Optical Drives

[Fountain of knowledge]

Has anyone had any experience with getting old (and i mean old)
optical SCSI drives working with Win2K? I have a user who is
currently usnig Dos when the rest of the company is using Win2K. I
have convinced him to use Win2K instead (on a new machine) but he says
only if he can use his legacy SCSI optical drive with it.
My experience of DOS is not great as it is a bit before my time! I
have copied the driver files onto the windows machine and also the
relevant lines from the config.sys file and placed them in config.sys
on the win2k machine. However, no matter what I do, i can't get win2k
to see the new optical device. I assume it will appear in my
computer???

Any help/ideas/suggestions?

Thanks

 

[G. Samuel Hays]

DOS Drivers will not work with Win2k. you'll have to find Win2k drivers
based on model of drive.

Sam

 

[Dan Seur]

You have 3 options, as I see it:

1. Find a W2k-specific driver for the device. W2k cannot use
predecessor-system drivers, even in the Command mode (virtual DOS
emulating) subsystem.)
If the manufacturer doesn't have a W2k driver, there's a chance that
another owner/user might have written one and posted it. Google for
driver collections and device mentions.

2. Make the guy's machine a multiboot with W2k & native DOS6.22 or
similar. The device will work with the DOS driver in native DOS. Make
sure he can't mess with the W2k partition when he boots to DOS.

3. Leave the poor guy alone, if he's doing his job. Lots of people won't
get on airplanes either.

 

[Fountain of knowledge]

You have 3 options, as I see it:

1. Find a W2k-specific driver for the device. W2k cannot use
predecessor-system drivers, even in the Command mode (virtual DOS
emulating) subsystem.)
If the manufacturer doesn't have a W2k driver, there's a chance that
another owner/user might have written one and posted it. Google for
driver collections and device mentions.

2. Make the guy's machine a multiboot with W2k & native DOS6.22 or
similar. The device will work with the DOS driver in native DOS. Make
sure he can't mess with the W2k partition when he boots to DOS.

3. Leave the poor guy alone, if he's doing his job. Lots of people won't
get on airplanes either.

Thanks! I wasn't aware that I could not use DOS drivers when running
DOS in windows using virtual DOS. I doubt there are drivers for Win2K
as the drive does not even have any branding on it from the
manufacturer and it is so old.
I'd love to leave him alone but he is hassling me! Hee also insists
that 'his' version of DOS runs FAT47! When I explained that it works
in multiples of 8 he said I was wrong! Thanks for the help anyway, i
think i'll look at something like VMWare to do it perhaps!

 

[Fountain of knowledge]

You have 3 options, as I see it:

1. Find a W2k-specific driver for the device. W2k cannot use
predecessor-system drivers, even in the Command mode (virtual DOS
emulating) subsystem.)
If the manufacturer doesn't have a W2k driver, there's a chance that
another owner/user might have written one and posted it. Google for
driver collections and device mentions.

2. Make the guy's machine a multiboot with W2k & native DOS6.22 or
similar. The device will work with the DOS driver in native DOS. Make
sure he can't mess with the W2k partition when he boots to DOS.

3. Leave the poor guy alone, if he's doing his job. Lots of people won't
get on airplanes either.

Thanks! I wasn't aware that I could not use DOS drivers when running
DOS in windows using virtual DOS. I doubt there are drivers for Win2K
as the drive does not even have any branding on it from the
manufacturer and it is so old.
I'd love to leave him alone but he is hassling me! Hee also insists
that 'his' version of DOS runs FAT47! When I explained that it works
in multiples of 8 he said I was wrong! Thanks for the help anyway, i
think i'll look at something like VMWare to do it perhaps!

 

[Fountain of knowledge]

You have 3 options, as I see it:

1. Find a W2k-specific driver for the device. W2k cannot use
predecessor-system drivers, even in the Command mode (virtual DOS
emulating) subsystem.)
If the manufacturer doesn't have a W2k driver, there's a chance that
another owner/user might have written one and posted it. Google for
driver collections and device mentions.

2. Make the guy's machine a multiboot with W2k & native DOS6.22 or
similar. The device will work with the DOS driver in native DOS. Make
sure he can't mess with the W2k partition when he boots to DOS.

3. Leave the poor guy alone, if he's doing his job. Lots of people won't
get on airplanes either.

Thanks! I wasn't aware that I could not use DOS drivers when running
DOS in windows using virtual DOS. I doubt there are drivers for Win2K
as the drive does not even have any branding on it from the
manufacturer and it is so old.
I'd love to leave him alone but he is hassling me! Hee also insists
that 'his' version of DOS runs FAT47! When I explained that it works
in multiples of 8 he said I was wrong! Thanks for the help anyway, i
think i'll look at something like VMWare to do it perhaps!

 

[Bob I]

There is FAT12, 16, and 32. If he's running 47 he must have designed it
and should be able to write his own Optical device driver! <VBG>

 

[Dan Seur]

You're welcome! You have a real flesh and blood problem.

Any chance of springing for new new optical drive? Is there something
about the old one, or maybe his app that uses it, that the user is wed
to? The real problem may include that application.

For example, with DOS, apps could get their hands on the 'real' device
rather than a virtual device, and some old DOS apps (often "poorly
written" by today's elegant standards like ACPIs) use
device-manipulating code that's illegal and prevented by modern NT-class
systems. An app with its own machine code for interrupt handling or
channel commands would be one such. If that user's app is one of those,
the app code would have to be rewritten; that sort of app cannot be run
in W2k's virtual DOS environment no matter what. Is there a newer
version of that app that your user could be moved to, on a W2k machine
with a newer similar storage unit, without too much heartache?

If the above is anywhere nearly correct, there may be a serious
technical problem a W2k device driver wouldn't solve. Another possible
but clumsy solution, if the user's optical drive app generates or stores
data the user wants to share with a W2k environment, could be a LAN-like
connection between his DOS PC and a second (W2k) PC in his office, to
move the requisite files back and forth and make the data available
wherever it is needed.

An interesting problem

 

[Dan Seur]

I envision a guy even older than yours truly, with sleeves up and green
eyeshade, hunched in a corner over a cobwebby PC he's hated since
somebody forced it on him years ago. Probably extremely unfair, I
know. I'd like to have a drink with him and get the story. Maybe at home
he plays with APL, which would make him a good guy in my book. But
FountofKnowledge has my sympathy!

 

[Fountain of knowledge]

LOL! Thanks! The app was written in Clipper (nice!) for DOS. He
claims to have done it himself but that may be a bit far fetched. But
you are right that it is an old PC sitting in the corner. No CD-ROM
nor network card. He doesn't trust servers, networks or backup
devices. he does his own backups to 5.25 inch floppy as quote "they
never fail like your fancy tape drives and servers". I think it is
time to put him out in the pasture and push the PC into the nearest
bin.
Why oh why did I get into IT? I could have been a tube driver. No
stress there and lots of holidays.......

I gave up in the up. Gave him a P4 2Ghz with DOS 6.22 installed. Now
he can use his optical drive as much as he likes. BUT, it was made
very clear to him that he has six months then I am binning the lot and
moving him to Win2K or XP and all his data is going on the server
whether he likes it or not. Quote "we will see." AARRRRHGGGGHHHH!

 

[Dan Seur]

There there...in a hundred years you'll barely remember all this.

You probably got into IT for the same reason shrinks get into
psychiatry; love of puzzles, the urge to make the complex and mysterious
simple and predictable, and the prospect of wads of money pouring in as
you enjoy yourself while making the world a better place. Unfortunately
once you throw humans (as opposed to just machines or just brains) into
the equation mileage, in terms of fulfillment including perceived bang
for the buck, starts to vary wildly from minute to minute. It's
harrowing, until the calluses form. Career tracks like gas pumping, hash
slinging, and Carthusian monkdom can appear much more rewarding than
once they did to the younger self. This is normal. It generally passes,
like a kidney stone. Short excruciatingly painful intervals become the
stuff of amused recollection, often with the rest of the people sitting
around drinking. The principal danger in all this is that an indulged
immediate over-reaction can lead to a leap from the frying pan into
another frying pan. Tube drivers have problems too

Thanks for the follow-up. Like you I think it's not really a denouement;
there'll be at least one more chapter! May the wind be at your back,
may your aspirin be effective, and may good humor carry you through.

(Not too many threads are as enjoyable as this. From a distance.)

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

There there...in a hundred years you'll barely remember all this.

You probably got into IT for the same reason shrinks get into
psychiatry; love of puzzles, the urge to make the complex and mysterious
simple and predictable, and the prospect of wads of money pouring in as
you enjoy yourself while making the world a better place. Unfortunately
once you throw humans (as opposed to just machines or just brains) into
the equation mileage, in terms of fulfillment including perceived bang
for the buck, starts to vary wildly from minute to minute. It's
harrowing, until the calluses form. Career tracks like gas pumping, hash
slinging, and Carthusian monkdom can appear much more rewarding than
once they did to the younger self. This is normal. It generally passes,
like a kidney stone. Short excruciatingly painful intervals become the
stuff of amused recollection, often with the rest of the people sitting
around drinking. The principal danger in all this is that an indulged
immediate over-reaction can lead to a leap from the frying pan into
another frying pan. Tube drivers have problems too

Thanks for the follow-up. Like you I think it's not really a denouement;
there'll be at least one more chapter! May the wind be at your back,
may your aspirin be effective, and may good humor carry you through.

(Not too many threads are as enjoyable as this. From a distance.)

True. Priceless. Thanks!

 

[Pavel A.]

I have a user who is
currently usnig Dos when the rest of the company is using Win2K.

Wow, then he (or she?) might be terribly productive -
no emails, no internet, no newsgroups... 100% concentration on the work!

--

 

[Fountain of knowledge]

Wow, then he (or she?) might be terribly productive -
no emails, no internet, no newsgroups... 100% concentration on the work!

--

Productive? I didn't realise that you could use that word in the same
sentence as MS-DOS??? Besides, instead of wasting his time using
internet and e-mail, he wastes it by bitching at me that Servers and
networks are not to be trusted! If he had his way he'd bring back the
5.25" disk and make all PC's have 16mb of ram!

As Bush once said "The time for action is now" I am gonna round up a
crew and take him round the back and just beat him up. Now that is a
solution I can enjoy!

 

[Pavel A.]

Productive? I didn't realise that you could use that word in the same
sentence as MS-DOS??? Besides, instead of wasting his time using
internet and e-mail, he wastes it by bitching at me that Servers and
networks are not to be trusted! If he had his way he'd bring back the
5.25" disk and make all PC's have 16mb of ram!

As Bush once said "The time for action is now" I am gonna round up a
crew and take him round the back and just beat him up. Now that is a
solution I can enjoy!

Then er... well. Upgrade him?

--