> On Tue, 05 Nov 2002 17:33:51 -0800, Ray Andrews wrote: >> Hi Glenn,
>> I tried that rename of cdrom.ikn fix for the 'your computer' hang problem >> with no luck. (I get exactly the same hang when I hit the "\\" button in >> 'all files'). But riddle me this: I can access every drive on my computer >> by typing the drive letter by hand up in the what-ever-you- call-it bar up >> at the top of the screen. If I do load my CD drivers, I can likewise >> access these individually no problem by typing in their drive letters. >> Arachne clearly can access CD's under DOS, but only one at a time, it >> seems. >> Also, there is something else that's funny: My real drive letters end at >> I:, and my subst'ed drives start at R:; all the subst'ed drives are >> accessed no problem, but if I type in any drive letter between J: and Q: >> (these letters are NOT in use remember), I get a phoney report--there is no >> volume label shown, but there is a 'free space' figure shown which is >> unlike that of any of my real drives. >> The problems are identical under either command.com or 4dos.com, but they >> disappear if I run Arachne under Win98 -- CD's are assessed just fine, and >> 'your computer' dosen't hang. But this is strange: After I quit windows >> back to dos (I know how to do this using the 'mark' & 'release' commands), >> 'your computer' will not hang the machine, and if I do try to access the >> CD's (there is NO DRIVER LOADED remember) Arachne treats them the same as >> the phantom drives mentioned above (no volume label, but a phoney 'free >> space' number. >> If I do load my CD drivers, then start win98, then quit win98, >> *everything* is fine: 'your computer' dosen't hang, and I can assess my >> CD's with no problem (using the DOS drivers, it seems). So it seems that >> starting then quitting win98 does something magical that makes the DOS >> CD drivers work ok. I get the feeling that this should be fixable. >> Can you make anything of it? > In the voice of Jonnie 5 from the movue Short Circuit: > I need more input.<g> > Try this. > Do not load W98 and restart in Dos mode. > Boot directly to Dos. > Load the CDROM drivers. > Do not load Subst. > Does everything work correctly ??? Alas, master, it does not -- no change from the above. BTW, when I 'restart in Dos mode', what happens is that 'release.exe' is called from within W98's 'dosstart.bat' with the result that the machine is restored to *exactly* the same state that it was in before I called windows up from the command line. As you know, if you don't use 'release.exe' there are still bits of windows lurking about even after you think you've returned to DOS. (When I quit windows, I want it to be **GONE** like it was never there!) The only artifact of the fact that windows was ever run is the fact that 'your computer' dosen't hang -- go figure. It seems to me that W98 'speaks' to the CD's in such a way that they are somehow blessed from that point on. Remember, when I load my CD drivers from DOS and then start Arachne without first running W98, I can access all the CD's one at a time with no problem, I just can't get a listing of all the drives *together*, that's the only difference. Oh, and throw me into the briar patch, but please don't make me live without subst.exe, boss! I only ever access my drives thru substitutions -- this lets me add and remove partitions and logical drives at will without having to change all the drive references on my machine, for example 'U:' is always 'user files' whether this substed drive is 'really' 'c:\user' or 'd:\user' or 'g:\' or 'h:\storage\user' ... or whatever. 'W:' is always 'working directory', 'S:' is always 'storage archive', 'R:' is always 'ramdrive' etc. etc. I couldn't live without it. k hL! Ray Andrews, Vancouver, Canada -- Arachne V1.71;UE01, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
