🚀 go-pugleaf

jwbirdsa@amc-gw.amc.com (James Birdsall) writes:

>>If you have one hard disk
>>with partitions C, D, and E on it, then add a second hard disk with 2
>>partitions on it, the partitions on the second disk become D and F,
>>and the existing ones on the first disk become C, E, G: it alternates
>>disks!

>   What version of DOS are you using? I have exactly this setup (first
>drive has 3 partitions and second has 2) and this does NOT happen. The
>first drive has letters C, E, and F; the second drive is D and G. This is
>with PC-DOS 3.3.

You're right: (I remembered/wrote it slightly wrong) it goes to the 2nd disk
for D then stays with the first disk.  The effect is the same tho, every
drive except c: gets relettered.

>   The letters are assigned at boot time as software drivers are loaded
>(yes, even normal drives have device drivers which appear in the device
>driver table). Messing with the CMOS or fdisk isn't going to help. Changing
>the boot sequence would, but that's not easy to do for anybody but
>Microsoft and they aren't...

>-- 
>James W. Birdsall   WORK: jwbirdsa@amc.com   {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!jwbirdsa
>HOME: {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!picarefy!jwbirdsa OTHER: 71261.1731@compuserve.com
>========== "Think of an animal that's small and fuzzy." "Mold." -- RM =========
>=========== "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin ===========

The solution probably isn't to muck around with the boot sequence, but
to create a simple aliasing system.  For example, a table on the boot disk
with one line for each disk with a "logical=physical" setup would let you
fix all your problems by editing that one file, which might look like this,
if semi-colons begin comments:

; 2 floppies, 2 partitions on 1st hard disk, 1 on 2nd hard disk, & ram disk:
a=a	; 1st floppy on A: will still be referred to as A: always
f=a	; Or you can also refer to the 1st floppy as F:
; Added 2 below when 2nd hard disk was added, so D: remained D:
d=e	; 2nd partition on 1st hard disk referred to as D:
e=d	; 1st partition on 2nd hard disk referred to as E:
r=f	; RAM disk F: referred to as R: so floppy can use F:


If you want an analogy, UNIX doesn't make you refer to files by their
physical locations (/dev/dsk/1s3) but by names you select for the
partitions (/usr) instead.  DOS can do the same thing.
-- 
Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
1800 Woodfield Drive, Savoy, IL  61874     (217) 352-1165
uunet!gistdev!flint or flint@gistdev.gist.com