Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.0.20000916164615.00a8b580@mail.highfiber.com> X-Sender: raster AT mail DOT highfiber DOT com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 17:01:27 -0600 To: opendos AT delorie DOT com From: Charles Dye Subject: Re: DRDOS FDISK In-Reply-To: <006301c01f76$5bc82820$d18a1004@dbcooper> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: opendos AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk At 06:29 PM 9/15/00 -0600, "Pat" wrote: >I would like to know hat problem people are having with DRDOS 7.03 FDiSk, >7.02 for that matter? I have been using it for several eyars now and have >had no problems, in fact just the opposite. You haven't been using it to set up small hard drives, then. DR-DOS can create partitions that are big-time incompatible with MS-DOS, possibly resulting in trashed volumes if such drives are accessed by The Evil Empire DOS. I don't recall the size limit -- 127 megs, perhaps? -- but I'm pretty sure I first saw the problem on a Maxtor 7120. There are two bugs. Either one alone is pretty trivial, but both together are possibly disastrous. First, DR-DOS FDISK chooses cluster sizes poorly on very small drives. This by itself only creates excessive cluster overhang. Second, it writes a strange OEM ID string. Something like "DRDOS 7" if memory serves. This ID string is probably purely cosmetic for DR-DOS, but MS-DOS uses it to decide whether or not to "trust" the values in the BIOS parameter block which specify (for example) the cluster size... and, indirectly, the start of the root directory.... Reading a small drive set up this way under MS-DOS is amusing and harmless. Writing to a drive set up this way under MS-DOS will probably trash disk structures and data. I do not recommend using the newer (Caldera) versions of FDISK. The one that shipped with Novell DOS 7 is probably okay. I have explained the problem to Caldera. They understand it and have agreed that it could cause data loss. No fixed version has been forthcoming. If you want a free FDISK, I'd recommend Brian Reifsnyder's (sp?) FreeDOS FDISK. He is actively developing it, and is interested in bug reports. raster AT highfiber DOT com