Re: Off topic: flash drives and DOS diehards

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "J. R. Fox"  on Wed, 29 Dec 2004
13:22:00 -0800


> Well, that's interesting, Patricia. The one I got is the SanDisk Cruzer Mini
> (512 Mb) -- about $45. at Costco. (Do they have Costco back East ?) I
> thought the *first* big problem there would be a suitable USB-2 driver for
> DOS . . . though I gather they exist. I've never had occasion to try to
> access a USB device under real DOS myself, but it would be nice to know that
> it's possible.

It is absolutely possible. I have a self-booting SanDisk Cruzer Mini 128Mb
that I got for $12 (twelve!) dollars from CompUSA, and it boots perfecto-o. Of
course, your BIOS has to be able to boot a USB removable device -- so to make
this a practical choice, you need to determine the BIOS capabilities of the
machines you plan to move your memory key _to_ (and gain the consent of the
owners to this near-mystical delve-into-the-BIOS task, and remember to switch
it back when you're done). For USB support at the OpSys level you need to use
either Win95 OSR 2B or 2C (these were OEM versions not available for retail
purchase), Win98, or M$ DOS 7.10. Of course, even if BIOS won't support USB
boots, you can still readily read the memory key -- which may be all that
really matters.

> One of the few good things I have to say
> about Win, say from W2K on, is that their implementation of USB is
> transparent, reliable, and nearly goof proof.

USB works fine with 9x, as long as you've got good ASPI drivers. If you've got
drives out to U:, why wouldn't DOS see them? DOS sees everything on my system
(even NTFS -- I have WinInternals' NTFS Read-Write driver, currently
unavailable except as part of a much bigger package >$1000 called "ERD
Commander" or something like that).

There is TONS of info about all this on the Net.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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