Fat95

[THX1138]

I have just installed & configured Fat95 so that my zip disk can now
be mounted at bootup to read pc files.

Only problem is that i also have 2 other icons show up when a disk is inserted as well.

They are both hashed out....one says "PC4:uninitialized" and the other says "Df4:EX\220M"

How do i get rid of these ?

[jmmijo]

My guess is that FAT95 also installed some extra entries in the mountlist. Check to see if both PC4: and the DF4: entry are present.

However I bet these are going to be required for certain disk formats and actually will not hurt anything with them being left in there. Of course the annoyance of having them appear is something that you want to live without correct

[THX1138]

Come to think of it mate........these 2 masked out icons were poping up before i installed Fat95.........could it be anything to do with IdeFix ?

[jmmijo]

Originally Posted by THX1138

Come to think of it mate........these 2 masked out icons were poping up before i installed Fat95.........could it be anything to do with IdeFix ?

Perhaps, could also have something to do with CrossDOS as well

[ant512]

Originally Posted by jmmijo

My guess is that FAT95 also installed some extra entries in the mountlist. Check to see if both PC4: and the DF4: entry are present.

Mountlist? Depends which version of Workbench you're running. If it's 2.x or 3.x, just have a look in the DEVS: DosDrivers/ directory for two files called "PC4" and "DF4". Move these to SYS:Storage/Devs/DosDrivers/ and reboot.

[THX1138]

Depends which version of Workbench you're running. If it's 2.x or 3.x, just have a look in the DEVS: DosDrivers/ directory for two files called "PC4" and "DF4". Move these to SYS:Storage/Devs/DosDrivers/ and reboot.

The operating system is Os3.9,i already looked in there and the only files
in there are MS0,CD0,VNC,VNR & Pipe ?

[thomas]

Search the S:User-Startup file for an entry with "Mount" in its name. MountPC or MountZIP or something like that. If you found it, add a comment sign (;) to the beginning of the line. Do *not* remove the mount command from S:Startup-Sequence !

Also look into Sys:WBStartup if there is something with Mount. You might also want to read the IDEfix docs. AFAIK DF4 and PC4 and which program adds them are mentioned there.

[ant512]

Oh, hang on. I don't know why you have a PC4: icon, but I the DF4: is the fault of Workbench. Zip disks are mounted as floppy drives (open a CLI window and type "info" to see this), so Workbench will add a new floppy icon onto the desktop.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by ant512

Zip disks are mounted as floppy drives

No, definitely not. By default ZIP disks are not mounted at all. You need to have some mount software or a mountlist/dosdriver installed. Or you can set up the ZIP disk as a HDD with HDToolbox then it is mounted at bootup automatically, but as a HDD.

[killergorilla]

My internal zip disk is mounted by default under wb 3.9

Comes up with both DF4 and PC4 when I whack it in.

[ant512]

Originally Posted by thomas

No, definitely not. By default ZIP disks are not mounted at all. You need to have some mount software or a mountlist/dosdriver installed. Or you can set up the ZIP disk as a HDD with HDToolbox then it is mounted at bootup automatically, but as a HDD.

OK, I should have said, "this is the fault of IDEFix's DOSDrivers". Both IDEFix and EIDE'99's DOSDrivers mount Zip drives as floppies - they are given the device name DFx instead of DHx. Maybe it's possible to change the DOSDriver/mountlist to mount the Zip drive as a HDD instead of a floppy? Or maybe the drive itself must be mounted as a floppy, ie. a removable-media device, as the whole system would get confused when you changed disks?

Originally Posted by ant512

OK, I should have said, "this is the fault of IDEFix's DOSDrivers". Both IDEFix and EIDE'99's DOSDrivers mount Zip drives as floppies - they are given the device name DFx instead of DHx. Maybe it's possible to change the DOSDriver/mountlist to mount the Zip drive as a HDD instead of a floppy? Or maybe the drive itself must be mounted as a floppy, ie. a removable-media device, as the whole system would get confused when you changed disks?

So you think when a driver is named DFx, it is a floppy ? Man ! You can call all your floppy drives EGON1, 2, 3 etc. and you can call all your HDD partitions DFxyz if you want, it does not make any difference. The name does not matter at all. Both HDDs and floppies are track devices, there is no difference. Of course you can change the Dosdriver, just rename it from DF4 to ZIP0. Or EGON. Or HUGO. Whatever you like. There is no rule, no convention for driver names.

[BippyM]

You'll find all floppy drives are called DFx:

Hard drives are different becasue you can manually set what they are called at the device level with a tool like HDToolBox..

Put a NDOS disk into the internal drive and it'll say DF0:???? or DF0:NDOS or DF0:XXXX (XXXX=first 4 chars from bootblock!)

as for other devices it depends what you name it in the mountlist (Or name the mountfile if os3+)

[ant512]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So you think when a driver is named DFx, it is a floppy ? Man ! You can call all your floppy drives EGON1, 2, 3 etc. and you can call all your HDD partitions DFxyz if you want, it does not make any difference.

As Bippy says, all floppies are called DFx. This is the *device* name. You can only change a floppy's *volume* name. Man! Think of the difference between a Windows device (C:, D:, etc) and its label (WinXP, or whatever). You can't change a Windows device from C: to MyDisk: - in the same way, it is impossible to change the device name of a floppy disk in AmigaOS.

[thomas]

You'll find all floppy drives are called DFx:

Put a NDOS disk into the internal drive and it'll say DF0:???? or DF0:NDOS or DF0:XXXX (XXXX=first 4 chars from bootblock!)

Wow, what a rock solid proof.

Floppy drivers are called DFx because their mountlists call them so. Of course it is a little bit more difficult to rename them because the mountlists are fixed in ROM. As a start you can add the command Assign DF0: dismount into the startup-sequence and you will *never* see any DF0:xyz on the Workbench desktop. Then insert a ZIP medium into the drive which has a partition called DF0 on it and from then on the ZIP medium is DF0. And it is a HDD.

You can also rename the AUDIO dosdriver to DF0 and mount it. Then a Copy work:sample.iff to df0: will play the sample instead of doing any disk I/O.

DF0 is just a DosDriver as any other. Nothing special about it.
Well perhaps it is special because it changes its geometry depending on whether you insert a HD or DD floppy disk on a high density drive. But this has nothing to do with mount lists or dos drivers.

[thomas]

You can't change a Windows device from C: to MyDisk: - in the same way, it is impossible to change the device name of a floppy disk in AmigaOS.

Nonsense. Of course you cannot change it on the fly, but there is no dependence between the DosDriver name and its type. As I said before, changing DF0 is difficult because it is in ROM, but it is possible. At least it is possible to remove it from the device lists and add another drive with this name. And you can add a DosDriver called EGON with the same geometry and file system as DF0 and from then on you can access your internal disk drive as EGON:.

A better example is the Ram Disk. Its mount list is in ROM as well, but it is not mounted before the first access. So if you do an Assign RAM: dismount before the first access to RAM: in the Startup-Sequence, RAM is gone as if it never was there. You can then do an Assign RAM: Work:VRAM to save some memory.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by thomas

Wow, what a rock solid proof.

Floppy drivers are called DFx because their mountlists call them so. Of course it is a little bit more difficult to rename them because the mountlists are fixed in ROM. As a start you can add the command Assign DF0: dismount into the startup-sequence and you will *never* see any DF0:xyz on the Workbench desktop. Then insert a ZIP medium into the drive which has a partition called DF0 on it and from then on the ZIP medium is DF0. And it is a HDD.

You can also rename the AUDIO dosdriver to DF0 and mount it. Then a Copy work:sample.iff to df0: will play the sample instead of doing any disk I/O.

DF0 is just a DosDriver as any other. Nothing special about it.
Well perhaps it is special because it changes its geometry depending on whether you insert a HD or DD floppy disk on a high density drive. But this has nothing to do with mount lists or dos drivers.

Where in my post do I say I have proof!

I was outlining what you would see if you did not dismount df0 (Which I am sure 90% of users would not know/want/need to do!!)

I never said it was impossible to dismount a device and mount something else with the same name did I?

Generally speaking I am correct (Generally referring to the average user!!).. technically I am wrong and it's more than possible.. but who in their right mind would want to dismount df0?

[thomas]

but who in their right mind would want to dismount df0

Perhaps someone running Amithlon wanting to access a real floppy drive with the name DF0 ? In Amithlon DF0 is unusable, but you can mount a floppy drive connected to the Catweasel controller to read real Amiga floppies.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by thomas

Perhaps someone running Amithlon wanting to access a real floppy drive with the name DF0 ?

Hrmmm... Okay.. I stand corrected

[THX1138]

Ahhh........i think i've sussed it !

DF4: is for zip disks being formatted under the Amiga Os.

PC4: is for zip disks being formatted under the Windows Os.

Shame that it still brings up the extra icon when you have either a PC formatted disk in the drive or an Amiga one !