From: shadow{at}shadowgard.com

On 14 Jun 2004 at 20:44, Paul O. BARTLETT wrote:

> > > On the bootable FAT partition I installed DR-DOS 7.03.  This boots
> > > as C:, and the "common" partition is visible as D:
to both DR-DOS
> > > and Win98.  When I boot into DR-DOS the first message that comes
> > > up is "Hard disk 2 configuration error," but I
presume this is an
> > > artefact of Win98 mucking around with things.  The D: partition
> > > seems to be fully usable from DR-DOS.
> >
> > This message does not come from DR-DOS itself. It comes either from
> > your boot manager (if it appears before "Starting Caldera
> > DR-DOS...") or from one of the device drivers.
> 
>     This message appears after "Starting Caldera DR-DOS..." and before
> the first message from EMM386.EXE, which is the first thing that loads
> in CONFIG.SYS.

It may be the first thing *listed* in config.sys. But that doesn't 
mean it's the first thing *loaded*.

Try doing the "step by step confirmation" at boot (I can't remember 
if it's f5 or f8). You may be surprised at the order statements in 
config.sys get processed. 

> The common partition gets IMAGEd by the Norton
> Utilities for Windows running when I have booted into Win98.  From
> DR-DOS I cannot delete (even after resetting the file attributes)
> IMAGE.DAT and IMAGE.IDX in the root of the D: partition, so I presume
> that Win does some kind of funny stuff that is disliked by something
> on the DR-DOS side of the fence.

If you can't delete them, that means that *something* is using them 
or protecting them. If you can boot without running config.sys & 
autoexec.bat, try deleting them then.

>     The lockups occur entirely randomly, as nearly as I can tell.  I
> can be doing just about anything, and when I get back to the command
> prompt, the system locks up tight.  I cannot detect any pattern
> whatsoever.

Could be bad RAM. 

More likely is bad drivers.
 
>     That may well be the case.  I haven't explored the capabilities of
> DR-DOS's COMMAND.COM to its fullest extent.  My main interest in using
> an old NDOS was screen color control.  (I detest white letters on a
> black screen, and I like a VGA overscan border around the screen.)
> However, someone who uses DOS exclusively in a business context has
> recommended ANSIPLUS for various capabilities.  Does anyone else have
> any experience with this?

NDOS is an *old* version of 4dos. Old enough that there may be 
problems with some newer software & hardware.

http://www.jpsoft.com will let you grab an evaluation version of 
4dos. It'll run with all features for a few weeks. 

Try it and see if the problem goes away.
 
>     I have taken COUNTRY.SYS more or less permanently out of the
> picture.  I live in the USA, so I suppose the defaults are adequate.
> 
>     HOWEVER, this afternoon, I took GUEST.EXE, the Iomega ZIPdrive
> driver, out of AUTOEXEC.BAT, and for the length of time I was working
> I had no lockups.  Then I started GUEST.EXE (it can load from the
> command line or AUTOEXEC.BAT), and after some time I had another
> lockup.  That might tend to point to that driver, although further
> work will be needed to try to point to that conclusively.  I must
> confess to a boo-boo.  I started including that driver before I had
> read all the documentation that came with it.  I know, I know, RTFM,
> and all that. :-/ So as I have time available and feel well enough, I
> will continue working on it.

Actually, you can do without guest.exe. You need to load the right 
combo of the drivers it calls, with the right options. As a bonus, 
it'll use less memory.
 
It's been a *long* time, so I don't recall the steps I had to go thru 
to get my old Zip drive working without Guest. But it was worth it. 
You see, I had to run it on a system with no HD. Getting all the 
drivers onto a floppy wasn't easy. :-)
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com




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