problem with usbdos

[iw2evk]

Hi at all,
i've download the usbdos package.I use a notebook pentium 2 300Mhz 128 Mb
ram and 1 uhci port.The only o.s. it's freedos 1.0.

using usbuhci i've this problems:

1) not all usb key (usb stick) are recognized .Some usb key have assigned
a letter from usbdrive , but i can't read the files.
2) some programs report a TIMEOUT program during reading usb keys.
I.e freedos fdisk " error reading hard disk .Time out, unit not
responding.
Program terminated"
Arachne browser for dos 1,95 if try to use usb key:
"error reading from drive e: dos area - drive not ready "

Aniother question : what is the driver to load for acceding to usb cd
drive /cdrw drive ?

Many thanks

Roberto iw2evk

Milan (italy)

[Bret]

1) not all usb key (usb stick) are recognized .Some usb key have assigned a letter from usbdrive , but i can't read the files.

If USBDRIVE assigns a drive letter, you should be able to read from the drive. It's possible for you to think it's assigning one when it really isn't.

Make certain the USBDRIVE is really assigning drive letters by using the S (Status) option and the D (Drive status) options. Look at the results and see if you can figure out what's going on, or post the results here. You may also need to view or post the output of the I (Inquiry), C (Configuration descriptors), B (Bad devices), F (buFfer contents), and Q (SCSI Qualifier history) options. With the Q option, you will also need to provide USBDRIVE with an INT 13h Disk Number, which can be determined using the S or D options.

2) some programs report a TIMEOUT program during reading usb keys. I.e freedos fdisk " error reading hard disk .Time out, unit not responding. Program terminated". Arachne browser for dos 1,95 if try to use usb key: "error reading from drive e: dos area - drive not ready "

This could be related to the problem above, where you think a drive letter is being assigned when it really isn't.

I've tested with FreeDOS 1.0 and FreeDOS's FDISK, and everything works just fine for me. However, in the inital FDISK screen when it asks whether or not to allow FAT32 drives, I must answer Yes. If I answer No, FDISK crashes (I do have a FAT32 partition on my hard drive -- if I didn't, I don't know if FDISK would crash or not if I answered No). FDISK crashes whether USBDRIVE is installed or not, so the problem doesn't appear to be related to USBDRIVE. You could also try the Ranish partition manager, which I think is a much better program than FDISK, anyway.

It's also possible that FreeDOS's FDISK might have a problem similar to MS-DOS's FDISK, and doesn't like removable hard drives for some reason. You can try installing USBDRIVE with the Disks:1 option, and make certain that you have a USB disk inserted when you run FDISK.

You can also try using the X:1 option, which will slow down the disk transfers, but may alleviate the timeout problems. If the disks aren't working at all, this probably won't help. But, if the data transfer starts OK and then gets a "drive not ready" error in the middle of the transfer, this should fix it.

I don't use Arachne, so don't know what's going on there. I suspect it's probably related to what's going on as discussed above. I think the X:1 option might be the thing that fixes most of you problems, but don't know for sure given the limited data.

Aniother question : what is the driver to load for acceding to usb cd drive /cdrw drive ?

I have not written a CD driver yet. USBDRIVE currently only works with flash drives, external hard drives, and floppies. Because the architecture is open and modular, anybody who wanted to could write a CD driver.

If nobody else does, I will probably write one someday, but it will be a long time from now. I've already started working on an OHCI host driver, which will keep me busy for several months. Even when that's finished, I'm not sure that a CD driver would be very high on my list of priorities. I don't own one, so don't have a personally compelling reason to write a driver.

Incidentally, many of the suggestions discussed above are also contained in the documentation (USBINTRO.DOC).

[Laaca]

I have the same problem.
USBdrive assigns a drive letter to my flashdisk (formated to FAT32), but no files are found. It behaves like a empty disk and except that it wrongly shows the free space.
I have FreeDOS installed with latest kernel 2038 final.

[Bret]

Would you please post the output of the S, D, I, C, F, and Q options. The Q option will need an INT 13h disk number after it, which will be listed in the output of the S and D options.

Also, if your disk is small enough (max 2GB), try re-formatting it as FAT16 instead of FAT32 and see if it makes any difference (obviously, you should back up any important data that's on the disk before you do this). You'll probably need to use the Ranish Partition Manager instead of FDISK, since FDISK selects the FAT type automatically, and you need to do it manually.