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Message-Id: <200405301706.i4UH6wSF027678@delorie.com>
From: "Michal H. Tyc" <mht AT bttr-software DOT de>
Organization: BTTR Software
Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 19:05:27 +0200
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To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: DOS that can read NTFS/XP paritions?
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

On Sun, 30 May 2004 00:24:05 -0700, shadow AT shadowgard DOT com wrote:

> Even finding them would help. :-)

> And if it ain't *too* expensive, buying it won't be a big problem if
> it'll work.

Hmmm... the R/W version seems to be only available as a part of larger
package, but you can try to negotiate ;-) Visit www.sysinternals.com
for details.

> The definition files now each require their own floppies. Basically,
> the first one loaded after the program won't fit on a 1.44 along with
> the program (much less an OS). And the others are too big to fit on a
> floppy with the others.

> In the order you have to feed the floppies in...

> 5-23-2004  23:16       1,117,130  SIGN.DEF
> 5-23-2004  23:16       1,279,405  SIGN2.DEF
> 5-24-2004  15:40         498,021  MACRO.DEF

> So I have a boot floppy, the F-prot program floppy, and the three
> definition floppies. All write protected except when I update them at
> home. :-)

Hint: make two archives (e.g., ZIP; even if other compressors can give
somewhat better ratio, PKUNZJR is probably the smallest decompressor):
one with SIGN2.DEF, the other with other definition files and F-PROT
itself). Set up a RAM disk in your CONFIG.SYS -- you can safely assume
that the machine has enough RAM, if it is able to run WinNT. Then
uncompress everything onto the RAM disk in AUTOEXEC.BAT, taking care
about disk changes. Depending on DOS version (size of kernel files and
command processor) used and other tools (CHDSK/SCANDISK etc.) you need
to include in your set, you certainly can fit everything on three or
even two floppies. All the above should save some time at boot, as
decompression is almost instantaneous on the modern machines, while
floppies are as slow as they always were.

You could also try compressing the floppies with Stacker (probably not
as efficient as ZIP archives) or compressing your RAM disk and storing
a zipped Stacker volume file (STACVOL.DSK) as a multi-volume archive
on your floppy set. Success not guaranteed, but certainly an interesting
experiment ;-)

Michal