ISC 2.2 - DOS partitions and COMPAQ?

[Randy Jarrett]

In <809 at essnj1.ESSNJAY.COM> smitty at essnj1.ESSNJAY.COM (Hibbard T. Smith JR) writes:

>Interactive unix 2.2 and COMPAQ DOS 3.3 can't seem to agree about a DOS
>partition.  When I try and mount the DOS partition on this 110 MB disk
>(it's a 32MB partition), a df or dfspace only seems to know about 4 MB of
>space.

>The partition had to be created with the DOS fdisk.  When it was created
>with the ISC fdisk, DOS wouldn't recognize it.  Is this another of those 
>strange media descriptor problems?  I don't know enough about COMPAQ to
>know if they're non-standard or not.  This COMPAQ is a DESKPRO 386, which
>is really a 386SX system.

>I've had good luck with ISC and other DOS partitions on other hardware, but,
>this is my first trial on a COMPAQ

>I'd sure appreciate any help anyone could offer.

>Thanks in advance.
>-- 
>		Smitty
>-------------------------------------------
>Hibbard T. Smith JR                 smitty at essnj1.ESSNJAY.COM	
>ESSNJAY Systems Inc.                uunet!hsi!essnj1!smitty


I think that you will find that the problem lies in the mods that Compaq has 
made to the dos that they distribute.  Their Dos 3.3 isn't.  They have modified
the fat to allow the use of a larger partition.  This causes the same problems 
that ISC, vpix, and others have with Dos 4.xx.  I think that if you don't need
larger than 32MB partitions and from your message you don't than you should get
ahold of a copy of MS (not PC)-DOS 3.3 and I think that your problems will go
away.


-- 
Randy Jarrett  WA4MEI 
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