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Windows ME patch for DOS mode is incompatible with Letter Assigner?


Kahenraz

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One of the issues I have with Windows 9x/ME is that there is no convenient way to manage drive letters, and it's not unusual for them to get moved around when attaching an additional device. There is a tool called Letter Assigner by Vadim Burtyansky which fixes this issue and allows drive letters to be changed and made consistent.

I was surprised today to find that when I tried this tool on Windows ME, the system became unbootable. Further investigation showed that the issue was some kind of incompatibility with the WinME/DOS patch. Restoring the original IO.SYS fixed the problem where the system failed to boot, but this also sacrificed the ability to boot into DOS.

I can't figure out what this tool is doing, and there is no information about what behavior is used to make it function anywhere in the documentation.

Does anyone know what this tool is doing and why it is incompatible with the WinME/DOS patch?

See here for some additional information on my problem and triage:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1086922#p1086922

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If I recall correctly there are more than one possible ways to have DOS in WinME (three or four of them).

Maybe you can try the "other" one(s), I seem to remember that at least one of them needs not patching the IO.SYS (but still it may not be compatible with letter assigner).

The "latest" one (using files from LTOOLS.DTA) may also work, but cannot really say, the explanations in MDGGX's TIPSME:TXT are rather confusing.

TIPSME.TXT is inside W95-11D.ZIP 

https://www.mdgx.com/bin/W95-11D.ZIP

jaclaz

 

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I've used Grub4Dos to control drive designation. It may make for a steep learning curve. However, it is very useful. In your case, it might be like tackling a roach problem with a bazooka. But if you are into really geeking out, I highly recommend it.

I once needed Grub4Dos to hide the master drive, after I mapped a drive image as hd0 (map --disable-chs-mode --disable-lba-mode (hd1) (hd1) ), or else the system would not boot; beyond Dos. I needed the master drive to boot Grub4Dos (actually Grub2 > grub4dos, long story), then forget that the master drive existed.

The master drive was boot-able, but "statically" disabled in bios, causing havoc for Windows; even when booting from ram. This solved the issue, and provided very useful knowledge for other adventures.

Edited by awkduck
clarity
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@awkduck

Yep, but though grub4dos can do *almost anything* it can only be used to re-order (or hide/remove, or add) disks/volumes, etc. the drive lettering remains the "default" automatic MS one, so you won't be able through it to actually "assign" drive letters as letter assigner can, besides the complexity (which is relative, it is not difficult to use grub4dos after an initial learning of the basics of it) you simply cannot obtain some letter combinations.

Subst can be used in some cases, though.

jaclaz

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On 7/14/2022 at 1:56 PM, Kahenraz said:

One of the issues I have with Windows 9x/ME is that there is no convenient way to manage drive letters, and it's not unusual for them to get moved around when attaching an additional device.

It might be a case of getting it correct first time and not altering it. Game drives have an essential installation requirement so they would be assigned a drive letter near the end of the 26 drive allowable assignment along with CD/DVD drives and network login drives. To make a game drive a set drive letter it is made removable in device manager. Using several partitions on the same physical drive will negate the ability to set the drive letter as they cannot be made removable. Other things to consider is that if an adapter like a USB to SATA is used then the drive letter will be associated with the adapter not the actual drive itself as seen in device manager. If 2 drives have the same manufacturers name description then the 2 drives will be automatically assigned removable to allocate the 2 different drive letters. Removing in safe mode old unused devices but not sound ones unless you know what your doing will have an advantage with speed with a smaller registry cycle.

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