🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings!

I'm trying to find out how a MS-DOS workstation knows what type of
diskette drives are installed WITHOUT checking the physical
characteristics of a diskette mounted in the drive.  I plan on running
a program at network login to set environment variables according the
type of disk drives installed, but I can't plan on the user (a
student) to have a disk in each drive (or any disks at all).

I know that AT's and better save this information in CMOS, but have no
idea where and how that information is stored.  Also, this doesn't
help me with the still large installed base of PC/XT class systems
still in use.

So, how does DOS know what floppy drives are installed?  Format seems
to find this info pretty easily, even when a non-standard drive
requiring a device driver is used.  How can I read and interpret this
info?

Thanks.

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Mark Medici ** Systems Programmer III * Rutgers University Computing Services
medici@elbereth.rutgers.edu * medici@cancer.BITNET * !rutgers!elbereth!medici
My opinions are not necessarily my employers'. *Reality is context-sensitive.