[How to enable the read/write cache on a floppy drive?]

I use a piece of crappy software that continually reads and writes to the floppy drive.
Using Windows 2000, I was able to enable the read AND write cache for the floppy drive.

Before you ask- I MUST use the floppy drive.

Now that I have upgraded to Windows XP- the read and write cache for the floppy drive has been disabled AND smartdrv has been deleted AND my autoexec.bat has been altered AND my crappy software takes about 2 minutes between clicks….

QUESTION: How in the world do I re-enable the read and write cache back onto my floppy drive?

MORE BASIC QUESTION: How do enable the read/write cache on a floppy drive under the Windows XP operating system?

Argument: All of the other Operating systems did it!!!

 

Most likely your PC is using autoexec.nt and config.nt from \system32 for setting up the proper environment for 16bit apps.

The default version of autoexec.nt does not have any smartdrv entries so you'll need to add them yourself. This page has a good how-to on doing that. Ignore the line that says smartdrv can't be started after windows is loaded because in this situation, your app is being run in a memory space designed to look like an older PC to the app and smartdrv will be started there.

As to the other part, can you set the app to use a RamDisk rather than a physical floppy? It certainly would speed things up quite a bit. Note that the link is directed toward 2K but will work with XP with a couple of limitations that should not affect you.