[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Hard Drive not being found.

JJLUCSY@MTUS5.BITNET (11/30/90)

Currently I have MSDOS 4.01 installed with a RLL HD controller on a 386sx. I
have two HDs connected; a st277r(65Mb) and a st157r(49Mb). the 65Mb is C: the
other is D:. When I boot, Dos only recognizes C: unless I load dmdrvr.sys.
Why? Is there any way to get around this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Joel Lucsy

leonard@qiclab.uucp (Leonard Erickson) (12/02/90)

JJLUCSY@MTUS5.BITNET writes:

>Currently I have MSDOS 4.01 installed with a RLL HD controller on a 386sx. I
>have two HDs connected; a st277r(65Mb) and a st157r(49Mb). the 65Mb is C: the
>other is D:. When I boot, Dos only recognizes C: unless I load dmdrvr.sys.
>Why? Is there any way to get around this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

You've got drive D: partitioned in a nonstandard manner. Backup everything
on that drive. Use Disk Manager (i assume that's where the dmdrvr.sys comes
from) to remove the partition. Then use FDISK (on your DOS disks) to set up 
a new partition on that drive. Then do a FORMAT D:, and restore the files.

With Compaq DOS 3.31 or any version of DOS 4.xx you should *always* use DOS
to partition the drives. (Unless you have some obscene drive that is more
than 512 Meg)

-- 
Leonard Erickson			leonard@qiclab.uucp
personal:	CIS: [70465,203]	70465.203@compuserve.com
business:	CIS: [76376,1107]	76376.1107@compuserve.com

amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) (12/05/90)

In article <1990Dec2.061214.15821@qiclab.uucp> leonard@qiclab.uucp
>JJLUCSY@MTUS5.BITNET writes:
>>Currently I have MSDOS 4.01...have two HDs connected;... is C: the
>>other is D:. When I boot, Dos only recognizes C: unless I load dmdrvr.sys.
>
>You've got drive D: partitioned in a nonstandard manner.
>Then use FDISK (on your DOS disks) to set up 
>a new partition on that drive. Then do a FORMAT D:
>
>With Compaq DOS 3.31 or any version of DOS 4.xx you should *always* use DOS
>to partition the drives. (Unless you have some obscene drive that is more
>than 512 Meg)
 
   Don't be crazy.  dmdrvr.bin is the device driver for disk manager as you
mentioned.  It works just fine, and removing it is more trouble than it's 
worth.  The device driver provides SOME protection from SOME hard disk virus
software, like stone.  It also in any instances (probably not here) provides
higher disk I/O rates that w/o it.
   I too recommend using disk even with dos 3.3, but usually use disk manager
to prepare the disk (LLF) before using fdisk and format.  And before the
(recent) improvements to fdisk & format, used it (disk manager) exclusively.
The ONLY problem I had was with OLD versions of diagnostics software like
norton or with ill behaved installed TSR's (which I quickly dumped, as they
were causing other problems that I hadn't pinned down anyway...).
  
al

-- 
Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University
 InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu  amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
 Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE