Format

BB,

I fail to understand the relevance of the I: drive contents, when I stated the RAM drive is A:, and flopy is B:.

As for 2k, etc. it was one line in passing, and it went in because I am an "Instant Coffee" typer. The alternative is to be a "Filter Coffee" typer. There is nothing wrong with either type, but I will be happy to explain what I mean by these upon request

I also think I see why you have a different location for your ramdrive. You are booting from floppy, where as I boot from CD. floppy drives are extremely unreliable here, probably due to the fact it only rains for about 2 months of the year, so the rest of the time it is bone dry dust - not healthy for PCs Anyway, this results in the configuration I have described, with A: being in RAM, B: being the floppy, then the hard drive(s), CD-ROMs, etc. etc.

As for copying folders, *.*won't get it done, either. As far as I know, the only way to copy subfolders at the same time as the host folder is through Windows, unless they've added options to it - nevermind, we're starting to move beyond Win98 again.

So we're both wrong, or we're both right. I'd prefer the latter, altho you are free to choose the former if you prefer

Also in future, I promise to try to be a bit less personal. I re-read what I wrote, and realised it didn't sound so good....

 

When I speak of booting to a floppy or the CD I am referring to a boot from a POWER OFF STATE of the machine. I do not, never have and never intend to boot to the HD and then to the floppy. Booting to the HD first may well get a lot of un-needed and possible confusion causing stuff into RAM.

OK. I also booted from a Win98 SUD created on a CD by using Nero software. It is an EXACT duplicate of the 98 Floppy SUD. And the results are exacty the same as booting from the floppy.

I also have Norton Utilities for DOS on that CD.

And in either case the RamDrive was still it RAM with a drive letter of I: on this machine and L: on the other. ( the first letter AFTER the last HD partition )

As far as floppys being unreliable I will somewhat agree. The CDROM is more dependabe ( and faster too ) . Especially in XP. XP was not really designed to use a Floppy and is not as dependable ( from within XP ) But to boot the machine they work just fine.

And if using a CD to boot from there is NO WAY a Ramdrive can be created on the CD. I am not sure if there is even any DOS software that will write to the CD. There may be but it would need to be special stuff.

And there are no instructions on the 98 SUD to create a RamDrive on A: or B:.

As far as copying the 98 setup files go, I usually Drag-drop them from within Windows anyway. I have run the install from the CD. Then drag-n-droped the files to a partition other than C: and make 2 or 3 changes in the reg and that is it.

If I have 95 or 98 on the machine and want to upgrade to 98SE I just delete the files in the Options folder and drag-n-drop the SE setup files over to it. SHUT DOWN the machine. Boot to the floppy. Change to E:\Options and type setup. Ends all worries about finding the SE CD again. ( unless it might be needed for some drivers or something which is not a usual ocurrence )

And by having them on the HD in a partition other than C: they do not get lost if C: does go bonkers. And if it does all I gotta do is boot to the floppy again and repeat the setup process from E:\Options.

Doing a little PLANNING right from the initial install of a Harddrive has SAVED me MANY hours of work.

Before you mention it I will.

This machine that I am on right now started on a 40gig HD with the Original Win98 and is now an 80gig HD with XP Pro and has NOT BEEN formated or had the C: drive wiped in anyway yet.

I have yet to figure out how A: can be in RAM. I just do not understand that at all..

Unless something new has come that I am not aware of A: & B: are set BY THE BIOS as the 1st and 2nd floppy drives using their own separate controller on the Motherboard. And their own speciall cable.

BillyBob

 

The only way I could see A: ending up as the Ramdrive is a SUBST command is given. However, I couldn't say that the usage of A: is possible.

SUBST
Associates a path with a drive letter.

The drive letter you assign represents a virtual drive, because you can use the drive letter in commands as if it were a physical drive.
Do not use the SUBST command when Windows is running.

Syntax

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]

SUBST drive1: /D

To display the names of the virtual drives in effect, use the following
syntax:

SUBST

Parameters

drive1:
Specifies the virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.

drive2:
Specifies the physical drive that contains the specified path (if
different from the current drive).

path
Specifies the path that you want to assign to a virtual drive.

Switch

/D
Deletes a virtual drive

Example:
subst z: b:\user\betty\forms

 

I just checked the config.sys on my 98 SUD.

devicehigh=ramdrive.sys /E 2048.

During the boot it show a Ramdrive of 2048K being created.

Unless I am thinking wrong the 2048K = 2,048,000 meg.

If so then there not enough room on a floppy.

The DOS files that get copied to it are a total of 383KB. ( ? 383,000 ? ) More if the Readme is also copied which I stopped from going there.

How it figures out what letter to asign ( I: on this one and L: on the other ) is way beyond me.

And if the CDROM(s) are in the way they get moved. That is why I have them set to S: on both the SUD and in Windows so they do not get moved and are always the same letter no matter which machine I am using. On this machine where I have two CDROMs the second is asigned T:

BillyBob