Compressed 3 1/2 floppy

[Guest]

I stored some information on a 3 1/2 floppy that was compressed under the
old W 95, now with XP Pro, Ineed to access that information on the floppy and
cannot seem to do so. Any help on how to get the information off the floppy
now? All it shows on the floppy in "Explore" is :cmsstorage.lst file and a
READTHIS file

Thanks

 

[Steve N.]

I stored some information on a 3 1/2 floppy that was compressed under the
old W 95, now with XP Pro, Ineed to access that information on the floppy and
cannot seem to do so. Any help on how to get the information off the floppy
now? All it shows on the floppy in "Explore" is :cmsstorage.lst file and a
READTHIS file

Thanks

You will have to copy the files off the floppy using a Win98 PC, XP has
no DriveSpace capabilities.

Steve

 

[Bob I]

There is a Win95 newsgroup that you could ask in.

 

[Guest]

Find someone with a Win95 machine and uncompress it.

 

[BBUNNY]

Wando wrote:
| I stored some information on a 3 1/2 floppy that was compressed under
| the old W 95, now with XP Pro, Ineed to access that information on
| the floppy and cannot seem to do so. Any help on how to get the
| information off the floppy now? All it shows on the floppy in
| "Explore" is :cmsstorage.lst file and a READTHIS file
|
| Thanks

You would first know what was used to compress the file. PKzip and
WizMgrPro were popular ways to compress files to a floppy in WIN95.

 

[Pavel]

For the following to work, you will need a bootable diskette. DOS 6, Windows
95 or Windows98 formatted bootable diskette will do. If you do not have one,
you can download an image of such disk from
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm.



Can I open Drivespace with windows XP?

You can not but what you could do is create a bootable floppy that was
created with Win98. The floppy must contain DRVSPACE.BIN that is normally
placed there automatically with format /s. On the boot floppy create text
file called DRVSPACE.INI and insert following line in it:

ActivateDrive=P,B0

Assuming that your compressed disk is a floppy disk and you have one or two
floppy disk drives then the above
line will be correct. If your compressed drive is on hard disk or other
media then you need the change the drive letter from B to the corresponding
letter:

ActivateDrive=P,E0

Once booted, you can access your compressed drive normal ways. If the
compression used was Drivespace 2 then you can read/write to this drive. If
the compression used was Drivespace 3 then do not attempt to write to it.
The letter P in the above line represents the drive letter that will be
assigned to the noncompressed portion of the drive. If you already have
drive P then you should change it to any letter that is not in use.
The number after the source drive B0 represents the number found in the name
of the compressed image. So if the image name is DRVSPACE.000 then B0 is
used, if the name is DRVSPACE.003 then B3 must be used.

To access DriveSpace compressed floppy with only one floppy drive available,
after booting type B: <return>, you will be prompted to change the diskette.

 

[NobodyMan]

Wando wrote:
| I stored some information on a 3 1/2 floppy that was compressed under
| the old W 95, now with XP Pro, Ineed to access that information on
| the floppy and cannot seem to do so. Any help on how to get the
| information off the floppy now? All it shows on the floppy in
| "Explore" is :cmsstorage.lst file and a READTHIS file
|
| Thanks

You would first know what was used to compress the file. PKzip and
WizMgrPro were popular ways to compress files to a floppy in WIN95.

If they were just zipped, XP would have no problems. I've used it to
access Zipped archives from many years back with zero problems. Given
the description of the floppy contents, this was NOT done with a Zip
program - sound likd drive- or double-space to me.

 

[Steve N.]

For the following to work, you will need a bootable diskette. DOS 6, Windows
95 or Windows98 formatted bootable diskette will do. If you do not have one,
you can download an image of such disk from
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm.



Can I open Drivespace with windows XP?

You can not but what you could do is create a bootable floppy that was
created with Win98. The floppy must contain DRVSPACE.BIN that is normally
placed there automatically with format /s. On the boot floppy create text
file called DRVSPACE.INI and insert following line in it:

ActivateDrive=P,B0

Assuming that your compressed disk is a floppy disk and you have one or two
floppy disk drives then the above
line will be correct. If your compressed drive is on hard disk or other
media then you need the change the drive letter from B to the corresponding
letter:

ActivateDrive=P,E0

Once booted, you can access your compressed drive normal ways. If the
compression used was Drivespace 2 then you can read/write to this drive. If
the compression used was Drivespace 3 then do not attempt to write to it.
The letter P in the above line represents the drive letter that will be
assigned to the noncompressed portion of the drive. If you already have
drive P then you should change it to any letter that is not in use.
The number after the source drive B0 represents the number found in the name
of the compressed image. So if the image name is DRVSPACE.000 then B0 is
used, if the name is DRVSPACE.003 then B3 must be used.

To access DriveSpace compressed floppy with only one floppy drive available,
after booting type B: <return>, you will be prompted to change the diskette.

Very interesting, looks like somebody did their homework. Thanks for
posting this.

Steve

 

[Pavel]

Thanks Steve.

There was a time when some of the old-timers were using a 70k floppy disks
(before IBM's time) and we had the need to put as many programs in as little
space. When Windows95 came and had the DRIVESPACE (there were other programs
before DRIVESPACE came along), I just had to make it in such a way that one
could boot it and use it straight from the floppy with as much free space so
I could put as many utilities on it. And all that with out using Windows.
The Microsoft programmers made it possible but did not really say much about
it.

 

[Jackdaw]

Very interesting, looks like somebody did their homework.
Thanks for posting this.

Steve

'scuse me for butting in but I have the same problem with
compressed ZIP 100 disks. Will the same instructions allow me to
access the data on these disks?

Mike

 

[Pavel]

If the disk is using the drivespace compression then yes, use the same
instructions (see the third paragraph of my instructions)