🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <chchoi.910502185629@banana.eng.auburn.edu> chchoi@eng.auburn.edu (Cheong Hyeon Choi) writes:
>However, I didn't understand why non-standard block size occurs in my
>h/d. Because I followed the instruction which the Disk Manager aksed me when
>I installed my two hard disks. What make me confused is that
>if Disk Manger is used in a computer, smartdrv.sys does not work at all.
>
> If a pc has 100mb h/d and uses DOS, as I know, this h/d should be partitioned
>into at least 4 logical partitions. That means, Disk Manager should be used
>for such a pc system. In this case, doesn't smartdrv.sys work at all?
>If true, it is very ridiculous.
>
> I am very confused about this. Could anybody give me a clue for this.

I thought I understood how smartdrive.sys worked before I read your post.
But, now I seem to be a little confused too. Lets start from scratch.

Smartdrive.sys is a very elegant and efficent disk caching program. 
Its main feature is that it can write directly to the bios for 
cache write delays instead of dealing with DOS. Although this is
very neat, it is also very difficult to do. The problem is that 
the microsoft team didn't have time to write bios code for more than 
one partitioning software. And, since fdisk is the program that comes
with Dos, it got first dibbs. 

So, what happends when you use smartdrive with disk manager? It trashes
you drive by writing back data that doesnt correspond to the File
Allocation Table or the low level format. 

Now, there is no reason that a 120mb hard disk has to be partitioned into
several logical disk drives. Just use fdisk to do the low level format
and assign all of the clusters to one extended dos partition supported
by DOS 3.3 and 4.01. By the way, NEVER temporarily swith these two DOS's
because, although they both have extended DOS partitions, the each
partition differently and that could also trash your drive.

So, in short, repartition your hard disk using dos 4.01 (or 3.3 but
I like 4.01 better) and renstall windows. That should do the trick.
BTW, why are you trying to run windows on an XT andyway?

I am sure this is not entirely accurate because I didn't pay that 
much attention to the Microsoft memo on the subject because the 
bottom line was just "DON'T USE DISK MANAGER!".

Josh Guttman
I.T. & Associates

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