Determining Physical Drive Numbers (34908)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.1
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.2
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.21
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3a
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.0
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.01
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0a
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.0
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.2
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.21
- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.22
This article was previously published under Q34908 SUMMARY
There is some confusion about determining the physical drive number of
a floppy drive for use with DRIVPARM or DRIVER.SYS. The first drive is
floppy drive A, referred to as physical drive 0. Floppy drive B is
referred to as physical drive 1. On systems that do not have a
physical drive B, MS-DOS creates a logical entry for it (in the drive
parameter table) that maps back to floppy drive A. This allows systems
with only one floppy drive to copy files from one floppy disk to
another by referring to the one drive as both drive A and drive B.
On systems with an XT-class ROM BIOS, there are two additional floppy
drives, physically numbered 2 and 3, that can be available. On IBM PC
AT and PS/2-class ROM BIOS systems, there are only two floppy drives
available.
| Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 5/12/2003 |
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| Keywords: | KB34908 |
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