Using MS-DOS with Pacific Rim External Drives (78445)



The information in this article applies to:
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0a
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.2
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.21
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.22

This article was previously published under Q78445

SUMMARY

Pacific Rim Systems has confirmed that MS-DOS 5.0 and later may incorrectly attempt to format a 3.5-inch disk as a 5.25-inch disk on their external floppy disk drives for the IBM PS/2 series of computers.

A possible solution to this problem is to use the MS-DOS DRIVPARM command and the DRIVER.SYS utility.

MORE INFORMATION

To set the disk drive characteristics with the DRIVPARM command, add the following line to the CONFIG.SYS file:
   drivparm= /d:x /f:y
(where x is the physical drive number and y is the drive type).

See page 455 of the version 5.0 "Microsoft MS-DOS User's Guide and Reference" for correct drive type information for your floppy disk drive. Information for version 6.0 and later is in online Help.

If the DRIVPARM command does not solve the problem, install DRIVER.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS file, as follows:
   device=<path>\driver.sys /d:1 /n /f:1
where <path> is the location of the DRIVER.SYS file.

See page 602 of the version 5.0 "Microsoft MS-DOS User's Guide and Reference" for more information about DRIVER.SYS. Information for version 6.0 and later is in online Help.

The product included here is manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranties, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.

Modification Type: Major Last Reviewed: 5/10/2003
Keywords: KB78445