Disconnected Network Drive Becomes Floppy Disk Drive (96327)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.0
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.2
  • Microsoft Windows 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows 3.11
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.1
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.1a
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.2
This article was previously published under Q96327

SYMPTOMS

Under certain circumstances when you are running MS-DOS DoubleSpace, Doublespace may not disconnect from a network drive correctly if the network drive letter is between the last physical drive letter and the host drive letter.

After you attempt to disconnect either from File Manager or MS-DOS, the network drive changes to a floppy disk drive. If you choose the floppy disk drive icon in File Manager, a message is displayed stating that there is no floppy disk in the drive. If you choose the drive in MS-DOS, the following message is displayed:
Not Reading Drive <x>: Abort, Retry, Fail?
where <x> is the drive letter of the disconnected network drive.

File Manager and MS-DOS maintain this nonfunctioning disk drive until you reboot your computer.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, do the following:
  1. Restart your computer.
  2. Change to your DoubleSpace host partition and use the ATTRIB command to remove the hidden, system, and read-only attributes of the DBLSPACE.INI file as follows:

    attrib dblspace.ini -h -s -r

  3. Open DBLSPACE.INI in a text editor, such as MS-DOS Editor. You should see two lines similar to the following (not necessarily in this order):

    LastDrive=M
    ActivateDrive=H,C0

  4. Change the ActivateDrive= statement's first parameter to the next drive letter following your last physical drive letter. For example, if you have two partitions (C and D) on one physical hard drive, set ActivateDrive= to E.

    WARNING: If you use the incorrect drive letters when you edit the ActivateDrive= line in the DBLSPACE.INI file, the system may stop responding (hang) when you restart it.
  5. Set LastDrive= to the same letter you used in step 4. As with the previous example, if you have one physical drive and two partitions, C and D, your DBLSPACE.INI file would include the following lines:

    LastDrive=E
    ActivateDrive=E,C0

  6. Save the changes you made to the DBLSPACE.INI file and use the ATTRIB command to reset its attributes as follows:

    attrib dblspace.ini +h +s +r

  7. Restart your computer.
After you restart your computer, DoubleSpace uses the new drive letter as its host partition. This results in no available drive letters between your physical hard disk drive and the DoubleSpace host partition to use for network redirections. You are forced to use drive letters that follow the host partition drive letter; this prevents the floppy disk drive icon problem from occurring.

NOTE: This procedure restricts the creation of additional DoubleSpace compressed drives. If you later decide to create additional compressed drives, you must change the LastDrive= statement in the DBLSPACE.INI file to a higher letter than the one specified in ActivateDrive=. For example, if your host drive is assigned to D, your DBLSPACE.INI file should include the following lines:

LastDrive=E
ActivateDrive=D,C0

This gives DoubleSpace the necessary drive letter to use when it creates another DoubleSpace compressed drive.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MS-DOS versions 6.0 and 6.2. We are researching this problem and will post new information here as it becomes available.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/26/2003
Keywords:KB96327
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.