Questions and Answers on MFM drives from the Ontrack BBS - 10/24/90 
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QUESTION: 
 
I am having difficulty adding a 2nd hard drive to my IBM-AT.  Drive No.  
1 is a Seagate ST4096.  Drive No. 2 is the original IBM type 20 30mg.  I 
have the SuperProms Bios for AT Version 2.0 installed.  The Disk Manager 
software will not recognize the correct type for drive No. 2.  This also 
is the case for the SuperProms software.  The CMOS configuration via the 
AT Setup program is for NO drives installed. Any suggestions would be 
appreciated.   
 
ANSWER: 
 
Is the controller in the machine the original IBM AT controller 
marked with a copyright of 1983?  If so, this controller will not 
support a drive with more than 8 heads.  This could be your problem.  If 
it isn't, then I would suggest you give us a call on the tech support 
line at (612)937-2121 and we would stand a better chance of helping you. 
(We would need more info regarding your system, and the best way to do 
that is by voice.) 
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QUESTION: 
 
Tried to run on 2 different drives, auto and manual, using /e,network 
DM, verified cylinders, heads, sectors. At last cylinder(1022 & 730), 
the program aborted "error on every head". Drive 1 is 44mg, 731 cyl,7 
heads, 17 sectors. Drive 2 is Micropolis, 71mg, 1023 cyl,8 heads,17 
sectors(model 1335). Drives are installed in IBM P/S2 model 60, 2.5mg 
memory.Drive work perfectly under DOS with DM.What to we do to make it 
work for Novell?  Thank you.   
 
ANSWER: 
 
In order to do an instalation on a PS/2, you need the PS/2 
version of DMN.  If you have a version of DMN prior to version 3.10, you 
will have to upgrade to version 3.10 to make this work.  
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QUESTION: 
 
I'M TRYING TO LOW FORMAT AN ST251-1 WITH WDC WX1 OR WDC WDXT-GEN2 
ALL I HAVE IS A HARD DISK LED ON AND OFF AND MY PC COMPATIBLE XT 
MACHINE IS DEAD. 
CAN ANY ONE TELL ME HOW THE JUMPERS ON ANY ONE OF THIS CONTOLLERS ARE 
SET FOR 40MB, THE MANUALS FOR BOTH CARS SETS FOR 10 & 20MB NOTHING ELSE 
I'LL VERIFY CABLES AND DISK JUMPERS, ARE OK. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Have you tried to dynamically configure these drives by using 
debug and "g=c800:5"?  Both cards are dynamically configurable and you 
should be able to do that without changes on the card. 
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QUESTION: 
 
 Help.. I am looking for some CACHE software to work in conjunction with 
Diskmanager 4.x.  I have the cache package that comes with PCTOOLS, but 
it refuses to cache any drive past the initial C unit.. 
  
 If you can recommend another package that works on a drive with Disk 
Manager partitions greater than 32 Meg in size on a disk with greater 
than 1024 cylinders, I'd appreciate it. 
  
ANSWER: 
 
In general, Ontrack does not recommend that you use any cache 
software along side DM.  Most cache software has a nasty habit of 
making some rather primitive assumptions about the disk environment.   
(Like no disk has > 512 bytes per sector, or > 1024 cyls, or > 32M 
partitions).  They make these assumptions and blindly proceed to trash 
the drive.  Super PC Kwik seems to be one exception.  Although we 
can't guarantee it, (it's not our product), the makers of PC Kwik have 
contacted us and acquired the information on how to become aware of the 
disk environment.  Their newest version seems to work OK. 

NOTE:

Since the time this message was written, PCTools v6.0 was released 
which does support drives with greater than 1024 cylinders.
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QUESTION: 
 
I have bought a Western Digital controller WD 06 VMM2 from a mail- 
order house -- no manual, no address even for WD. I have a Seagate 
4096 80 MB hard disk that I want to install. Your HELP Document has 
several types of WD controller commmented on, but not this one. What 
should the interleaf number be? What other special advice do you have? 
Or is your advice to another model applicable? If so, which? 
   Many thanks. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
The WD1006V-MM2 controller is capable of a 1:1 interleave.  Other 
than that there is no special considerations.  You should run DM with 
the /I parameter (DM/I at the command line).  This will allow you to 
select a 1:1 interleave in automatic mode. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I am trying to find out what the dmdrver.bin device driver does on my 
system, can I run without it, is it compatable with ansi.sys, and what 
the difference is between logical and non logical or dos and non dos 
partition.  I have been trying the technical support number for days and 
keep getting a busy signal.  I will try back and see if perhaps I can 
get an answer here.  Thank you. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
DMDRVR.BIN is the Disk Manager device driver that mounts your 
Write/Read partitions at boot time and makes them accessible as a 
logical drive thru DOS.  A Write/Read partition is a Disk Manager 
partition that differs from DOS partitions in that it can be over 32M in 
size under DOS 3.x and can reside in the nonstandard portion of your 
drive.  The nonstandard portion of your drive is that portion that is 
greater than what your ROM BIOS drive type table describes. For example: 
If you have a ST251 40M drive and don't have a CMOS drive type of 820 
cylinders by 6 heads, your closest drive type will probably be 615 cyls 
by 6 heads.  In this example, the area of the drive beyond 615 cylinders 
will only be accessible thru a Disk Manager Write/Read partition, as DOS 
only knows about what it sees the drive type set to.  So you have about 
a 30M chunk of the drive that DOS can see all by itself (615 cyls), and 
a 10M portion that only Disk Manager can see (from cyl 615 to cyl 820).  
If you remove your DMDRVR.BIN from your CONFIG.SYS file, you will no 
longer be able to access this portion of your drive.  If the drive you 
have is a stndard drive to your system, (you have a CMOS drive type that 
exactly describes it), then you can partition the drive thru DOS alone 
and you don't need to use a Write/Read partition if you don't want to.  
In this case you wouldn't need to have DMDRVR.BIN in your CONFIG.SYS 
file.  As far as ANSI.SYS goes, there are no conflicts between it and 
DMDRVR.BIN.   
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QUESTION: 
 
I had a 251-1 installed as C: and then bought a 4096 (80 meg full height 
drive).  The Disk Manager initialized the 4096 fine, and it works like a 
champ.  I removed the terminating resistor from the 251-1 and installed 
it as type 44 in the D: position.  (I have an AT clone.)  The DM 
initialization process works fine until the very last step when it 
begins to initialize the drive.  Then it gets NO RECORD FOUND each time 
it tries to initialize a sector.  Diagnostics reveal nothing for seek 
and controller tests, but read/write tests say the drive is probably not 
initialized.  What is different for a drive in C: versus one in D:.  
(The strap is set in position 2 for two drives on both drives per the 
instructions.)  As a test, I removed the new drive from C: and 
reinstalled the 251-1 in the C: position.  It works fine, so I don't 
think I have a hardware problem. (Of course, I had to reinstall the 
terminating resistor for this test.) Can someone help me? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
In general, there is no difference (other than the ones you've 
stated), for a drive in the fist position versus the second position.  
Have you checked your narrow data cable that goes to the second drive?  
The problem almost has to be a cabling problem.  For further help you 
should contact Seagate tech support directly at (800)468-3472.  (Seagate 
provides their own free tech support on their version of Disk Manager, 
and of course they provide tech support on the actual hard drives 
involved here.) 
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QUESTION: 
 
I installed a non-standard drive microscience HH-1090 on an Arche 
Technologies Rival 386sx.  I performed the installation for 
non-dedicated server and everything works fine.  I also have a Qicstream 
tape drive installed from Archive a 3580xl model 80mb tape.  I tested it 
  and worked fine. I performed a complete backup and restore fine.  
After I rebooted the server the next day I got the following error 
message: 
       Fat Entry 1780 marked used with no File. 
It will display this from 1780-1790 and then finish booting the server 
ok.  I checked with the Novell Manual on system messages it said to user 
VREPAIR.  I can't on this type of system using a non-standard drive all 
I get is errors from VREPAIR back and telling me to turn off and reboot. 
 Don't you have a utility to fix this problem?  If so I need help ASAP!! 
 
I forgot to list the hardware etc. 
Arche Technologies Rival 386sx 
80mb Microscience HH-1090 
Western Digital Controller 1-1 interleave 
2mb ram on system board 
DM-N ver 3.04  prod. Microscience DM-N 
problem: Fat Entry 1780 marked used with no file 
can't use VRPAIR to fix it what do I use 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Normally our product NETUTILS would be the answer to your 
problems.  Unfortunatly it is not at this point (v1.2) compatible with  
drives having over 1024 cylinders.  You also cannot use VREPAIR on a 
nonstandard drive.  This really leaves you no other options than to 
reprepair the drive thru DMN, reinstall NetWare, and restore from your 
backup.  You may want to wait a day or two before doing this though, as 
sometimes FAT errors can clean themselves up in the normal course of 
operation. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I am trying to upgrade my harddisks. 
I had 2 ST225 20MB ea working on my PC Designs ET286i. 
I exchanged one ST225 with a ST4096 and followed the cable, jumper, and 
  CMOS settings.  I tried several variations but none would let me use 
  both drives. 
I currently have the ST4096 as the 1st hard drive and I'm not using the 
  ST225.  When I used your software I received no errors, but the 
  software would not let install the 2d drive (ST225). 
Are these drives not compatible ? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
There should be no problem using these two drives together.  I 
don't know how much you know about the cabling and addressing of HD's, 
but it's the only reason I can think of that this is not working.  If 
you are using a twisted cable, make sure the twist is a five wire twist 
and is away from the trace of the cable, if it's a seven wire twist and 
close to the trace it's a floppy cable.  If you are using a twisted 
cable, both drives should be set to drive select 2.  The HD at the end 
of the cable is your first physical drive, and the HD in the middle of 
the cable is your second.  The terminating resister pack should be 
removed from the middle HD (second drive), and in place on the end HD 
(first drive).  If you are using a straight thru cable, the drive at the 
end of the cable should be set at drive select 1, have a terminating 
resister and is your first physical drive.  The drive in the middle of 
the cable should be set to drive select 2, have the terminating resister 
removed, and is your second physical drive.  Both drives in either case 
have a narrow cable going from them to the appropriate connector of the 
HD controller.  Make sure all cables are oriented correctly with  the 
trace pointing towards pin 1 of the controller and towards the slot in 
the drive connector.  The only other thing I can think of is that there 
were a few 4096's produced that came out of the factory with incorrect 
jumper settings.  This would make them work incorrectly in a two drive 
situation.  If you've checked all of the above and are still having 
problems, you should contact Seagate tech support at (800)468-3472 and 
ask them about the write fault jumpers on the 4096.  
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QUESTION: 
 
We are having problems using your disk manager version 4.0 in a 10mhz xt 
clone with a wd gen card and seagate ST-251-1, we would like to be able 
to custom partition the drive (e.g. 32MB / 8 MB) but it will not allow 
us to do this, please advise on method or software limitations.  Also 
can DM be run from a batch file in an unattended mode. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
With an XT controller card, you will need to initialize your 
drive thru the controller BIOS using debug, (enter g=c800:5 at the debug 
prompt), and dynamically configure your drive.  Once you have 
accomplished this, you may partition your drive 32/8, or if you have DOS 
4.x you could have the whole thing as drive C:.  As for your next 
question, why on earth would you want to reformat your drive from a 
batch file in unattended mode???  DM is a hard disk formatting and 
partitioning utility only. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I have a Headstart turbo 888 XT system with a 62 megabyte hard drive.  
Whenever I type in CHKDSK, the system responds "There are 13 lost 
clusters found in 1 chain"  How do I recover these lost clusters?  Thank 
you. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Just type in CHKDSK/F and when it asks you if you want to 
convert this chain into a file, answer Y.  If you can't then figure out 
what this file is by looking at it, or if you decide that it's nothing 
of importance, then delete it.  (The name of the file that CHKDSK will 
create from this chain of clusters will be called FILE0000.CHK or 
something similar.)  Most often lost clusters are caused by someone 
shutting off or rebooting the machine while in the middle of an 
application.  Quite often these resulting lost clusters are nothing more 
that the applications "scratch pad" that it didn't get the chance to 
clean up. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I'm having installing an Seagate 4096 into an Origional IBM AT 
it's replacing a Seagate 4038 and the IBM will not support a drive type 
larger than 15. The IBM will not boot unless all drives match it just 
keeps rebooting.......What can I do....signed desperate Tech........ 
Bye the way one of my many diskmanager diskettes serial which I'm 
looking at now isver 3.5 by Seagate. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
The controller in the original IBM AT will not support a drive 
with greater that 8 heads.  You will probably have to replace this 
controller card with a WD1003 or equivalent.  If your controller card 
has a copywrite date of 1983 on the bottom edge of the card, it won't 
work with this drive.  As far as the machine rebooting unless all drives 
match... I don't understand the statement or why it would be happening. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I just added a second hard drive (Microscience HH1090) to my system. 
First drive is a Seagate ST4096 formatted as one large DOS partition 
under Compaq Dos 3.31 
 Second drive is formatted as one large (1312 cylinder) partition 
under DMDRVR, version of 3/10/89 (4.0 I think.)  When doing DOS 
copy or XCOPY from drive 1 to drive 2, quite a lot of files end up 
on drive 2 as zero bytes long, each with a corresponding lost cluster 
reported by CHKDSK.  Please advise. 
  
Hauppauge 16Mz 386 Motherboard 
AWARD BIOS 3.03 
Microscience Disk Manager 
Western Digital WD1003-WA2  Floppy 1 1.2 Mb 
"Floppy" 2 is Colorado Memory Systems "Jumbo" tape backup drive. 
CMOS drive table for Seagate matches exactly.  Table for Microscience 
drive matches except for cylinder count.  (1227 or so in table). 
  
ANSWER: 
 
If you are using Compaq DOS 3.31, you must use the /4 switch in 
Disk Manager (DM/4).  What you need to do at this point is to go back 
into Disk Manager with a DM/4/M, go to the Partitioning menu, select 
drive number 2, answer No to "Modify partition?" question and then 
select Prepare partitions and re-prepare the partition on the second 
drive.  This is because Compaq DOS 3.31 is actually using a DOS 4.0 type 
format on the hard disk, but identifies it's self as DOS 3.x.  The /4 
switch tells Disk Manager that this DOS is going to try and pass it's 
self off as DOS 3.x, but don't believe it, it's really DOS 4.x.  This 
whole procedure is assuming that you in fact really do have Disk Manager 
4.0 or above.  You need to go into Disk Manager in manual mode and 
confirm this version number on the main menu screen.  If this Disk 
Manager is pre-4.x, then you will have to contact our sales department 
at (800)752-1333 and upgrade to the current version before you can use 
Compaq DOS 3.31. 
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QUESTION: 
 
How do the SuperProms work?  Do they replace the BIOS chips? Are they on 
a separate board? 
  
I am trying to utilize all the space on a CDC 61355-100 91mb 
drive.  The current BIOS drive types only allow me to set up for approx 
78mb.  The drive has 1072 cyls.  It appears the the SuperProms would do 
it.  Can you think of another way to use the full capacity of the disk 
in single partition?  System is a 286AT running under PCDOS 4.01 with 
Phoenix 3.10 BIOS. 
  
ANSWER: 
 
Superproms are add-on ROMs.  They go into the two extra ROM 
sockets in your motherboard (if your motherboard has them).  They do not 
replace your existing BIOS ROMs.  But, in this case it sounds like they 
wouldn't allow the use of this entire disk as ONE partition.  Even DOS 
4.x has a 1024 cylinder limit. Everything beyond cylinder 1024 would 
have to be a Disk Manager Write/Read partition anyway.  If you have a 
CMOS drive type that has 1024 cyls by 9 heads by 17 sectors per track, 
you should be getting 76.4 Meg (80.1 Million bytes) as your first DOS 
partition.  Even Superproms wouldn't allow you to go beyond this size 
for the first partition.  Normal Disk Manager software with the SWBIOS 
program will allow you to create a 48 cylinder partition out at the end 
of the drive in the area beyond cylinder 1024.  This small partition, 
(48*9*17*512=3.8 Million bytes or 3.6 Megabytes), would have to be 
addressed as drive D:.  If you DON'T have a CMOS drive type of 
1024x9x17, then Superproms would be able to provide you with one and you 
could then get 76.4 Meg as drive C:. 
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QUESTION: 
 
 I am using a XT-Clone with the INTEL INBOARD 386PC 
 acceleration board installed. The HD controller is "noname" 
 called MODEL NPH-610A. I'm shure the controller is an exact 
 copy of the "true blue" one (as almost everything on my 
 system is "even more compatible" than original IBM). For 
 about 3 years I had only 1 HD (COGITO PT-925, 4 HD, 615 
 tracks) without problems. Recently I bought a second drive 
 (Seagate ST251-1). With this disk your DM Software was 
 delivered. As I new exactly how to install the new drive I 
 didn't even touch the DM-diskette at all and installed the 
 new drive in the "normal, handmade" mode. I am using DOS 
 4.0 and the new configuration is: drive C: Seagate ST-251-1, 
 one partition, drive D: Cogito, one partition. Now I had some 
 time to "play around" and as I realized some disk-read problems 
 (DOS trying several times to read data) I started to scan 
 the disks for flaws with DM (chkdsk didn't report any problems). 
 DM in fact reported some flaws on both disks (not alway the same 
 number of flaws, but at least the same ones). 
  
 Now my questions: 
  
 1. What is DMDRVR for and do I get any benefits when 
 installed ? Especially: Does it support "some clever" flaw 
 (or badspot)-handling ? (What are the FLAW#.MAP-files for  
 other than for documentation ?). 
  
 2. Is there a way to mark the flaws I've got without 
 reformating the drives ? 
  
 3. Is there a way to mark the flaws WITH formating (If the 
 answer to question 2 is NO) ? 
  
 4. Why does CHKDSK not report any HD problems, but DM does ? 
 And why doesn't DM report always the same # of flaws ? 
  
 5. When using DIAG it reports even less flaws than DM does, 
 why ? 
  
 6. With the INTEL Inboard came a caching program which (in 
 contrast to a lot of people telling me the contrary) seems 
 to work fine (even with large partitions (>32MB)). Can you 
 imagine any problems when using DM for formatting (and/or 
 using DMDRVR) compared to the current "standard" 
 configuration. By the way this program is called ICACHE and 
 seems to be some kind of modified PC-Quick (a well known 
 product). 
  
 I read the Q&A of your BBS and there was some statement that 
 one has to call Seagate directly concerning questions of DM 
 delivered by Seagate, but I can't call a "1-800 number" from 
 outside the USA, so I hope you will answer my questions. The 
 version of DM is 4.0 and the version of DIAG is 1.12. 
  
ANSWER: 
 
Hope the following clears up your questions... 
 
> 1. What is DMDRVR for and do I get any benefits when 
> installed ? Especially: Does it support "some clever" flaw 
> (or badspot)-handling ? (What are the FLAW#.MAP-files for  
> other than for documentation ?). 
  
DMDRVR.BIN is the Disk Manager device driver for mounting Disk 
Manager Write/Read partitions.  If you do not have any Write/Read 
partitions on your hard drives, it will have no effect if loaded 
into your CONFIG.SYS file.  The FLAW#.MAP files are for saving the 
defect list to floppy, so in case you ever have to re-initialize 
this drive, you won't have to enter the defect list by hand again. 
  
> 2. Is there a way to mark the flaws I've got without 
> reformatting the drives ? 
  
Not with Disk Manager.  Our product DOSUTILS has this ability, as 
do some other third party software packages. 
  
> 3. Is there a way to mark the flaws WITH formatting (If the 
> answer to question 2 is NO) ? 
  
Yes.  In general, you can go into the defect management menu in 
Disk Manager and enter your defect list from the manufacturer, as 
well as any new defects you may have discovered, then initialize 
the drive. You would then need to re-partition the drive.  In your 
case I would not recommend this procedure, because you have 
evidently initialized your ST251 thru debug using the controller 
BIOS, and have "dynamically configured" this drive (giving the 
parameters of the drive directly to the controller).  When you do 
this, the controller writes those parameters out to the disk, so 
it can read them at boot time and make this drive appear as a 
standard drive to the system.  If you re-initialize this drive thru 
disk manager, you will wipe out those parameters that the 
controller has written out there and the drive will no longer 
appear as a standard drive to the system.  If you want to make sure 
your defects are mapped out, you can either re-initialize thru 
debug as you did in the first place and enter your defects there, 
or get DOSUTILS to mark out your defects on the fly without re- 
initializing the drive at all. 
  
> 4. Why does CHKDSK not report any HD problems, but DM does ? 
> And why doesn't DM report always the same # of flaws ? 
  
CHKDSK reports how many bytes are already mapped out as bad in the 
FAT tables.  DM is actually testing the drive for tracks that it 
cannot read. The bad tracks that DM finds may or may not already 
be marked out as bad in the FAT tables.  You could also have 
intermittent bad tracks or marginal tracks that don't always appear 
as bad to DM on successive passes of the scan.  If you spot one of 
these, write it down and get it mapped out. 
  
> 5. When using DIAG it reports even less flaws than DM does, 
> why ? 
  
Probably for the same reasons as stated above.  Could be marginal 
bad tracks. 
  
> 6. With the INTEL Inboard came a caching program which (in 
> contrast to a lot of people telling me the contrary) seems 
> to work fine (even with large partitions (>32MB)). Can you 
> imagine any problems when using DM for formatting (and/or 
> using DMDRVR) compared to the current "standard" 
> configuration. By the way this program is called ICACHE and 
> seems to be some kind of modified PC-Quick (a well known 
> product). 
  
With DM, we don't recommend the use of disk caching programs in 
general.  You have evidently low-level formatted these drives thru 
debug using the controller BIOS to make them appear as standard, 
then have used 4.01 FDISK to partition them directly.  I would stay 
with this arrangement if I were you.  The reason being, there have 
been reports that the INBOARD 386 driver steps all over our driver 
when installed in the same machine.  So in this case it sounds like 
you are better off with initing these drives thru debug, making 
them standard to the system, and partitioning with 4.01 FDISK 
alone. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
 Thank you very much for your fast and very accurate answers. 
 Putting it all together: I should reinitialize my drives "the 
 standard DOS way" and enter the new flaws by hand. There just 
 remains one problem: The only thing my low level formatting 
 routine on the controller bios lets me enter is the interleave 
 factor, i.e. there is no way to enter flaws during this process. 
 ... Any idea except throwing away the controller and buying a new 
 one ... ? 
  
ANSWER: 
 
Most XT controllers will allow you to "dynamically configure" 
your hard disk at formatting time.  This means that you will be allowed 
to enter the parameters of your hard disk, and from that point on the 
drive will appear to the system as a standard drive.  It may be that 
your controller is able to do this, but is not jumpered correctly to 
enable that mode of operation.  It is also possible that it just is not 
prepared to do this at all, in which case a newer controller that can 
would be in order. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I want to connect a second drive to my computer.  The primary drive is a 
Miniscribe 3053 controlled by a DC2 controller by TMC Research.  The 
second drive is an Atasi 3046.  I have Disk Manager ver 3.61 for 
Miniscribe.  The parameters for the Atasi do not 
match any of the BIOS entries or any of the Miniscribe entries in my 
version of DM.  Is there a way to manually enter the parameters or do I 
need a different version of DM? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
If this drive is not standard to your system, (you have no CMOS 
drive type that matches it), and you only have the Miniscribe version of 
DM, (you can't manually change the number of cylinders or heads), then 
you will need Disk Manager Generic, which will install almost any drive 
under the sun. 
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QUESTION: 
 
I am attempting to install a MicroScience HH1090, 80 Mb, into a 
client's 18 month old AT Clone and have not been able to achieve 
a low level format.  Any help would be appreciated. 
     The clone is running AWARD BIOS Ver. 3.03 and the HH1090 will 
be disk 1 and the only disk.  I am replacing a Seagate ST251 which is 
running fine, just too small. 
     I am using the DiskManager for MicrScience, Ver. 4.04 which came 
with the drive.  The CMOS does not have a Disk Type for the HH1090 
so I have been trying the use Type 47 as  User Definable but am unable 
to change the drive parameters from 0 0 0 0 to those of the HH1090.  
There is no way to get into the fields to change them. 
     Therefore, I have tried to use DM preceeded with SWBIOS.  SWBIOS  
apparently load fine and then I start DM with DM /M.  I am immediately 
confronted with the error message asking me if I want to change the CMOS 
setup, to which I respond Yes.  I then chose the drive type HH1090, 
accept the default parameters, and reboot the system as instructed. 
     After the reboot, I find that the CMOS has been reset to Drive Type 
26, which is close but not a winner.  I have repeated the process many  
times and I keep getting Drive Type 26.  If I continue with DM with Type 
26 selected the program falls out and terminates. 
     My client is not impressed and my distributor's technical support 
person, who I had on the phone during ALL of the above, is not available 
for me to bring the system into untin next Monday. 
     I have tried to get upgraded BIOS chips from the Clone's original 
dealer but they don't handle them any more, now they only deal in AMI 
BIOS, etc., etc. 
     Once again, any help would be appreciated deeply. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
What are the paramters for the drive type 26 in your computer? 
(Every computer's drive types are different).  If it has 7 heads and 17 
sectors per track, it's the right choice!  You don't have an entry in 
your CMOS drive table of 1314x7x17, and even if you did (like with a 
user defined drive type), it wouldn't do you any good because DOS still 
has a 1024 cylinder limit.  What do you mean by "the program falls out 
and terminates?".  What error message is given?  What controller card 
are you using?  In general, you should be able to simply run SWBIOS and 
DM in automatic mode, and have all 1314 cylinders of this drive 
available (in two partitions).  If this doesn't work, then check your 
cabling and the drive it's self. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
     I am having some difficulty formatting a Seagate ST-138 32MB MFM  
Drive with a WD1002S-WX2 controller card.  The controller card does 
not have the upgraded "SUPERBIOS", but has an older bios that only 
supports 4 drive tables of 5MB through 20MB.  If I use the disk manager 
program (DM.EXE) in the automatic mode and use non-standard parameters 
that essentially override the BIOS settings, then the drive formats ok 
to 30MB, but not with the partitions that I want.  The partitions that 
I end up with by using DM.EXE in auto mode are a .8MB drive C and a 30MB 
drive D.  I only want a 32MB drive C....and no drive D.  If DM is ran 
in manual mode with DM /M and I manually select non-standard params,  
(for ST138 6heads, 614 cyls, and 17sect/cyl) I successfully initialize 
(low level physical format), verify, and partition the drive into drive 
C with cylinders 0-610 and 6 heads.  When I attempt to prepare the 
partition for DOS use however, the DM program only recognizes heads 0 
and 1 and I end up with 10MB on drive C.  I know that the DM software 
recognizes the 6 heads in auto mode but dont know why it fails to 
recognize them in the preparation submenu in manual mode.  I suspect 
that it has to do with my standard settings on the WD card of 612 cyl 
and 2 heads.  I can turn the BIOS off on the WD card and the problem 
goes away, but then I cant control another drive on the bus without 
re-formatting it and using the DMDRVR.BIN device driver...  My solution 
to this problem was to purchase the $15.00 superbios rom upgrade for  
the WD card which allows me to format any drive up to 1024 cyls and 8 
heads (16 also..)  If you guys have an upgraded version of the On-Track 
Diskmanager program that gets around this problem, please let me know. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Your choice to purchase the $15 SUPERBIOS upgrade from WD was the 
best solution here.  If you want the whole drive as a DOS bootable 
partition, the drive will have to be a standard drive to the system.  
The only way to make this a standard drive to the system is to 
initialize (low level format) it thru the controller BIOS using debug, 
and "dynamically configure" the drive at 615x6x17.  There is no version 
of Disk Manager that will get around this, as the DOS boot partition is 
mounted by DOS prior to the loading of our Disk Manager device driver 
(DMDRVR.BIN), so it never has the chance to replace the parameters that 
the DOS boot partition will use before the partition is mounted. This is 
why the DOS boot partition is always limited to the standard portion of 
the drive. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Just purchased a Seagate 251-1 Hard Disk From JDR at the Dayton 
Hamvention. Setup with 3 Part. C D E and get a invalid media type using 
chkdsk on Part D E The C Drive works fine with no problems. The format 
d: or E: get invalid drive. Please help. Using Ver 4.0 of DM. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
You must be using DOS 4.01... (Am I psychic? No, it's just a well 
know problem.)  You should read bulletin number 8 on this BBS.  It 
explains exactly how to fix this problem. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am attempting to install a second ST251-1 in my CompuAdd 286/10.  The 
251-1 model is not an option in the drive type table and the results I 
get when I select 251-1 do not seem to work.  I installed and 
partitioned the disk using this selection and the second logical drive 
on my first hard drive seems to have become unrecognizable.  The first 
drive was partitioned with c: having app. 32 MB and D: having 10+.  I 
tried to set the second drive up evenly divided between E: and F: but it 
is not recognized.  Help !!!   
 
ANSWER: 
 
I guess I need more info from you on this one.  I see no reason 
that this shouldn't work, (installing non-standard drives is what Disk 
manager is designed to do, and has been doing for many years).  There 
must be a procedural mistake here of some kind.  If you created two Disk 
Manager write/read partitions on the second drive, they should indeed be 
E: and F:.  If instead you created one DOS partition and one write/read 
partition on your second drive, then the first partition on the second 
drive would be D:, the second partition on the first drive would be E:, 
and the second partiton on the second drive would be F: (DOS partitions 
get mounted before write/read partitions).  Other than misunderstanding 
that situation, I don't see as there should be any other problems. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I had diskmanager partition and set up my hard disk.  It used the 
dmdrver.bin file.  Recently because of a compatibility problem, I 
removed it.  Am I crazy or did I lose considerable disk space to the 
tune of about 1 meg on my second partition?  I have a 40 meg hard drive 
on a ibm.  I had and still have only 2 partitions..c & d.  But it seems 
that d has shrunk considerablely and I can't seem to get an answer 
anywhere.  Thanks 
 
ANSWER: 
 
If your second partition was a Disk Manager write/read 
partition, you would not only lose part of that partition by removing 
DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN from your CONFIG.SYS file, you would lose ALL OF IT.  
The would no longer be a drive D: at all!  If it was not a write/read 
partition, but was a DOS partition, you would lose NOTHING.  So you see 
it's an ALL or NOTHING situation here.  There is no way that you would 
only lose about a meg of space no matter what kind of partition it was. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
While I had the disk manager in place I had 32 meg on drive c and 10 meg 
on drive d.  I removed the disk manager and repartitioned using dos 
because of 2 incompatibilities (pctools mirror-partition and disk 
technichian pro) and now I have 32 meg on drive c and a little over 8 
meg on drive d!!  Why such a drop when the disk is partitioned with dos 
compared to being partitioned with the disk manager?  I can't complain 
because it is only a 40 meg drive, but I am trying to get an answer on 
this reduced space using dos compared to your disk manager.  Did I make 
it more clear this time? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
You still didn't tell me what brand and model of drive you 
have, so I've got no way to know for sure, but it sounds like it is a 
nonstandard drive to your system.  If you go into Disk Manager with the 
/M option, (DM/M), then press C for the configuration menu, you will see 
how the drive is setup.  If it says something like "Drive 1 is setup as 
808 by 6 by 17, and it is actually 819 by 6 by 17", you have a 
nonstandard drive.  This means without Disk Manager's help, you will 
only be able to use 808 cylinders of space on the drive instead of all 
819 cylinders.  This would account for the small discrepancy in capacity 
that you are seeing. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Disk Manager folks, 
   I know that it is possible to make a partition read-only (except for 
the primary or active?, right?).  Anyway, I need to be able to write 
to this partition to update critical files that otherwise shouldn't 
be tampered with. 
   Does DM merely set a bit in memory and/or in the FAT/partition table 
for it to be read only?  If so, can I reliably change this bit on the 
fly, update, and change back? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
You can change a partition type from write/read to read only 
from within Disk Manager's partitioning menu without any data loss 
within that partition.  You cannot make a DOS type partition read only.  
The procedure would be like this:  Create a partition table that has a 
DOS bootable partition, and a Disk Manager write/read partition.  
Prepare the partitions and copy whatever files you need to protect onto 
the write/read partition.  Then run Disk Manager in manual mode (DM/M), 
go to the partitioning menu, select C to change a partition type, change 
the write/read partition to read only, select R to return to the 
preparation menu, and when asked if you wish to write the new partiton 
map to the disk, answer YES (no data will be lost as long as you've 
changed nothing else).  DO NOT re-prepare any of the partitions, just 
exit Disk Manager after that.  The partition will now have read only 
access.  To change it back, just reverse the procedure. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am trying to "test"MS-DOS 4.01 on my BBS. I have it running on node 2 
(consisting of a 30 M HD on an XT) and booting from a floppy, but node 1 
is a problem. Node 1 consists of 2 40 Meg ST251 using DM for 40 meg 
partitions. My intent was to create a DOS 4.01 boot disk, with the 
correct autoexec and config files, and change the path to include the 
DOS 4.01 rather then the 3.3 DOS directory. However, the computer hangs 
when processing config.sys. It was formatted with a DM release of about 
a year ago. I suspect the driver/dos 4.01 conflict. Any ideas??? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
When DMDRVR.BIN comes up under DOS 4.x and finds a partition 
greater than 32 Meg, it assumes that it was formatted under DOS 4.x 
rules.  If this is not the case, (you formatted the first two drives 
under 3.x DOS), then the driver does hang.  Re-preparing the partitions 
thru DM while booted from 4.x DOS will solve the problem.  
Unfortunately, this is a destructive process.  Mixing the two operating 
systems is risky business as their format structure is very different.  
Also make sure that your version of DM is v4.0 or above when using 4.x 
DOS. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Subject: DM 3.61 and DOS 4.01 
I have been trying to repartition my 3085 miniscribe from 3   
to 2 partitions, but the system hangs after dmdrvr is loaded. 
Following a search through the Q&A file,do I assume correctly 
that I must upgrade to DM 4.xx to do this with DOS 4.01.      
If yes, do you have an upgrade policy, how do I do this.      
Also, why is it working fine with partitions of 11,30,30.     
 
ANSWER: 
 
You may upgrade your DM by contacting our sales department at 
(800)752-1333.  They will be able to fill you in on the details.  The 
format structure under DOS 4.x does indeed change when you exceed 32Meg 
partitions and would cause the old driver to hang.  What you will need 
to do is to upgrade your DM and then reprepare any partition that is 
greater than 32 Meg in size (a destructive process). 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I want to know about the new release of DMN 
Have had problem in past that novell repair utils don't work with DMN 
installation. Is this still true? Also used NetUtils to try to correct. 
Created more errors not fixed. Am still trying to get through to support 
to ask why. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
The Novell utilities will not work on a nonstandard drive that 
DMN has been used to install.  Netutils will, but you must remember to 
run DMN/I to install the nonstandard parameters in memory before 
running Netutils.  Netutils is at this time (v1.2) also limited to a  
drive with 1024 cyls or less, and 255Meg or less total capacity. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I installed a Segate ST251-1, 40 Meg, Hard Disk, in 
a IBM PC AT, Model 339, Computer, as Disk D. The computer has  
PC Dos 4.01, and PC Bios 11/15/85. The computer has a IBM Type 20,  
30 Meg, as Disk C. IBM Diagnostics for the IBM PC AT, Version 2.03, 
was used to set the computer for the two hard disks.  ONTRACK  
Disk Installation & Maintenance Software was used  
to install the Segate ST251-1 Disk.  
PROBLEM:  The Segate ST251-1 disk appears to "crash" after 
warmup, recovers after approximatelly 24 hours, again "crashes" 
after warmup, and repeats the cycle.  ONTRACK Disk Manager Diagnostics 
(SN 04751561) DOSUTILS, reported no defects after two passes, and 
increasing defects after three passes. The defects listed were: Disk 
ECC Correctable (majority of the defects), Disk Bad Address Mark,  
and Disk Sector not found. I have removed the Segate ST251-1, 
since it is not reliable, and apparently not compatible with the 
IBM PC AT computer.  Any suggestions? 
    
ANSWER: 
 
When using DOS 4.x, you must make sure that your Disk Manager 
is version 4.0 or above, and that your DOSutils is version 2.x or 
above.  Other than that, there is no reason, short of faulty hardware, 
that a ST251 wouldn't work in an IBM AT. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I NEED HELP TO RECOVER SEVERAL FILES WHICH WERE ERASED ON NOVELL 2.12.  
THE USER HAS ALREADY LOGGED OFF SO SALVAGE WON'T WORK.   ANYTHING WOULD 
BE GREAT!!  I'M DESPERATE!!!   
 
ANSWER: 
 
Due to the housekeeping methods of NetWare, there is no utility 
that I am aware of that has the ability to "undelete" a file as you can 
under DOS.  The only possible solution would be to contact our data 
recovery department at (800)872-2599.  They MIGHT be able to help you, 
depending on what kind of file it was and if they think they would 
stand a chance piecing it back together. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Am installing two hard disc on compaq 286 with dos 3.2.  First unit is  
miniscribe 3085 with your version 4.01 disk manager.  Second unitl is  
seagate st251-1 with your version 3.2.  I have C,D,F,G drives.  C and D 
are on miniscribe 66.8 meg.  F and G are seagate 42.8 meg.  I low 
formatted each with different disk manager--miniscribe first.  I cannot 
read or format E drive (miniscribe 4+ meg) message is #ff?, type= 
unknown  format is impossible.  When I use DIAG.com it indicates all 
subdirectort.   Configuration menu shows E present and NOSYSTEM. 
Would like to understand what is wrong.  Clearly not a major problem 
since I have bulk of capacity available to me. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Some DOS versions will reserve a drive letter for a DOS 
partition on the second drive, even though there isn't one there.  I 
don't know for sure if Compaq DOS v3.2 is one of these or not, but it 
could be.  If all available space on both drives is accessible as 
C:,D:,F:, and G:, then the only problem that this would present would 
be to have to put up with a phantom drive E: that wasn't really there.  
If you really want to get to the bottom of this question, you should 
contact us on the tech support line while you are in front of your 
machine so we can use you for our eyes and hopefully determine what's 
actually happening.  The tech line is: (612)937-2121. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I have an IBM PS2 model 60-41 (41 means 40 mb seagate mfm drive).  I 
would like to replace the drive with a seagate st4096.  As you probably 
know, the model 60 is a micro-channel architecture (mca) machine and I  
believe has a completely different scheme for storing drive parameters 
from the setup-ram scheme found in ATs.  Will disk manager help me 
install this drive in the model 60?  If not, do you know any way I can?  
 
ANSWER: 
 
There is a specific version of Disk Manager designed for use on a 
PS/2.  It is called Disk Manager-PS/2 version p4.0.  This product would 
allow you to install the 4096 in your model 60.  It can be purchased 
thru our sales department at (800)752-1333, or from any number of 
computer dealers. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I just purchased DM.  The disk jacket set 4.03 and the program on the 
disk says version 4.02.  I did a bit of checking, and found the biggest 
difference is in the drive parm table. How can I obtain updates to this  
file?  This might be something you might add to your file list. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Disk Manager v4.02 and v4.03 are identical except for the 
drive parameter list, (DMPARMS.OCS), in which more drives have been 
added.  DM v4.03 does in fact come up and identify it's self as v4.02, 
because it is the same program.  We do not offer downloading of updated 
parameter files for several reasons, one of which is that the structure 
may differ from version to version. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
     I just got a new PC, and as best as I can figure, it has a 
Microscience HH-1090 80meg hard drive with 1314 cylinders, 7 heads and 
17 sectors.  So that I can get it set up the way I want, I would like to 
know the "Write Precompensation" and the "Landing Zone" for this drive. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Did you get Disk Manager with your drive?  If so, just boot with 
DOS, run SWBIOS, and then run DM in automatic mode and it will set your 
drive up correctly.  Other than that, the HH-1090 does not use write 
precomp at all, and it's landing zone is at cylinder 1314. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
For my own information, though, what is "write precompensation," 
why doesn't the HH-1090 use it,  and what should I tell my setup program 
regarding it? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
There are several good books on hard disk technology, (Peter 
Norton wrote a couple of them), that are available thru your local book 
store.  Any of these should explain what write precomp is better than I 
could.  For your purposes, just think of it as another parameter that 
you have to provide to your computer, (like number of cylinders or 
heads).  But if you are planning to enter these parameters into a user 
defined drive type entry, it's not going to work unless you truncate the 
drive to 1024 cylinders.  This is because no version of DOS to date, 
(not even v4.01), can handle a drive greater than 1024 cylinders by 
itself.  It will need the help of SWBIOS.  Which brings me back to my 
first suggestion...  why don't you just use the Disk Manager that you 
got with the drive?  It would be able to do the entire installation for 
you automatically. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
I've already done as you suggested.  As a matter of fact, that's the way 
the dealer set it up for me.  I was hoping, though, that I could get the 
disk poperly partitioned without Disk Manager for several reasons: 
    
    1) I would like to be able to have full access to all partitions 
       when I boot from a floppy, even if the floppy does not have a 
       CONFIG.SYS and the special device driver. 
    
    2) I regularly use utilities such as Norton Disk Doctor and Spinrite 
       which do not work with the setup you have suggested.  (If that's 
       a false assumption, please let me know.) 
    
Anyway, I thank you for your help, and I'll keep experimenting! 
 
ANSWER: 
 
You can stop experimenting, because it's not going to happen.  
Using Disk Manager is the only way you are going to get use of the full 
1314 cylinders of this drive.  If you don't want to use Disk Manager 
and it's device driver, then you'll have to set it up as a standard 
drive with a 1024 cylinders or less, and take the loss of capacity.  
End of story.  As far as the Norton utilities go, I think their v4.5 
advanced (with at least 1-3-89 file dates) can use SWBIOS and support 
the drive at 1314 cylinders, but I'm not certain.  You should ask them.  
I don't think Spinrite understands greater than 1024.  Again, you 
should ask them.   
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am a dealer and sell Advanced logic Research equipment. Ocassionally 
during an installation in trying to choose the correct drive type then 
initialize the drive DM returns an error message indicating that the 
drive is SCSI and can't be reinitialized. The fact is it is not SCSI 
but can be a 251 or as was the most recent case a 94204-71 Imprimis 
drive with Imprimis DM. The choice for the drive was made from the menu 
provided by the Imprimis DM. I know the details are sketchy but do you 
have any obvious conclusions? Thank you. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
The Phoenix BIOS that ALR has been using as of late does produce 
a phantom SCSI drive.  Using the /o parameter (/o not /0) on both 
DM.EXE and DMDRVR.BIN will strip out SCSI support from DM, and will 
allow DM to ignore the phantom SCSI responses from this machine.  This 
solution is fine for both your ST251 and 94204-71 installs.  But it 
wouldn't be fine for a drive with greater than 1024 cylinders, because 
the /o parameter also strips out support for drives with greater than 
1024 cyls.  If you are installing a drive with greater than 1024 cyls 
in this machine, I guess you'll have to change the BIOS. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
My drive (CDC Wren 70 MB) was already partitioned when I bought it; how 
can I remove the 2nd and 3rd partitions, and probably the 1st, without 
using DM (since I don't have it)?  DOS's FDISK cannot remove the 
2nd and 3rd ones, since they're marked as "non-DOS" and I assume FDISK 
does'nt know how to undo them.  I eventually want to repartition the  
drive the same as it is now, except with FDISK. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
You are correct.  FDISK will not allow you to remove a non-DOS 
partition.  If you don't have Disk Manager, the only way to remove them 
would be to low-level format the drive. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Does the current version of NETUTILS (1.2) work with NETWARE 3.0? I see 
no mention of it in the documentation or in the bulletin listings. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Netutils does not support NetWare 386 at this time (DMN v3.10). 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
NEED HELP DETERMINING WHY NOVELL'S (VER. 2.15) HOT FIX REDIRECTION TABLE  
KEEPS GETTING TURNED OFF. WE FORMATED THE SERVER'S HARD DISK WITH DMN  
(VER 3.04) AND IT RAN FINE FOR ABOUT 3 MONTHS. BUT LATELY THE HOT FIX   
REDIRECTION TABLE FEATURE IS GETTING TURNED OFF FREQUENTLY. WE ARE  
WONDERING IF IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH DMN. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
As far as I know, the only time that the hotfix feature turns  
itself off, is if the hotfix table gets full.  Once it turns itself  
off, it will stay off, unless you reformat the drive and reinstall  
NetWare.  The only exception to this that I can think of is if you had  
the situation where you had 511 entries in the table and you hit two  
errors at once.  I think in this case that NetWare may be seeing that  
it can't make two more entries into the table, (limit is 512), so it  
turns off hotfix.  The next time you boot the server, you've still got  
the one entry left, so hotfix comes back on until you hit more errors.   
This theory is kind of a wild shot in the dark, but the fact remains  
that the only time hotfix gets turned off is if the table is full.  So  
the next questions is why is the table full.  The source of the problem  
could be either flaky hardware, or an improper installation procedure.   
As far as the proper installation procedure goes, you should download  
the Q&A.EXE file from this BBS, (read bulletin #10 for more info).   
Within the Q&A file, you will find the correct procedure for installing  
this combination of hardware.  I think the procedure is for installing  
v2.0a NetWare, but the hardware initialization method is the same as it  
would be for v2.15.  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I'm unable to perform the Setup Applications with Windows 3 either  
from the initial setup disj or from within Windows itself.   
I've got 2 120 meg drives, one with  
1166 cylinders and another with 1024, both setup  
with DM.  Otherwise running a Zenith 386-16 with only  
the single meg which came with the system.  When I try to do the  
setiup apps. I either get hungup or rebooted!   
Answers/ suggesstions/advice would be appreciated.   
 
ANSWER: 
 
Since you are installing Windows 3 on a drive with > 1024 cylinders, you  
will need the line VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF in your SYSTEM.INI file.  You will  
also be restricted from creating a permanent swap file.  These are the  
only known problems between Windows 3 and Disk Manager.  You mentioned  
that you are installing this on a Zenith 386.  It's my understanding  
that there are special installation instructions for Windows on a Zenith  
machine.  Are you following these?  Other than that, I don't have any  
other ideas why you are experiencing problems.   
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I recently bought a CDC 94156-86 Hard Drive and a SMS ESDI hard disk  
controller.   I have two Questions.   1. When you format how do you   
put in your hard drive paramiters.  I have version 3.3 and it seems to  
be set with choices only for MINISCRIBE.   So I used the standard mode.  
It seems to work fine when it finally boots up.  The problem is it takes  
2-3 minutes before it boots.  By the way it does boot from the hard  
drive.  It works great after it boots.  Boy is it nice to have this  
speed using a esdi hard drive.  
  I puchased the above from a salvage type store.    
I would appreciate any help you can give me.  
Here is my system setup:  
Epson apex 100 Xt    
640K memory  
Scanman Plus (uses option board)  
Serial Card  (also option board)  
Printer  
2 floppy drives  
Nec N2420/30 modem  
SMS Esdi Controller  
CDC 94156-86 Hard Drive  
 
ANSWER: 
 
OK, is this Candid Camera?  Let me get this straight, you're  
using an ESDI controller, in an XT, with a CDC MFM drive, and a  
Miniscribe only version of Disk Manager?  Hmmmm...  
   
You are correct about the Miniscribe version of DM.  You can't manually  
change the number of heads and cylinders.  That's the way it's written.   
It's for Miniscribe drives only.  You will need either the Imprimis/CDC  
version that directly supports this drive, or the generic/universal  
version of Disk Manager if you want to enter your own parameters.  
   
I assume the "Epson Apex 100 XT" that you speak of is actually an XT,  
(8-bit bus), machine.  
   
The CDC 94156-86 is not an ESDI drive, it's a MFM drive (925x9x17).  
   
Now about this controller...   What is it?  The only thing I can find  
even close to what you describe is an 8-bit ESDI controller made by  
SMS-OMTI, model number 6510.  A rather obscure little controller to be  
sure.  As far as I know, it was the one and only attempt anybody ever  
made at creating an 8-bit ESDI controller.  I know nothing more about  
this controller than the model number.  
   
So... I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you until you get a version  
of Disk Manager that is licensed for use with this CDC drive, and you  
give me a little more info about the stuff you're trying to put  
together.  At this point, I guess I'm amazed that it ever boots at all!  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I have had several instances in which Norton Disk Doctor has destroyed 
the MEDIA DESCRIPTIVE BYTE for partitions above the first DOS partition. 
As a result of accidentally running NDD the partition is unuseable and 
using such recovery techniques as Disk-Look, "ONTRACK" hasn't solved my 
problem.  The data is still in the physical sectors attributed to the 
now deleted active partitions, but is unattainable.  Has anyone a fix or 
recommendation about this ?  
 
ANSWER: 
 
If your version of the Norton Utilities has file dates prior to  
1-3-89, then this is a known problem.  It is my understanding that the 
Norton people have a fix for any damage done, and a upgrade available 
to prevent it from happening again.  If you can't get any satisfaction 
from them, then the only other thing I can suggest is our Data Recovery 
Department.  They can be reached at (800)872-2599.   
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I HAVE A USED SEAGATE ST-225 (20 MEG). I DO NOT HAVE DISK MANAGER 
SOFTWARE. WHEN I GOT THIS USED DRIVE I FDISKED IT AND FORMATTED IT USING 
COMPAQ DOS. I KEEP GETTING THE MESSAGE "BOOT BY ONTRACK DM-N SN 
00012605" EVERY TIME I BOOT THE MACHINE. THE PERSON WHO HAD THE DRIVE 
BEFORE MUST HAVE USED DISK MANAGER. IS THERE ANY WAY I CAN GET RID OF 
THIS MESSAGE SINCE I AM NOT AN AUTHORIZED USER OR BUYER OF THIS PRODUCT. 
THANK YOU 
 
ANSWER: 
 
In order to get rid of the "Boot by Ontrack" message, you would have to 
re-initialize (low-level format) the drive.  If you are not using Disk 
Manager, you will need to use the low-level formatting routine that 
comes with your Compaq diagnostics, or a similar program. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
READ SUPEROM LISTING, SOUNDS GREAT.....HOW DO I GET THIS MARVELOUS 
DEVICE?  HOW IS IT USED?  THANKS 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Superproms are a set of add-on proms.  If your computer has two spare 
ROM sockets like the IBM AT, you can plug these Superproms into those 
spare sockets and have about 150 more CMOS drive types to choose from.  
This is useful if you need to make your drive appear to the system as a 
standard drive. 
  
Superproms can be ordered through our sales department.  You can reach 
them at (800)752-1333. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
We used DM Ver 4.0 to install a Minicribe 3650 as drive C and a Seagate 
St251 as drive D.  We used DOS 4.01.  Why can't we do a CHKDSK on drive 
D?  We get an error message of "invalid media type." 
 
ANSWER: 
 
I see that after you asked this question you downloaded MS401FIX.TXT.  
I'm sure this will answer your questions, and will fix the problem. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
When I tried to debug CHKDSK.COM according to MS401fix.txt, I go 74. 
instead of 74H.   That is '74.'  instead of '74H'   What happened? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
The "74H" in the file MS401FIX.TXT means 74 hexadecimal.  The "H" 
doesn't appear on the screen when you do the patch.  If it said "74._" 
you should go ahead and type in EB and hit return. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Talked to Sales today, they suggested I contact you folks in Tech 
Support with my question.  I have DM version 3.62 for the Miniscribe 
drives and have to use SWBIOS.  I would 
prefer to not use SWBIOS as it conflicts with Gibson Research Spinrite 
to the point that I cannot use it anymore (with SWBIOS in place).  I 
understand there may be an upgrade from ver 3.62 available; my questions 
are: -1- Is the upgrade also for Miniscribe versions, -2- what are the 
advantages of the new version (ie., what enhancements), and -3- will the 
new driver, XBIOS, allow me to use Spinrite?  Thanks very much for your 
help.  I'll check back in a couple of days. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
It is my understanding that Spinrite can not function correctly on a 
drive with greater than 1024 cylinders.  The version of SWBIOS or XBIOS 
that you may have doesn't have a bearing on this. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am using Disk Manager-N on a PS/2 Model 80/Netware 2.15. When I try to 
run MODDRVR, it looks on DSK_DRV_.001 for file ATDISK.OBJ (according to 
the documentation). But this file does not exist ! any suggestions ?  
 
ANSWER: 
 
If you have rev B or later of netware the file that DMDRVR needs 
to patch is ISADISK.obj.  When DMN asks for the DSK_DRV_.001 and can't 
find ATDISK.obj press the F1 key to skip to the ISADISK file. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Is there anything that can be done  with DM used with drives over  
1024 cylinders when used with Windows 3.0? 
I've a Miniscribe 3085 formatted with DM 3.61.  With the 'fix' of  
'virtualhdirq=off' win3 loads in 40 seconds vs. 18  when  
dmdrvr.bin is commented out and no virtualhdirq=off.  Obviously  
the latter is not a solution since only the boot drive will be  
recognized. However, what can be done?  Smartdrive is of some help  
with application programs; WordStar loads  in 18 seconds the first  
time vs. 3 the second - vs. its loading in 7 first and 3 the second  
without dmdrvr.bin.  Smartdrive is not that big a help for  
subsequent loads of windows, however.  After exiting the  
'virtual...etc' system only about 3 seconds are saved when loading  
again, about 37 rather than 40 the first time. 
It would appear that Windows is going to be here to stay  and I'd  
guess I'm not alone in hoping that you folk will make DM  do its  
thing for us in the new environment.  Help! 
 
ANSWER: 
 
For now the slow down you are experiencing is going to be a fact of 
life. MicroSoft has acknowledged the problems with Windows and the 
SMARTDRIVE.SYS and permanent swap file  when used in a non-std disk 
drive enviornment. They made a public announcement which stated they 
are working on a permanent fix and would provide it free to their cus- 
tomers who are effected. For more info they also provided this phone # 
(206) 454-2030  For now it's a good idea to stop using smartdrive.sys 
or trying to create a permanent swap file. Keep in touch, as soon as we 
know MS has got things worked out the BBS will be posted with the info. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
We used Disk Manager-N v3.04 to setup a dedicated  
Novell ELS Level II fileserver using a 120 meg drive in an ALR  
20386. 
  
We would like to install a second volume in the file server.   
  
I am most concerned about what will happen when I issue the  
command <A:DMN><Enter> after installing a second drive.  Will the  
drive reset that occurs during the message "WAIT! Drive reset in  
progress..." affect our main file server disk drive (volume SYS:)  
as well? 
  
Please let me know what affect, if any, running DMN again will  
have on our existing SYS: drive, and do you have any other sug- 
gestions to ensure that adding additional drives will be a smooth  
and trouble-free process? 
  
ANSWER: 
 
The message "Drive reset in progress" is displayed while waiting for 
the read/write heads to return to track zero.  This is in no way 
destructive.  In general, as long as you make sure that you select the 
second drive to work with from within DMN, there should be no chance of 
affecting the first drive.  It would still be prudent to backup the 
first drive anyway, just in case a wrong key gets pressed... 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
 I have your Disk Manager software version 4.01 for Miniscribe hard 
disks installed on my Miniscribe 3085 drive. I am using a Zenith Data 
Systems Z-248/12 system (12 MHz 80286) and  MS-DOS 3.3 Plus (supports 
larger than 32 MB partitions and EMS 4.0). I recently purchased Spinrite 
II from Gibson Research to optimize the data transfer rate and refresh 
the low-level format on my system. Alas, I found out after getting the 
program that it won't operate correctly on disks with more than 1024 
cylinders because of BIOS limitations. Also, it is stated in the 
documentation that Spinrite is incompatible with Disk Manager's software 
BIOS extension. Do you market a program or are you aware of a program 
that will perform the same function as Spinrite on my drive with your 
partitioning software. What is included with your DOS-Utils package? I 
really would like to optimize the interleave if possible for this drive 
and software combination. Any suggestions would be appreciated. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
It is my understanding as well that Spinrite does not work correctly on 
a drive with greater than 1024 cylinders.  Our product Dosutils 
however, does.  Dosutils has the ability to test for your systems most 
efficient interleave, and to perform a nondestructive low-level format 
at that new interleave.  Dosutils is in general a comprehensive set of 
hard disk oriented diagnostics and utilities, that functions just fine 
alongside our SWBIOS on drives with greater than 1024 cylinders.  Your 
best bet is to contact our sales department at (800)752-1333, and ask 
for more information on Dosutils. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
This may seem like a simple problem but I haven't been able to solve it 
yet.  First, although I don't know what brand/model the hard disk or 
controller card is, I assumed that it is a STANDARD drive because the 
type appears in the AT setup menu.  I invoke DMN with the SETUP4 file 
for installing one standard drive.  The prepping proceeds normally with 
no problems (surface flaw analysis shows no defects after the low-level 
format).  Afterwards, when I run INSTALL on the ELS I v.2.0a disk, I am 
greeted with this message: 
  
"Problem with drive 00: Drive not set up for Hot Fix." 
  
Any insights would be helpful, in the meantime I'll try some more 
experimenting with other options and read the manual more closely.  Who 
knows, I might solve the problem on my own.  But at least allow me to 
express my thanks for having this board here.  It's a great service. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
With ELS I 2.0a, you need to run the PREPARE utility to set up 
your hot fix area prior to running INSTALL.  In your message, you 
said after running DMN to prepare the drive, you ran INSTALL and 
got the "drive not set up for hot fix" error.  If you didn't run 
PREPARE, this is exactly what would happen.  Did you run PREPARE? 
Also, when you exit the PREPARE program, the computer re-loads 
COMMAND.COM, so you must make sure to run DMN/I after running 
PREPARE and prior to running INSTALL. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I received a copy of DiskManager Version 3.5 with a Seagate ST251 MLC-1 
40Mb drive I purchase, about 18 months ago. i have since purchased an 
additional drive, the exact same model, and have failed in all attempts 
to initialize the drive. I had no problems with the first drive, and I 
wonder if I require an updated version of DiskManager to get the new 
drive to work. Disk Manager reports that the drive is "not ready" when 
I try to select it in manual (DM /M) mode. Automatic installation 
reports that the drive fails the drive-test-ready and recalibrate tests. 
I have successfully installed a Seagate ST125 20Mb drive with this 
version of DiskManager, and all cables, drive jumper settings, CMOS 
setup, power supply leads, and ground wires are been checked and 
verified. I have a AT-clone with an Intel 16mHz CPU, Micronics 
motherboard, 2Mb RAM, Award BIOS Version 3.03, MS DOS 4.01, and a 
National Computer LTD controller model NDC5425. Any suggestions? 
BTW - the OEM tested the drive and claims it's in working order... 
 
ANSWER: 
 
There are only three possible reasons for getting the message "Drive 
fails recal or test drive ready" from DM.  The most common one is that 
the drive is not addressed correctly, (misplaced drive select jumper, 
or miscabling the drive).  If you have a "twisted cable", (has 5 wires 
cut loose and twisted over between the two drive connectors), then both 
drives should be set to the second logical drive select position.  (If 
the manufacturer has started numbering the drive selects at 1, then 2 
is the second logical drive select.  If they have started numbering at 
0, then 1 is the second logical drive select).  If you have a 
"untwisted cable", (there are no lines cut loose and twisted over), 
then the drive at the end of the cable, (drive 1), should be set to the 
first drive select, and the drive in the middle of the cable, (drive 
2), should be set to the second drive select.  If you are using a cable 
that has seven wires cut loose and twisted over, then this is a floppy 
cable, it won't work, get a hard drive cable instead.  The second cause 
is that both of your CMOS drive types are set to 0, (not installed).  
If this is the case, as soon as you set them to something other than 0, 
the message will not come up any more.  The only other cause is a dead 
drive.  If you have checked your cabling and drive select jumpers, and 
your CMOS drive types are set to something other than 0, then that 
leaves the last cause.  You will not need a different version of Disk 
Manager for this install in any event. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am having a problem with caching programs from Multisoft Corp. working 
with disk manager Version 3.4 (oem Miniscribe). Cache programs that will 
not work are Qstep(Everex) and Pc-cache(Central Point). Configuration is 
Everex Step 386/20, Sms Omti Controller, Miniscribe 3085 and 6085 drives 
installed, Ms-dos 3.3(Everex port). Dealer says to throw away the cache 
programs. The applications really need it. The problem is the 3085 which 
was a substitute drive by the dealer only achieving its full capacity 
under DOS by using DM because of > 1024 cylinders. They Compuadd blame 
you, Everex and Miniscribe for these problems. Any help or workaround 
suggestions that will allow DM drivers to work in this environment? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
This is not a matter of DMDRVR.BIN working or not working.  It is a 
matter of the cache knowing how to operate on a drive with greater than 
1024 cylinders or not.  One caching program that we are aware of 
that works correctly on a drive with greater than 1024 cylinders is 
"Super PC-Kwik" by Multisoft, (v3.251 or later). 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
is it possible to install dm-n version 2.41 with NOVELL ELS LEVEL 2 
version 2.12?  I would like to use a Seagate ST4096.  I have tried 
MODNET, but it does not seem to work. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Unless your CMOS drive type 20 is for a drive with 1024 cylinders, 9 
heads, and 17 sectors per track, (making the 4096 a "standard" drive to 
this system), you will need to upgrade your DMN to do this 
installation.  Version 2.41 of DMN was released prior to ELS level 2 
v2.12, and therefore cannot do a "nonstandard" installation under that 
version of NetWare.  If this IS a "standard" drive type 20 in your 
machine, then set your CMOS drive type to 20, run DMN, and when asked 
what drive this is, tell it that it is a standard drive type 20.  Do 
not pick the ST4096, as this would be telling DMN that you are doing a 
"nonstandard" install.  The install should go fine from there, and no 
patches would be needed at all.  In any event, MODNET would not be 
applicable, as it is for Advanced NetWare 2.0a installations only. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am trying to use the product Disk Manager Netutils at a location that 
is having error messages in the loading volume SYS.  I ran a program 
called CHECKIT it found eight areas that had problems.  I called  
TouchStone about the errors, they suggested I purchase NETUTILS.  I ran 
the program using NETSCAN, pressed F1 for CHKDSK function, no errors 
were detected.  I then tried F7 (Read only) all data blocks, no errors. 
The directions in the manual were vague about the actual functions of 
the F1 to F9 keys.  The manual said to type the README file.  No such 
file on the disk.  All I want to do is MAP the bad cylinders and  
heads on the disk with out COMPSURF.  Any help would be appreciated. 
I purchased Disk Manager-N in case it has to be used.   
 
ANSWER: 
 
What error messages are you getting when you try to boot the server?  
If they are related to bad blocks on the disk, then Netscan should be 
able to find them.  I would suggest selecting F8 from the Netscan menu.  
This performs a "read only" test on the used data areas, and a more 
comprehensive "write/read/compare" type test on the unused data areas.  
The F1 key simply reruns the chkdsk function again, (it runs 
automatically once as you enter the program).  The F1 chkdsk function 
identifies and corrects the following problems if they exist on your 
server: 
  
1. Lost blocks 
2. Cross-linked files 
3. Invalid file block sequences 
4. Invalid block assignments 
5. Incorrect file sizes 
6. Mis-matched file allocation tables 
7. Mis-matched directories 
  
The F9 key only turns color on and off, and has nothing to do with 
finding errors on your server. 
  
Since Netutils runs under DOS, (not when NetWare is running), some disk 
errors can be hidden from it's view.  The controller card will do 
several retries on a read error all by itself.  DOS does several 
retries all by itself as well.  For this reason, you could have a block 
that was able to be read on the sixth retry, and Netutils wouldn't ever 
know that there was an error on that block because DOS and the 
controller did the retries all by themselves.  If you let the disk scan 
tests run overnight, you minimize the possibility of this being a 
problem. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
I have read your message regarding the netutils software.  I used the 
F7 Key overnight.  My question was.  Will Netutils allow me to map the 
bad blocks that were detected by the program checkit?  I already know 
the cylinders and head numbers.   
 
ANSWER: 
 
My suggestion was to use the F8 option, not the F7 option, and I 
explained why in my last message.  F8 is a more comprehensive test than 
F7.  Netutils will not allow you to manually enter the head/cylinder 
numbers to map out.  It must find the error itself before it offers to 
map out that block for you. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
We are having trouble getting the full 88MB from a Seagate Imprimis  
Model ST1100 mfm drive.  We are using version 4.0 of DM.  We are unsure  
of the correct procedure to use under MS-DOS 4.01 to format the drive. 
Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
According to my information, the ST1100 has 1072 cylinders, 9 heads, 
and 17 sectors per track.  If you multiply this out, you get: 
(1072*9*17*512 bytes per sector) = 83976192 bytes, (80.09 Megabytes). 
Now, understanding that the formatted capacity of this drive is 80 Meg 
and not 88 Meg as you stated, are you still not getting the full 
formatted capacity of this drive?  Also understand that this drive has 
more than 1024 cylinders, and everything over cylinder 1023 must be 
addressed as a Disk Manager write/read partition, (a true DOS partition 
can not reside above cylinder 1023, not even with DOS 4.01).  Also, if 
you don't have a CMOS drive type selection with 9 heads, your DOS boot 
partition, (drive C:), will only use the number of heads that is stated 
in the drive type you have selected, not all 9 that are available on 
this drive.  Your best bet is to have a small drive C: (about 1 meg), 
and the rest of the drive as drive D:, (a Disk Manager write/read 
partition).  If you have further questions, you will have to leave me 
more explicit information about what CMOS drive type you are set to, 
and more importantly, what the parameters of that drive type are. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
 I have just recently purchased a 386/25 PAK Computer, which is an IBM 
Clone with 4.01 DOS. It arrived formatted with DM, and that's the 
first  occasion I had to know of your product. On July 28,90, I came up 
on your board and got the fix for CHKDSK.COM, which was worth 20 points 
of blood pressure on my learning curve. Now that this problem's solved, 
what do I do about the rest of my "Pet" utilities that I used on my 
previous IBM XT, which now will not work on my new 386/25 using your 
DM? By this, I mean the famous "Unknown Media Type" error statement. Two 
of these utilities which come to mind are PCTOOLS, and a PC Magazine 
utility RN.COM(Rename Directory). Also, I once used the MACE Disk 
Alignment Utility. Is that OK to use with your DM? Is there a generic 
"FIX"  to make problem programs recognize these D and E partitions on 
my Hard Drive? (Drive A and B are Floppies; Drive C is the Hard Drive 
partition where DOS resides.) 
 And this question's very important, as my vendor cannot explain very 
well why I need to use DM for my 110 Meg hard disk ipo using DOS 4.01 
formatting. Do you have any literature available as to WHY DM is better 
than DOS 4.01 Format? Just what are the comparative advantages,in 
layman, end user-type language? Why couldn't I just make one great 
big drive C out of the 110 MEG Hard Drive, and forget about all the 
grief concerning logical partitions, where my programs won't work? 
After all, I'm accustomed to a 4.77 XT since 1984, and now that I have 
the 386/25 Mz machine, some loss of speed is not a big deal anyway. 
(i.e. if the only advantage of using DM is speed.) I'm at the point 
now, where if I could use my treasured utilities I've had over the 
years, I'd rather sacrifice some speed on my new machine, and Format 
the Hard Drive in DOS. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Since you didn't tell me what brand and model of hard disk drive you 
are using, I can only speak of hard drives in general.  Some of the 
following statements may not apply to your drive. 
 
My best suggestion for your questions about utilities on this drive 
would be to contact the manufacturers of the utilities that you have 
mentioned and make sure they will work on a drive that has been 
installed with Disk Manager, (and is perhaps a "nonstandard" drive, and 
may have more than 1024 cylinders).  With over 7 million systems 
worldwide currently using Disk Manager, there is no utility software 
company that could be "unaware" of the fact that Disk Manager exists 
and that it is the single most popular hard disk installation utility 
in the world.  The utilities that you are referring to may be old and 
obsolete in this new environment.  I would suggest that you ask the 
manufacturers of these utilities the above questions, and also make 
sure you have the most current versions of each respective software 
package. 
 
Explaining what Disk Manager does in "layman's" terms is rather 
difficult, as understanding many aspects of it's operation requires you 
to at least have a general background knowledge of computers, hard 
drive controller cards, hard drives, the operating system, and how 
these four distinct components interact with each other.  I've spent 
over twelve years working with computers at this level, and still don't 
profess to know all there is to know by a long shot.  These concepts 
are definitely not something that can be explained in fifty words or 
less... but I'll try to give you an overview of Disk Manager anyway. 
 
In general, Disk Manager allows you to install a drive that may be 
"nonstandard" to your system.  By this I mean that your computer could 
not directly support this drive without the help of Disk Manager.  All 
computers have a finite selection of drives that they can directly 
support.  Disk Manager allows you to install a drive that does not 
match one of these preset options.  This is also why you can't have the 
whole drive as drive C:.  Your computer can't see the whole drive by 
itself.  Therefore, all space above the "standard" portion of this 
drive, (that which you computer can see and support all by itself), has 
to be a accessed as a special Disk Manager write/read partition.  Disk 
Manager also allows you to use a drive that has more than 1024 
cylinders, something that no version of DOS to date can do all by 
itself either.  (Data is stored on a disk in concentric rings called 
"tracks".  If you have several disks mounted one atop the other on a 
single spindle, as you always do in a hard disk drive, and imagine 
looking down through all the disks, track number 1 on all disks 
combined is known as cylinder number 1.  Many drives have more than 
1024 cylinders.)  So you see, Disk Manager is giving you something much 
more basic than speed.  It is actually what is allowing your computer 
to access the full capacity of this hard disk drive in the first place. 
 
Getting back to your utilities...  If the most current versions 
available of the utilities that you use still don't support a 
"nonstandard" drive and/or a drive with more than 1024 cylinders that 
has been installed with Disk Manager, then you have no other choice but 
to abandon them and find other utilities that will. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I am using disk manager 4.0 on an ast premium 286 with phoenix bios. 
i have a seagate st251 and i want a 1mb and a 41mb partition.  i am 
using ast dos 3.2.  the system responds with 'disk boot failure' when 
i try to reboot.  i put ibm dos 3.3 on and it worked fine.  what can i 
do to use ast dos 3.2? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
This version of Disk Manager is probably not getting the system files 
from AST DOS v3.2 transferred correctly.  You should be able to get 
around this by running Disk Manager in automatic mode, (all the way 
through preparing the partitions and everything), and when it's done 
and wants to reboot, let it boot from your AST DOS floppy.  Once you 
get to a A:, do a FORMAT C:/S, then manually copy over the CONFIG.SYS 
and DMDRVR.BIN files from the Disk Manager diskette to the drive C: 
root directory.  Reboot the machine from the hard drive and it should 
come up fine. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Having been introduced to your product through Seagate I was happy to 
see that you do really exist.  To my current problem. I ordered your  
latest DM today and a couple of Superprom's to be used in two systems I  
am installing NEC D3142 43/65 meg drives, these are 642 by 8 head by 17 
units. The SP's came close enough with the 640 x 8 x 17 to utilize most 
of the drive ( I hate to waste space) but alass to my great surprise 
when I picked up one of my spare mother boards to see where I was going 
to place this jewel the manufacturer has decided to save money and not 
place the Bios extension sockets on the boards. My question is are you 
aware, or do have a buss plug in prom board that can be addressed to the 
SP locations? I service and sell direct weather imaging systems to 
schools and havve come across this problem more than once. It would be 
nice to be able to just plug in a buss board and not have to worry 
weather the Mother board is going to be ready for the upgrade. I do 
like your product and belive it fills a needed void. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
We have tossed around the idea in the past of creating a bus board to 
carry the Superproms in systems that don't have add on ROM sockets on 
the motherboard, we just haven't done it yet.  It is still a good idea, 
and a possible project/product for the future.  Your suggestion is well 
taken and I have forwarded it to the engineering department. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I'm attempting to install a Seagate ST4096 drive in a Hewlett-Packard 
QS/16 (hp's clone). It seems that the DiskManager software works fine 
when I load MSDOS 3.2 . However, when loading MSDOS 4.01, the drive 
isn't bootable. I'm using DiskManager 3.5 . Do I need a new driver for 
MSDOS 4.01 ? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Disk Manager v3.5 was not compatible with DOS v4.01, which is why your 
system hangs.  You will need to upgrade to v4.x of Disk Manager to use 
DOS 4.01.  You may do this by contacting our sales department at 
(800)752-1333 and requesting a upgrade. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Am having a problem with Windows 3.0 on a hard disk partitioned using DM 
Issue is non-windows apps get error msg from Windows that there is no 
space on drive c.  Apps and windows are installed on drive d which has 
plenty of space.  WIndows based apps,  write/paint/games, all work 
normally.  Same apps outside of windows work fine as well. 
Drive C: is only DOS drive in system.  D and E are 39meg partitions 
drive is seagate 4096. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
I really have no idea what would be causing your problem.  Is there 
some way from within Windows to configure which default drive it will 
be using for it's file accesses?  I don't think this is a Disk Manager 
related problem.  I think it is a Windows configuration problem. 
 
QUESTION: 
 
I have been having problems with Windows 3.0 on a machine with DMDRVR 
partitioning a st4096.  Naturally, MS blamed everybody but their own 
code.  In fact, W 3.0 has a bug, at least one.  The bug relates to their 
swapfile parm.  The default is supposed to be the drive and directory 
that Windows is installed on.  In fact, the default is drive c:.  As a 
result, any machine with less than 512k of freespace on drive C: will 
get a wierd message when invoking non-Windows applications about no 
space on drive.  The cure is to include a swapdisk= parm in the 
system.ini file under the non-windows application section specifying 
which drive and directory you want.  It now works fine (real mode). 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Thanks for the tip.  I'll leave it here on the board for others to see 
in case they run into the same problem. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
Dear sirs, I am currenlty using Dos3.3 on clone386 and semm to be having 
Troubles with Windows(2.01) running Pagemaker (every now and then it 
decides to quit to dos!) and also certain things in ORACLE RDBMS also 
cause this same problem.. Can you help? 
 
ANSWER: 
 
Are you using Disk Manager?  If so, is this a "nonstandard" drive?  If 
so, does the drive have more than 1024 cylinders, or is there either a 
head or sector per track mismatch between what the BIOS thinks the 
drive has and what Disk Manager thinks the drive has?  If so, are you 
using SMARTDRV.SYS?  If so, get rid of it.  (See bulletin number 12 on 
this BBS for the procedure to determine the answers to the above 
questions).  Other than that, I know of no conflicts between Disk 
Manager and Windows v2.01. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: 
 
I have a problem getting my computer to boot after using disk manager 
I used the disk manager to do a complete format and initilazation and 
since then I can not get the system to boot . I have a xt clone 10 mghz 
with microted inc boardwalk hdc-1000 hd cont. Since using dm and not 
having any luck I went back to the basics / debug g=c800:6 then went 
through the process of initialization, fdisk for primary partition and 
then format c: /s   It still will not work, chkdsk c: gets the respo0nse 
error F paramater not specified and a message that a bunch of clusters 
are bad - by the way with pctools i cannot find any boot sector or file 
allication table. 
 
ANSWER: 
 
If you can't even low-level format through your controller's BIOS 
(using debug), then run FDISK and FORMAT and have it work, then 
something here isn't working right hardware-wise.  Sounds like you'll 
need to start troubleshooting your hardware. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I may be premature in asking this, since DMN is now running to
reconfigure the drive, but I'm formatting the 104MB drive to 100MB for
the NetWare partition and 4MB for DOS (to boot) - does ONTRACK allow for
designating a DOS partition? Is formatting the same? For a BOOT sector
(generally at track 0), how do I tell the machine to boot from this new
sector?

ANSWER:

While in theory it is possible to have a DOS partition co-reside with a
NetWare partition on a single disk, both operating systems have a
couple of internal restrictions that usually make this configuration
less than advantageous.

If you are using DOS 3.x, the DOS boot partition must reside within the
first 32 Meg of the disk.  The NetWare partition must be the FIRST
partition on the disk, and you can only have one NetWare partition per
disk.  So, if you wish to use only the first 32 Meg of your disk and
let the rest of it go to waste, (not very likely), then this
configuration will work.

DOS 4.x partially solves this problem by allowing a DOS boot partition
to reside outside of the first 32 Meg of the disk.  Unfortunately, it
does NOT allow a DOS boot partition to reside beyond the 1024 cylinder
limit.  So if you have a disk with more than 1024 cylinders, then
everything above cylinder 1023 would be wasted in this configuration,
(again, sometimes less than desirable).

Within the above restrictions, you will need to create your DOS
partition with FDISK, since DMN does not offer a DOS type partition as
an option.  Marking the DOS partition as "active" within FDISK is what
dictates that the DOS partition will be the "boot" partition.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

   IF I WANODIFY THE PARAMETERS OF NETWARE ELS LEVEL II VER.2.15C
DISK DRIVER OBJECT FILE TO SUPPORT ESDI HIGH CAPACITY ( OVER 1024 CYL. )
USING DM-N S/W THAT HAVE SOME ERROR MESSAGE "INVALID FILE! PATCH LOCA-
TIONS INCONSITENT" (DM-N VER.3.0) , COULD YOU PLEASE HELP US !!!

ANSWER:

Version 3.00 of Disk Manager-N was not able to install a nonstandard
drive under ELS level 2 v2.15 Rev C.  This version of NetWare was
released well after the release of v3.00 of Disk Manager-N.  You will
need to upgrade your Disk Manager-N to the current version (v3.11) in
order to install a nonstandard drive under this version of NetWare.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

IN MOST OF THE PCS I SERVICE AT WORK I'VE SET UP 4.01 AS FOLLOWS
BUFFERS USING THE /X TO PLACE IT IN EXPAMDED MEM AS WELL AS FASTOPEM /X
AND SMARTDRV.SYS /X THIS IS NOT WINDOWS.3'S SMARTDRV.SYS BUT THE ONE
THAT COMES WITH 4.01 MS OR PC DOS MY QUESTION IS CAN THIS CAUSE
PROBLEM??
IS THIS AN OVER KILL ?? I HAVE NOT YET RAN INTO A PROBLE WITH DATA LOSS
OR MESSED-UP FAT FILES BUT I'M LEARY ABOUT IT.I'VE BEEN SEARCHIG ALL
INFO SOURCES BUT AS OF YET NO ANSWER!!
HOPE YOU CAN HELP.

ANSWER:

No matter where SMARTDRV.SYS came from, whether it be the one that came
with your DOS, or the one that came with Windows, the same problems
still apply.  Read bulletin number 12 to see if you are at risk.  I
don't really know the consequences of using both FASTOPEN and SMARTDRV
together.  This  would be more of a DOS question than a Disk Manager
question, and Microsoft may have a better answer for you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Hi, I have a customer with DM 3.2 for seagate in an AT compatible,
running a ST251. The drive type is 22 and the drive is partioned into c
& d. (C is small and bootable and D is larger, this is an old setup).
The drive boots but can't access D. Dmdrvr.bin is being invoked in the
config.sys. DM sees the D partition but views it as unprepared. Dos
utils will test D ok at the hardware level but gives "no address mark
found" message on filescans. Can I somehow us DM to tell set that
partition to prepared or whatever, or is that data lost and we must
start over? Thanks for your help!

ANSWER:

If DM says that the partition in "unprepared", then the only way to
make it appear as being "prepared" is to prepare it from within DM.
This is the equivalent of the FORMAT command, and of course is
destructive, (Catch-22)  The only other alternative that you have is to
contact our data recovery department at (800)872-2599 and have them
take a look at it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

i am using disk manager 3.01
i boot from floppy
i have a seagate 251 40 meg drive
i partition the drive as one write/read partition
dos 3.3 works ok but dos 4.01 hangs up during boot
how do i get dos 4.01 to work?

ANSWER:

If you create w/r partitions for DOS 4.x or above you need a disk
manager product 4.x or higher.. the partition structures are different
between the two DOS's get 4.x version of DM and recreate your w/r
partition and you should be all set...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Glad to have found you...I am using a clone 386 DTK..I have two Maxtors
2190's formatted with Ontrack 4.3...I have tried to load Windows 3, it
loads without any trouble, except it will not allow me to access the
enhanced 386 mode unless I remove the *.bin driver...All it will allow
me to do with the driver loiaded, is to access Windows in SDTANDARD
mode...I tried changing the SYSTEM.INI but still no luck...any help
offered will be greatly appreciated...Thanks....

ANSWER:

Since the Maxtor 2190 has more than 1024 cylinders, you will need to
put the VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF line in your SYSTEM.INI file as explained in
bulletin number 12.  This will allow Windows to run in 386 enhanced
mode.  Also, since the drives have more than 1024 cylinders, you must
not use SMARTDRV.SYS.  The only other conflict between Windows 3 and
Disk Manager is that if you have DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN in your CONFIG.SYS
file, (you do), then Windows will not allow you to create a permanent
swap file, although temporary swap files work just fine.  These are the
only conflicts that exist between Windows and Disk Manager.  If after
following these directions you are still having problems with Windows,
then perhaps MicroSoft would be able to give you a hand.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I have a registered copy of DM 4.03.  Why does it say Version 4.02 
when my system boots and the DMDRVR.BIN is called?

ANSWER:

The only difference between version 4.02 and 4.03 of DMN is the file
DMPARMS.OCS.  (You can see evidence of this by doing a directory of the
DM diskette.  The DMPARMS.OCS file has a newer date than the rest of
the files.)  DMPARMS.OCS is the drive parameters file.  V4.03 was
updated to include more drives than v4.02 had, but this was the only
difference.  Unfortunately, we didn't change the version number that is
displayed from within the program, as we probably should have in order
to avoid this confusion.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Good day,
I am using Disk Manager V3.02 on a Packard Bell 286 with a miniscribe
3052 drive.  I want to set the drive up to run under DOS 4.01.  Do I
need to upgrade my version of disk manager.

ANSWER:

The minimum revision level of Disk Manager to support DOS v4.01 is Disk
Manager v4.0.  You will have to upgrade to the current version of Disk
Manager before you'll be able to install DOS 4.01.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

NEED HELP ON A SEAGATE ST251. I AM GETTING 1701 ERRORS ABOUT 3 OUT OF 5
TIMES BOOTING UP. I HAVE A LEADING EDGE MODLE D (XT) CONTROLER IS AS A
WESTERN DIG. GEN-2.  I DID A LOW LEVEL USING DEBUG . I SAID 6 HEADS IS
THIS THIS RIGHT I THOUGHT I READ SOME WHERE IT WAS 4 HEADS? ALSO IF I
GET THE ERROR AND POWER DOWN INSTEAD OF USING F1 AND SLAPPING THE TOP OF
THE CPU IT WILL COME RIGHT UP AND RUN FINE.  I HAVE RETURNED THE
ORIGINAL CONTROLER AND CABLES BUT THE NEW ONES HAVE NOT HELPEDI HAVE
ALSO USE ABOUT THREE OTHER SETS OF CABLES. NEED HELP I AM GETTING TIRED
OF SLAPPING THE CPU.

ANSWER:

The ST251 does indeed have 6 heads, and not 4.

It sounds like you have a hard disk problem, (perhaps the heads are
getting stuck or something).  I would suggest getting your hardware
people involved to trouble shoot it, or replace it, (or ask Seagate
tech support what they think about it).  Slapping the CPU does not
sound like a good long term solution, (!).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I am using an AT compatable 8 mhz with a miniscribe 3085 71 mg
hard drive. I have ver 4.02 of dmdrvr. I cannot use Gibson Research's
Spinrite II (latest version) while I have your driver loaded. If I don't
use your driver the utility only sees drive C:. This is also true for
the new Norton Calibrate. Is there a newer version of your driver that
may solve this incompatability. (I boot from a floppy  with no autoexec
bat or config.sys when I try to use these utilites.

ANSWER:

It is true that Spinrite is not able to function on a drive with
greater than 1024 cylinders.  It is not a problem with our driver, but
is a lack of ability on Spinrite's part.  Upgrading to a newer version
of DM will not help the matter.  Only when Gibson Research writes that
functionality into their program will things change.  We have not seen
Norton's "Recalibrate" yet, but I assume the same hold true with that.
You do have another option though...  Our Dosutils includes many of the
functions of Spinrite and does work fine with a drive having more than
1024 cylinders.  Dosutils is available though our sales department, or
from most any software distributor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Another Windows 3.0 problem; hopefully you can help without sending me
off to the "OTHER GUYS".  The problem is a frequent (every 4 to 6 hours)
trashing of the zero track on my hard drive when running Win3.  The
software in use is Win3 and DM ver 3.62, plus Lightening ver 5.0 (the
hard drive cacheing program).  

The hardware is a Sperry IT (AT clone) with an All Charge Card
in it which is doing memory remaps for LIM 4 stuff; the drive in
question is a Miniscribe 3085.  Fortunately I had the drive backed up,
and after the first crash, I copied the track zero stuff to a floppie
so it's not so hard to recoup.  It does feel kinda like hitting yourself
in the head with a hammer, tho.
Any suggestions?   Sure would appreciate it.  Oh yeah, MS said to
contact you folks ------ passed the $ abit I suspect.

ANSWER:

The problem with cylinder 0 being overwritten is definitely a 1024
cylinders "wrap" problem.  There are several things that could cause
problems when using a disk with more than 1024 cylinders in a DOS
environment:

1. SMARTDRV.SYS.  This is a documented fact.  SMARTDRV.SYS does not
   operate correctly on a disk with more than 1024 cylinders.  If you
   are using it, you should remove it immediately.  MicroSoft is aware
   of this problem, and are in the process of writing a new version of
   SMARTDRV.SYS that copes with this situation more elegantly.

2. Almost any cache other than "Super-PC Kwik" ,"Disk Wizard", or the 
   one that comes with "PC-Tools v6.0".  
   Caching programs are notorious for making invalid assumptions about
   the disk environment, (Like no disk has more than 1024 cyls, or has
   > 512 byte sector sizes, or has partitions > 32 meg, etc...), and
   blindly proceeding to bypass DOS function calls and attempting to
   operate with these invalid assumptions, frequently causing
   disastrous results.  The two above mentioned programs are examples
   of "intelligent" caching programs that understand this environment.
   I am not sure about the current version of "Lightning", but I do
   know that older versions did not understand any partition with a
   logical sector size > 512 bytes, or a disk with more than 1024
   cylinders, and would cause problems in this environment.  (Your
   logical sector size increases beyond 512 bytes when you create a
   partition > 32Meg under DOS 3.x).

3. In general, any program that is not "well behaved".  (Doesn't use
   DOS functions calls, and also doesn't know how to operate on it's
   own on a disk with greater than 1024 cylinders.)  Disk utility,
   maintenance, or diagnostic programs often fall under this category,
   for the same reasons as outlined in section 2 above.  Also, there
   are some "application" programs that in the interest of speed will
   purposely bypass DOS function calls and therefore fall under this
   category as well.

4. Moving DMDRVR.BIN into high memory with a "memory manager" program
   when using a disk greater than 1024 cylinders can cause a "general
   failure" message when attempt to access an area of the disk beyond
   the 1023rd cylinder.

5. Hardware limitations.  There are some older hard disk controller
   cards such as the WD1002-WA2, (IBM used this card in the original
   AT), that cannot support a drive with greater than 1024 cylinders,
   no matter what you do.  Using a controller such as this with a drive
   with more than 1024 cylinders will create a "wrap" situation every
   time.

Disk Manager allows you to do things that DOS by itself doesn't.  For
this very reason, it's methods of accomplishing these feats cannot
possibly be 100% the same as DOS's methods, (the two ideas are mutually
exclusive).  You access any partition that exists on a "nonstandard"
portion of your drive, (any area of the drive that exists beyond the
geometry stated in your current CMOS drive type entry or anywhere
beyond the 1023rd cylinder), or any partition under DOS 3.x that is
greater than 32 Meg, through our DOS device driver called DMDRVR.BIN.
DMDRVR.BIN is written to strictly conform to the specifications laid
down by MicroSoft concerning DOS device drivers, and is a "well
behaved" device driver.  The problems that can come up, (other than the
ones caused by hardware limitations), are invariably caused by programs
that are either unaware of the concept of, or purposely choose not to
respect a DOS device driver.

Windows by itself is not at fault here.  Neither is Disk Manager.
SMARTDRV.SYS would be.  Other caches, disk utilities, and the
occasional application program may be.

In closing, I would first of all suggest that you upgrade to the
current version of Disk Manager just on general principles, (v3.62 is
VERY old), and secondly contact the makers of "Lightning" and ask them
if their program strictly conforms to the above requirements.  For a
test, I would suggest you remove all device drivers from your
CONFIG.SYS file except DMDRVR, rename your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to
something else, and reboot without loading any TSR's into the system.
Then experiment with Windows and see if the problem still exists.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

cpu is IBM AT,seagate st4096,DM ver 4.03.....  the problem
i have is that after 80 meg drive is installed,when i do fdisk it shows
that i have 76 meg available,but after i restore software partitions add
up to only 66 meg;it looks like i lose 10 meg.

ANSWER:

First of all, take a look at your hard disk controller card.  If it is
the original IBM AT HD/FD controller and has a copyright date of 1983
printed on the bottom edge of the card, then you will have to put in a
different controller, as this one will not support a drive with more
than 8 heads, (the 4096 has 9 heads).

Also, you mentioned using FDISK.  When you are installing a drive with
Disk Manager, you do not use FDISK.  You partition it with Disk
Manager.  FDISK will not understand a nonstandard drive, and will only
give you access to the portion of your drive that is described by your
current drive type entry in CMOS.

Step one should be to confirm that you don't have the controller
described above.  Step two should be to simply run Disk Manager in
automatic mode, (just type in DM), and let it do the whole job.  You
should have 80,137,728 bytes, (76.43 Megabytes), of storage available
when it is complete.

Keep in mind that if you create a partition >32Meg under DOS 3.x, your
cluster size will increase.  This increase in cluster size will make
small files take up more room on the disk than they did when they
resided on a smaller partition.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Have used modgen to install Novell 2.15 on disk. After DMN has run the
system states to continue installing Netgen. When doing so we get the
following message... "Abend: Improper Rom table for AT hard disk
controller" Any ideas?

ANSWER:

The message "Invalid ROM parameter table for AT hard disk controller"
is caused by either not getting your driver (ATDISK.OBJ) patched
correctly with MODGEN, or not getting that patched version of
ATDISK.OBJ linked into your NetWare.  If the above two things had been
satisfied, it would be impossible for this message to occur.  If you
have Rev A of 2.15 adv NetWare, then you will have to select "2.15 SFT"
from within MODGEN instead of "2.15 ADV".  This is because the "2.15
SFT" entry looks for ATDISK.OBJ (which rev A had), and the "2.15 ADV"
entry looks for ISADISK.OBJ (which the current versions of NetWare
have).  Did you get any errors when you ran MODGEN?  Try starting over
with fresh diskcopies of your NetWare and Disk Manager-N diskettes, and
when running MODGEN, select the "2.15 SFT" entry and see if it doesn't
go better.  Make sure you keep an eye out for error messages while
running MODGEN, in case you have to leave another message on the BBS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

Howdy!  I may be "at risk" as the Microsofties say, with regard to my
use of both DM and Windows 3.0 with SMARTDrive.  Here's the scoop:
        With my CompuAdd 286-12, I recievde a Miniscribe Model 6053,
43-Meg. hard drive, DOS 3.3, and, for some reason, DM ver. *3.2*.  This
was a while back, in 1987.  After much hearache and many misleading
error messages, we finally got DM to do a low level format.  It's worked
fine ever since with DMDRVR in my config.sys file.
        Now, I am installing Windows 3.0.  According to DM/M
diagnostics,the Miniscribe Model 6053 has 1,024 cylinders.  The Bulletin
#12 says to worry if you have MORE than that.  But MS technicians say to
worry if you have more than 1,02*3*.  I also appear to have a
"nonhomogeneous" drive, in that the parameters are "replaced", and I
ahev one DOS partition, with another labelled "NONDOS DISK" or something
like that.  As an aside, MS tech people suggested repartitioning with
FDISK.
        My questions: (1) CAN I repartition with FDISK, and obviate the
need for DMDRVR in my config.sys?  I'm not using big logical disks
anyway--I have my 43 meg's divided roughly into two equal-sized disks;
(2) If I can't use FDISK, am I "at risk" of disaster if I use
SMARTDrive?; and (3) would it make any difference if I used the version
of DM that I should have recieved in the first place (3.3)?

ANSWER:

The Miniscribe 6053 physically has 1024 cylinders, 1023 of which are
used for data storage, (one is reserved for a landing zone and CE
cylinder), these 1023 cylinders are numbered logically as cylinders
0 thru 1022.  If you are using a drive that has logical cylinder
numbers higher than 1023, (you are not, even if one cylinder wasn't
being reserved), SMARTDRV will cause problems. There are no drives made
that I know of that have exactly 1025 or 1026 physical cylinders. The
smallest drive that I know of with more than 1024 physical cylinders
has about 1072 physical cylinders, therefore it will be obvious if you
are above or below the limit for SMARTDRV.

The other situation in which you can't use SMARTDRV is if you have a
head or sector per track mismatch between what the drive is "setup as"
and what it "is actually" as shown in the DM configuration menu.  You
mentioned having looked at the DM configuration menu, and seeing that
the parameters were "replaced".  This is not the whole story.  You need
to see if the head and sector per track values match between the two
sets of parameters.  (ex. drive is "setup" as having 5 heads and 17
spt, and "actually" has 5 heads and 17 spt).  If they match, and your
drive doesn't have more than 1024 physical cylinders, then you will
have no problems with SMARTDRV, (at least none that are caused because
you are using a nonstandard drive installed with DM).

As far as repartitioning with FDISK goes;  If when you look at the DM
configuration menu, you see that the drive is "setup" with exactly the
same parameters as it "actually" is, then you could partition it with
FDISK if you prefer.  If there is a difference between the two sets of
parameters, and you attempt to partition it with FDISK, then you will
only have access to the "standard" portion of your drive, (which is
what the drive is shown as being "setup" as).

Example 1:   DM shows your drive as being "setup as" 733x5x17 and "is
             actually" 1023x5x17, then FDISK would only give you access
             to 733 cylinders out of a possible 1023.  You would lose
             about 12 Meg of storage by not using DM to partition the
             drive.

Example 2:   DM shows your drive as being "setup as" 733x5x17 and "is
             actually" 1169x7x17, then FDISK would only give you access
             to 733 cylinders out of a possible 1169, and 5 out of a
             possible 7 heads.  You would lose over 37 meg of storage
             by not using DM to partition this drive.

DM version 3.2 was released prior to MSDOS 3.3, therefore it would not
be able to automatically transfer the system boot file to the hard
drive when preparing the boot partition.  That is the only difference.
I would imagine that you probably had to boot from a DOS floppy, ran
"SYS C:" or "FORMAT C:/S", and then copied over the CONFIG.SYS and
DMDRVR.BIN files from the DM diskette when you originally formatted
this drive.  If you had DM v3.3, it would have been able to transfer
the MSDOS 3.3 system file correctly.  Since DM comes with the hard
drive and not the DOS, I can see the possibility of this mixup
happening, but as you can see it's not very hard to recover from.

QUESTION:

Thanks for the thorough answer to my query (your response was message
no. 1178).  Because DM/M configuration menu shows my Miniscribe to be
"setup" as something with substantially fewer cylinders than is shown as
"actually" available, I'll stay with DMDRVR for now.  However, it is
clear I mustn't use SMARTDrive.  Oh, well.

One other question:  can I use other disk caches (like PC-Tools) with
Windows 3.0 and DMDRVR?

ANSWER:

Just because the drive has more cylinders that it is "setup as" is no
reason not to use SMARTDRV.  Only if the drive is over 1024 cyls, or if
there is a HEAD or SECTORS PER TRACK mismatch, do you have to stay away
from SMARTDRV.

For example:
Drive is "setup as" 773x5x17, and "is actually" 1023x5x17.

This configuration would be fine with SMARTDRV, because the number of
heads and the number of sectors per track match between what the drive
is "setup as" and what it "is actually".  There is a difference only in
the number of cylinders, which doesn't cause a problem, (as long as
there is not more than 1024).

On the other hand, if the parameters were as follows:
Drive is "setup as" 615x4x17, and "is actually" 1023x5x17

With this configuration, you would NOT want to use SMARTDRV, because
the drive is "setup" as having one less head that it "actually" has.

As for the use of other caches when you can't use SMARTDRV: I believe
the current versions of both Super PC-Kwik and PC-Tools would be OK.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I HAVE A 10.6 MB HARD DRIVE ALREADY INSTALLED IN SYSTEM. COMPUTERS ON
BOARD ARE OLD AND VERY LITTEL DOCUMENTATION EXISTS. PLUS, I'M NO
COMPUTER WHIZ. ANYWAY, HARD DRIVE BEGAN EATING FILES AND EVENTUALLY THE
ERROR MESSAGE "FILE ALLOCATION BAD" WOULD SHOW. I COPIED ALL THE FILES
I COULD ONTO FLOPPY AND ATTEMPTED TO REFORMAT USING DM. PROGRAM RAN FINE
AND SHOWED NO PROBLEMS WITH DISK. I TRIED ALL THE DIAGNOSTIC TESTS AND
ALL READ NO PROBLEMS. HOWEVER, AFTER INITIALIZING, THE COMPUTER WON'T
READ THE DISK AT ALL.  WHEN I TRIED TO COPY THE COMMAND FILES ONTO THE
DISK I GOT "ERROR READING DRIVE D:" AND "FILE CREATION ERROR". AM I
DOING SOMETHING WRONG OR IS THE DISK JUST GOING BAD? I APPRECIATE ANY
HELP YOU CAN GIVE ME. THANK-YOU.

ANSWER:

You should be able to run DM in automatic mode, and when it asks you
for the drive model number, hit either ESC or RETURN for a standard
drive, (Which ever it tells you to on the screen.  Some versions of DM
used the ESC key for this function, some used the RETURN key.).  If
this is a 10 Meg drive, your CMOS drive type should probably be set to
a drive type 1, (Although on a Zenith 248 there are drive types 22 and
23 for 10 meg drives as well.  Which one is correct depends on what
brand and model of 10 Meg drive you have.).  Then let it initialize,
partition, and prepare the partitions of your hard drive.  Or, you
should be able to run Zenith's PART program to partition the drive, and
then use FORMAT C:/S to format the partition.  If these procedures
don't help the situation, then open the machine up and check the cables
going to the hard drive, check to see if the controller board is seated
well, etc...  If all of this fails to help, then it sounds like you
have a bad hard drive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

We have a customer installing an ST-251 into a Sperry Unisys AT clone,
the system has a Mitsubishi BIOS (IBM drive types 1-15).  After using
Disk Manager (SWBIOS) to initialize and partition the drive (MS-DOS 3.1
for format) The customer used a program called "DSBACKUP" to restore his
data. After rebooting the system, the system reports a "CMOS TOD
Failure"  The CMOS appears fine, with the drive type set to type 3 (615
Cyl / 6 heads). Does Disk Manager modify the CMOS and/or the hidden
files?

ANSWER:

Disk Manager does change the drive type selection in CMOS to the entry
that is closest to the drive that you are installing, but that is all
it does.  Drive type 3 (615x6x17) is the correct setting in the absence
of a drive type that directly supports the ST251, (which is 820x6x17).
Disk Manager does not modify the DOS hidden system files in any way.
SWBIOS would not be involved with this drive install, since the ST251
does not have more than 1024 cylinders.  The message "CMOS TOD Failure"
sound to me like it may be complaining about the Time Of Day, (TOD)...
Just a guess, but worth double checking.  I don't see where this could
cause the specific failure message that you are seeing, but since I
don't know what that BIOS really means by "CMOS TOD Failure", a
longshot could be that perhaps the DSBACKUP software tried to restore
the hidden system files from the backup, but didn't get them restored
correctly, (this happens quite often with backup software in general).
You could try booting from a DOS floppy, and running SYS C: in order to
re-transfer the system files to the hard disk correctly.  Other than
that, I'm out of ideas.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I recently installed a second SEGATE 251-1 hard drive in my system
(a 80286 Clone with a Western Digital dual HD/Floppy controller).
Is there any way to do a low level format of the second hard drive
and use it as DOS partitions WITHOUT using the ONTRACK driver.
If not, what are the overhead costs of the driver?

ANSWER:

Whether you can partition this drive with DOS only or not depends
on if it is a "standard" drive to your system or not.  In the
case of the ST-251, if you have a CMOS drive type for a disk with
820 cylinders, 6 heads, and 17 sectors per track, then it is a
"standard" drive to your system.  If you don't have a CMOS drive
type available with these parameters, then you will have to use
Disk Manager and DMDRVR.BIN in order to get all of the capacity
of the drive, (DOS wouldn't be able to see it all by itself.)
DMDRVR.BIN only takes up about 4k of memory.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I am having trouble formatting a ST1100 in a PS/2 with either DM or the 
reference disk that came with the machine.  Can your products help?

ANSWER:

The "reference disk" that came with your PS/2 will not format a ST1100
for you.  It is in fact designed to object to anything other than IBM
drives. That's why Disk Manager for the PS/2 exists.

To install a ST1100 into a PS/2, you will need the PS/2 specific Disk
Manager vP4.0, (not the one you got from Seagate with the drive).  You
can order this product through our sales department at (800)752-1333.

Once you have DM vP4.0, run it in automatic mode with the "not with
default parameters" switch /N, and the "not with default interleave"
switch /I, (DM/N/I).  When it asks you what drive you have, tell it a
ST4096, (the ST1100 is not an option).  When it asks you if you wish to
change the parameters of the drive, answer YES and change the "write
precompensation" value to 300.  When it asks you for the "interleave"
value, tell it 1.  The drive install will go fine from there on.

In a PS/2, you can never go beyond 1024 cylinders, not even with Disk
Manager.  You will only be able to use 1024 out of the 1072 cylinders
that this drive has if you are going to install it into a PS/2.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

DMN HAS BEEN DOING IT'S PREPARATION ROUTINE FOR 16 HOURS NOW ON
ITS 14TH PASS.. IS THIS DUE TO HAVING SELECTED TOO LONG A TIME FOR
THE RANDOM BLOCK CHECK? I WISH I KNEW HOW MANY PASSES TO EXPECT.

ANSWER:

Ya gotta hit ESC pal...  DMN when running in manual mode will loop 
forever in the partition preparation section.  You only need to allow 
it to complete 1 pass, and then hit ESC to stop it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION:

I have a PC Express system (Wedge 386/25) with a MiniScribe 3085 drive.
The drive was originally installed using DiskManager 4.02.  There is a
4-floppy drive controller in the system with 3 floppy drives, so the
first hard-disk partition is D:.  In trying to get SpinRite II v. 1.1 to
run on my system, I commented out the DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN statement in my
CONFIG.SYS, and then SpinRite would run.  I reinserted the DEVICE
statement in the CONFIG.SYS, and rebooted, and my system wouldn't
recognize the second partition, drive E:.  I ran DiskManager to see
what it showed, and found the second partition was still 146 cylinders
(drive is 1170 cylinders, first partition is 1024 cylinders), but
rather than being from 1024 on up, it said it started at cylinder 1.  I
deleted the partition, then reallocated it as 146 cylinders starting at
1024, but now it shows up as UNPREPARED, and I can't access it.  I know
all my data is still there, intact, but DM won't let me at it without
going through the "PREPARE" phase of its installation, which I assume
WILL wipe out my data.
What can I do?

ANSWER:

As you have discovered, Spinrite does not support a drive with more
than 1024 cylinders, and you have experienced the end result of
attempting to use it on such a drive anyway.  It is my understanding
that this fact is stated explicitly in the Spinrite documentation, and
is also stated all over this BBS.

Unfortunately, once Spinrite has caused this damage, the only way to
recover your data that I am aware of is our Data Recovery Department.
You might want to give them a call at (800)872-2599, or if you are in
Minnesota call (612)937-1107 and ask for Data Recovery.

CLOSING COMMENT:

In reference to message # 1366, yes, I am aware that SpinRite II v. 1.0
would not run on any drive having greater than 1024 cylinders.  Their
new release (v1.1), however, boasts "Defect analysis on 'anything that
spins'".  When I ran the program on my system, which contains a
Miniscribe 3085 drive, it would hang up right after execution.  I
removed the DMDRVR.BIN reference just to verify that that was the
conflict.  Sure enough, SpinRite started right up.  I was being
cautious, however, and ran only the analysis phase of its operation,
nothing that should have touched anything on my hard disk.  In other
words, I did not perform a low-level format using SpinRite.  I still
lost the second partition on my hard disk.  In the documentation program
that is included, SPININFO, about 40 screens into it, there is the
warning that SpinRite will not work with drives having greater than 1024
cylinders.  There was no update to the manual included with the upgrade,
only a single sheet making the "anything that spins" boast.  I assumed
that just doing the analysis would not wipe anything out.  I have
completely rebuilt the partition table using Norton Utilities, making
it identical to another system identical to mine sitting across the
hall, but I still get the "General Failure" message.  Live and learn, I
guess.  I just wanted to make other people aware of the problem.
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