAil is OK, but then you can
always send it to my CI$ box and I'll get it as soon as I'm back
online...

TCTTYL!


See You around the 'Net!!

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