|
If your installation of Windows 95 is default, you can call up the Drive Space program by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and selecting Drivespace. If it isn't there, you have to use the Install CD to install the program. Unlike the DOS versions previous to Windows 95, you can mount and unmount a drive in Windows. Unlike the previous DOS versions, you cannot mount and unmount the drives in DOS (Real) mode. A compressed drive can be Automounted at Boot. So they can be accessed in DOS mode.
Note: Double Space/Drive Space will not work on a FAT32 partitioned drive. The Windows program will report this if you try to access a CVF on a FAT32 drive or try to create a compressed drive on a FAT32 drive. If you try to automount a CVF on a FAT32 partition, it will be ignored. This, however, does not prevent you from storing a CVF on a FAT32 partition. But it will have to be copied to a FAT16 before you can access it. If you store files as outlined on my Need For Speed page, you can store CVF's on a FAT32 partition.
You can Mount an existing Drive or Create a new Compressed Drive. If you have Compressed Floppy disks and/or ZIP disks, once you have mounted a disk, any compressed disk will normally automatically mount when you put the disk in the drive in the future. So you don't have to call up the Drive Space Utility each time you use a Compressed disk.
If you have compressed drives of either Double Space or Drive Space, move to the drive where the file is located. To mount the drive, click Advanced, Mount. You should be prompted to select which file to mount (if there is more than one on the drive) and for the new drive letter to create. If the file has an 000 extension, the "Real" drive will be the new drive letter. The Drive Space drive will take the place of the current Drive letter. When you click OK, the drive should mount in a few seconds.
To Unmount the drive, call up the Drive Space program. Move to the drive labeled Compressed. On the Advanced menu select Unmount. In a few seconds the drive will be gone and the regular drive back to normal.
Note: When these operations are conducted, a file c:\dblspace.ini will be created. This file is hidden. Unless you have Compressed drives that must be mounted at Boot, I recommend deleting this file. Some of my programs will not load or they will not load into high memory when this file is present. This essentially turns Drivespace on at boot if the file is there. That causes Drivespace to use memory, about 50kb of Conventional Memory. The line:
device=c:\windows\command\drvspace.sys /move
is added to the config.sys file also. This has no effect if Drive Space has not been started by the dblspace.ini file. When Drive Space is loaded, this moves the driver to upper memory. To remedy this I use a command in the autoexec.bat file to delete this.
To create a new compressed drive, move to the line of the drive where you want the CD file to be located. Select Advanced, Create Empty. A menu will be called up showing the proposed drive letter to use and the amount of actual disk space to use. You can change both. The projected space on the new drive will change according to the changes you make. You can adjust the compressed size instead if you are looking for a specific capacity.
When you select Start, Scandisk will start. Then if that passes, the drive will be created. This process can take an hour or more if the compressed file is on a hard drive with files on it. You may get a warning if the drive is too Fragmented. I recommend creating on an empty drive or a Ramdisk.
On the Drive menu you will see Compress Drive and Uncompress Drive. These options are for converting an existing drive to a compressed drive. Unless you are desperate for disk space, do not use a compressed drive for important data. Since all of the files on the drive are in a single file, if that file becomes corrupt, you can lose everything. In a normal uncompressed drive, if a bad area developes on the drive. only one, maybe two files will be affected. You can generally recover all the other files. In a CV File the data will be unrecoverable.
You can Re-size a CVF on the Drive Menu by selecting Adjust Free Space. Also on that menu is Format. The regular Format command won't work on a Compressed drive. So you must use this process. If you are creating a file for storing a game to use on a Ramdisk, you will not be able to use all of the drive. A portion of the Real Drive is reserved. If you want to use all of the space of a 32mb Ramdrive, Mount the CVF while it is on a Hard drive. Then adjust the size of the file until it is the maximum size that will fit on the Ramdrive.
The DBLSPACE.INI File
This file is created (or modified) any time a drive is Mounted or Re-sized. If you have and existing CVF that you want mounted at Boot, you can create a custom dblspace.ini file manually. |
AutoMount=1
FirstDrive=R
LastDrive=R
MaxRemovableDrives=1
MaxFileFragments=100
ActivateDrive=R,C2
|
By changing settings in this file you can define what drive letter(s) are reserved for compressed drives and what CVF files are to be mounted. |
| AutoMount= | This line can have a value of 0 or 1. If it is one, it will mount the listed CVF'(s) when the computer is booted. |
| FirstDrive= | This line can have any letter above those used by hard drives. Any letters reserved here will not be available for other devices such as CDROMS and ZIP Drives. |
| LastDrive= | This line can have a letter at or above those used by the FirstDrive= line. This determines how many Compressed drive can be mounted simultaneously. As above, letters reserved are not available for other devices. |
| MaxRemovableDrives= | This defines how many removable CFV's may be worked with. Normally you have the A floppy drive and maybe a B floppy Drive. Or you may have a ZIP Drive as either A or B Drive. |
| MaxFileFragments= | Ideally the compressed drive is created on a fragment free drive. The program establishes this number. If you copy the CVF to a drive that has not been defragmented with Defrag or the equivalent, you may get and error message when booting that the fragmenting exceeds the amount specified in the DBLSPACE.INI file. However, the drive has mounted for me and the DBLSPACE.INI file is updated. |
| ActivateDrive= | This line specifies the settings for mounting the drive. Use a separate line for each drive to be mounted. |
| ActivateDrive=R,C2 | The letter after the equal sign determines the drive letter to be used by the CVF. |
| ActivateDrive=R,C2 | The letter after the comma tells what drive letter the CVF will be found on. |
| ActivateDrive=R,C2 | The number at the end of the line is the last digit of the extension of the CVF. This allows you to determine the letter for each CVF if you have more than one. The correct number for the file must be entered. If the the file ends with a 0, the drive letter of the host drive will be taken over by the compressed drive. The host drive will be the letter specified on this line. If the file ends with 1 or higher, the compressed drive will be the letter specified on this line.
In this example the file DBLSPACE.002, located in the root of C drive, would be mounted as drive letter R. |
If you move a CVF by copying it to a new drive or because drive letters changed because of adding a hard drive or partition, the DBLSPACE.INI file must be updated and the DBLSPACE.INI file and DBLSPACE.BIN file must be located on the C drive, whether you boot from a floppy disk or the hard drive. |
Preventing Doublespace/Drivespace from Loading At Boot
Temporary:
When you computer boots and you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, press CTRL+F5. This will prevent it from loading into memory only until the next reboot.
Permanent:
You can delete or rename the DBLSPACE.INI file and/or modify the MSDOS.SYS file. Modifying the MSDOS.SYS file may prevent drives which you want loaded from mounting at boot until you modify the file back.
This is done by editing the C:\MSDOS.SYS file and adding the lines:
Dblspace=0
Drvspace=0
or changing existing lines to the above. Then save the file and restart.
If you delete or rename the DBLSPACE.INI file, a new one may be created by Windows if you mount a compressed drive.
See:
How to Prevent DoubleSpace or DriveSpace Drivers from Loading
for more information on this from Microsoft.
Automatically Deleting DBLSPACE.INI at Boot
To detect and, if you want, delete the c:\dblspace.ini file at boot I add the following to the autoexec.bat:
echo off
cls
if exist c:\dblspace.ini goto dblspcon
goto first
:dblspcon
cls
echo.
echo.
echo.
Echo Warning. Double Space is running.
echo To continue press C
echo To turn Double Space off and restart the computer press R.
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\choice /c:cr /t:r,5 /n
if errorlevel 2 goto erase
if errorlevel 1 goto first
:erase
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\attrib -r -h -s c:\dblspace.ini
del c:\dblspace.ini
copy c:\backup\config.sys c:\config.sys
c:\reboot
goto first
:first
|
The rest of the autoexec.bat follows the :first handle. The reboot is a command that you may have to create.
How it works!
When the boot get to the third line above, if the file c:\dblspace.ini is not found, the process jumps to the :first handle and continues to process the rest of the autoexec.bat file. If the c:\dblspace.ini is found the screen will display the "warning" message and give you the choice to continue or delete the c:\dblspace.ini file. The /t:r,5 selects "R" after 5 seconds. You could change the default and time to your liking. This is so the computer can fully boot without me intervening. But it does give me the option to override it.
The "copy C:\backup\config.sys c:\config.sys" is to remove the additions that Drive Space makes. You need a copy of the CONFIG.SYS in this backup directory or where you put it. If you make changes to this file, make sure you change both files or your changes could disappear.
|
|
Making the Reboot command.
Open the DOS Editor by typing edit reboot.com. Type reboot. Now save the file. Open the editor again by typing edit. Select File, Open. Click on Binary then enter the reboot.com file you just created. Delete the word REBOOT and everything else (blank).
Now, hold down the ALT key and, on the NUM PAD, type 176. Let up on the ALT key and you should have a character. Do the same for the rest of these numbers:
254
230
100 (Yeah, it's letter d). . .(Lowercase).
255
243
174
Now save the file and Exit the Editor. Typing the name of that file should reboot the computer. Put that file where you have the path in the autoexec.bat pointing to.
|
For more information see:
Troubleshooting DriveSpace in Windows 95 an article from Microsoft's Knowledgebase.
|
