Message-Id: <200009181541.LAA28620@xellos.bignet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
From: "Mark at Cross+Road's" <mark1 AT mich DOT com>
CC: <raster AT highfiber DOT com>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 11:41:21 +0400
X-Mailer: Net-Tamer 1.12.0
Subject: Re: DRDOS FDISK
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com


Does this mean then that if you had a drive with Drdos #703 operating and
used a bootmanger to install msdos 6.22 the partitions set-up by Drdos could
likely become trashed when booting to msdos and read/write on those same
shared drives?
    Wanting to know because I am considering adding msdos 6.22 to my
bootmanager  menue but don't want to do so if this would be likely when
working on the same drives.
     Thanks,
    Mark



On 2000-09-16 opendos AT delorie DOT com said:
   >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