Re: [Freedos-user] corrupted directory sector from using SMARTDRV 6.22 with FreeDOS?
Michael Devore wrote: At 02:50 PM 8/21/2006 -0600, Eddie wrote: I was really hoping that this problem had been silently fixed by all of the other work that has been done recently. Doesn't look VDS-related, the executable only uses a couple of common calls there. Not much more I can tell you. Maybe the original LFN conjecture of a problem. If you can duplicate a problem at will, you could try without EMM386 loaded to make VM86 isn't getting in the way along the way, but doesn't sound like it. Thanks for checking this out. I suspect that I *will* be able to find a test case that gives a repeatable failure - but it may be a few days before I get back to it. Also Eric confirmed that this is *not* a new problem; he said that there is a report in Bugzilla about it. -Eddie - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] corrupted directory sector from using SMARTDRV 6.22 with FreeDOS?
This problem occurs when using SMARTDRV.EXE (with write caching enabled) from MSDOS 6.22 with FreeDOS. Replacing either avoids the problem. I haven't pinned it down yet but the problem seems to occur with more than just one pgm. I've seen it when installing UKA17X2 (i.e. UKA_PPP), A189GPLL (Arachne 1.89), and when extracting ARJ archives containing several dozen files (particularly if they contain subdirectories). The common thread seems to be that these pgms all create multiple sectors worth of subdirectory entries relatively quickly. At some point when all those directory entries are being written, one of the subdirectory sectors (never the first sector of the directory) gets garbage written to it. Yet the sectors before and after that one contain normal directory entries. I'd seen this symptom with B9SR2 too but didn't bother tracking it down. This time I was using the 2037 kernel that Blair uploaded yesterday and the 2.25/3.25 EMM386/HIMEM that Michael uploaded yesterday. Removing SMARTDRV prevents the problem. Maybe disabling write-caching would too but I haven't tested that. But in looking at the garbage directory sectors today, I get the feeling that this has something to do with LFN support. But that's only a guess and it may be completely wrong. Sorry I can't pin it down better than that right now. If I do later, I'll post more. -Eddie - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] corrupted directory sector from using SMARTDRV 6.22 with FreeDOS?
Hi Eddie, 2006/8/21, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This problem occurs when using SMARTDRV.EXE (with write caching enabled) from MSDOS 6.22 with FreeDOS. Replacing either avoids the problem. Well, thanks indeed for the reports, perhaps you could tell us too if you're using EMM386/HIMEM (or give your AUTOEXEC/CONFIG). For the regular user, this is an extra advice to use LBACACHE instead of SMARTDRV :) Aitor - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] corrupted directory sector from using SMARTDRV 6.22 with FreeDOS?
At 05:15 AM 8/21/2006 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This problem occurs when using SMARTDRV.EXE (with write caching enabled) from MSDOS 6.22 with FreeDOS. Replacing either avoids the problem. SMARTDRV is pretty particular on some machines. I just pulled the following from the Microsoft site, it sound relevant to the issue. Let us know the results. Double Buffering and Bus Masters Certain disk controllers support a concept called bus mastering. This is where the actual disk controller takes over the bus in order to transfer data to or from system RAM. Some SCSI controllers have this feature. A problem occurs when running in the virtual 8086 mode that Windows 3.0 and 3.1 virtual machines provide. Memory managers such as QEMM and EMM386.EXE also use virtual 8086 mode. The read or write address that is passed to MS-DOS is often not the same as the actual physical memory address. This can cause data to be read from the wrong location or cause data to be written to the wrong address, which in turn can cause erratic system behavior, general protection faults, and the system to stop responding (hang). Microsoft created a standard called Virtual DMA Services, which provides an interface that allows these bus-master controllers to get the correct address and avoid the problems mentioned above. However, some older bus- master controller cards do not support this standard. To allow SMARTDrive to work with these older bus mastering cards, a feature has been added to SMARTDrive that provides a memory buffer that has the same physical and virtual addresses. This avoids the system instability problem at the cost of 2.5K of conventional memory and a small amount of performance (the cost of moving the data to and from the buffer.) To use this feature, place the following line in the CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER+ NOTE: This line does not install the cache, only the double-buffer driver; the cache must be installed in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Most disk controllers do not need double buffering. This includes all MFM, RLL, and IDE controllers as well as many ESDI and SCSI devices. The Windows 3.1 Setup program will not install the double buffer driver in most cases. In the cases where Setup is unable to determine if double buffering is needed or not, it will install the driver based on the reasoning that it is better to error on the side of safety. A feature has been added to SMARTDrive to help determine if double buffering is unneeded and allow removal of the driver. Once the system is running with SMARTDrive loaded, type SMARTDRV (without quotation marks) at the MS-DOS command prompt. The following will appear: Copyright 1991,1992 Microsoft Corp. Cache size: 1,048,576 bytes Cache size while running Windows: 1,048,576 bytes Disk Caching Status drive read cache write cache buffering A: yes no no B: yes no no C: yes yes yes D: yes yes - Microsoft SMARTDrive Disk Cache version 4.00 For help, type Smartdrv /?. NOTE: The double buffer driver must be loaded for SMARTDrive to determine if there is a need for buffering. If the double buffer driver is not loaded, all entries in the buffering column read no. To determine if double buffering is required, look at the column labeled buffering. For each drive that is being cached, it can have one of three values: yes, no, or -. Yes indicates that double buffering is needed and being performed; no indicates that buffering is not needed. - indicates that SMARTDrive has not yet determined the necessity of double buffering.If the buffering column has all no entries in it, the double buffer driver is unneeded and can be safely removed from the CONFIG.SYS file. - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] corrupted directory sector from using SMARTDRV 6.22 with FreeDOS?
At 02:50 PM 8/21/2006 -0600, Eddie wrote: I was really hoping that this problem had been silently fixed by all of the other work that has been done recently. I was disappointed when the same problem cropped up again - because that means more work. So far I haven't done the work to isolate the problem to a repeatable failure. But I figured that I should send up a red flag so that the rest of you could be watching for the problem. Well, if you want to e-mail a copy of your SMARTDRV and the options you're using, I'll take at least a quick look at what internal calls it might be making, see if anything jumps out and bites my nose. - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user